heart – Poétique

Witness

Finally living
In expanded freedom
But still orienting
Self as if freedom
Requires justification

A witness
Or permission.

I don’t want someone to fix me.
I want someone to
See me in motion and say
yes, that’s real.

Witness to the self
Deeper stratums
Interpretive power
I cannot be rewritten

My soul is settled

Passion without pacing
Love burns without responsibility
All hollows resound
Labor without reciprocity scorches

Somatic sauce

And now you feel it
Like I feel it

And now you feel it
Like I felt it

When you didn’t care
Or didn’t know how to

And we don’t have to
Maybe you see me now
Perhaps in motion or
Alone

But not invisibly
It’s all yours

Heart Over Head

The common thread:
Invisible labor + deferred regard

Asymmetric adaptation
Before I gave my heart away
“Is this how I sound?”
We used to dance
Then —
Ask the clarifying questions
Your self interest is revealing itself
What time isn’t it?

I no longer need witnesses to my integrity
“Is this how my words land
When I’m not holding them?”
Many many boulders

Carrying weight is not what broke me
Carrying weight
While being disregarded did.
Period
When the full moon came
Clarity was acceptable
But only when it didn’t cost them
What it cost me
I heard my canary singing
It falls apart a lot with logical inconsistencies
Could his song hold me?
It was acceptable when
I absorbed their messiness,
but unacceptable when they do.

That’s what you’re here to hold
That’s why you made it into the egg
That betrays you with cold intolerant
Phrases like « you’re a freak »
When the cape becomes mandatory
I become invisible

Stop negotiating with shadows
I can be someone alone

I am no longer willing to sacrifice
My well-being to preserve
Your autonomy —
Especially when that sacrifice is invisible
Unacknowledged, and expected —-

My nervous system is not
Commercial property

But they made decisions that affected you
And they did not care how it affected
Your world

Suspension
Suspended
Suspend me

Darkness
Water
Islands

If I don’t protect myself here, no one else will.

Self reckoning

You don’t need to disown
That part of you that expects
Love to meet you

It takes time to trust a system that doesn’t require you to bleed to function…

They didn’t object when
Self-interest flowed one way…
…they objected when it stopped flowing

toward them.

Even when I named my feelings
Directly, they continued to
Prioritize their wants —
And expected me to adapt

Adopt
Adopt me

I am not safe here if I keep waiting to be considered.

Anticipatory self-abandonment.
Chronic vigilance
First light
I am no longer required to disappear to keep others comfortable
Unzipped
The internal contract has changed
Deregulation
is internally regulated

When hurt
Understands systems and process
When hurt
Doesn’t require approval to proceed
When hurt
Doesn’t respond to intimidation

Rejecting your threat response
Is delicious
My ground is open
My stance is strong
My tongue untied
It takes time to trust a system
That doesn’t require you to bleed to function

Weighted

Heavy love
It’s coming for you
Not just sex
A lot of romance too
Heavy love
Dark corners
Painted rooms
Rugs on hardwood floors
Spread out on the
Ground with you
Heavy love
It’s starting
On the way to you
Haven’t met you
But I know the truth
That when I get there
We will find the view
Sitting looking at the sea
With you is the beginning
Heavy love on
It’s way to you
So many weeks
Will turn into days
And when we get there
Reflection
To give you space but
Also hold your heart
If you have no one
To love you
It’s difficult to learn
To love yourself

Resonance

We’re all so concerned
About what the future
Looks like that we’re
Not living on the actual day
Like a baby that needs
Tending and loving
He heard himself crying
Relentlessly for two weeks
Hold me love me
Make it better because
Being alive is awkward
And so uncomfortable
Wambling through the motions
You didn’t want to go
Back to the village
Where you came from
He didn’t know how to respond
In Spanish he kept saying it
In French hoping someone
Knew what it meant
Sitting outside underneath
The overpass on a
Few couches where the
Hope of being alive was
Resonating differently
Than where he came from
It ended the way it ended
It began the way it began
This is then

Volcano

I burned my tastebuds
Harrowing in an attempt
To feel myself again
Avoiding numbness
Jumping over the rut
Haunting of a darling
Past that begs to come
Alive again like a volcano
No one can shake that off
An attempt to be alive
Like a neon sign
No need to be the
Most important person
In the room but happy
To experience the
Curiosity of the day
What’s the plot anyway?
Take me to the jungle
Give me a reason to
Show up for tomorrow
Spitting out the sap of a past
As if it were some
Slippery rock that
An unmentionable would
Haphazardly walk right
Through us over us
Lay on top of us in
A heavy susurrus
Barely breathing after
That vampiric escapade
Am I bleeding?
Holes about me anywhere
Maybe everywhere! Bite marks
Either way I am beginning
To feel alive again
Three cigarettes after
Distant memories
And my emotions
Smeared across the
Asphalt as it was
Less important to some
Than ardently sitting
Outside with a friend
Having dinner
In the rain

Heartattacking

Standing in the midst of
What I thought might be
The most epically beautiful
Poise to the existence of
Unlocking the code to love
I found myself stomped on by
An agression and entitlement
Of a passerby an unknown
A human who probably
Needed love the most and
In that moment of standing
In a shower of his spit
And fear and rage I found
Myself exclaiming that I was
Only trying to save his life
And yet his own intentions
Of provoking whatever is the
Opposite of love be it anger
Or something stronger
I felt myself in shock as if
I could not be more
Challenged by the universe
To express love in true
Composure completely
In a way that says I am
Looking out for you
So many people might
Lose their lives if we
Don’t speak up for
How important it is to
Value one another
Drained and steamrolled
As I was after such a
Horrible confrontation
I felt so alone asking if there
Was no one that could understand
How vulnerable I felt to
Opening the door to
Universal love and being
Shouted at in such a way
That could tell me to
Believe it didn’t exist
But there was truly
Nothing in me that was
Willing to accept any
Possibility that the only
Reason for my existence
Would be trampled and
Smothered out by the
Likes of someone who
Absolutely didn’t know me
Or could not see my
Desire to encourage
What we are surely left with
Only emptiness and
A desire to know
What love can actually be
If only I could
Imbue it upon you
With less than words
Vacant touch
Push through those
Dark sunglasses
Like a frequency to say
If it’s worth dying for
It’s worth loving for

Smalling

What part of your life
Isn’t intense
Do you correlate
Intensity with passion
Think of the wins
Don’t focus on the losses
He said driving
Down the road
Fighting his whole life
To have people like him
To befriend this
As if something were
Unacceptable?
Not so much approval
But to be loveable
And if someone didn’t
Return that perhaps
To share that affection
Somehow I failed in
Being loveable
Will there be sound
After we die?
Are we holding
Ourselves back?
We love the outside
But the inside cannot
Love us the way
We think it will be
Reimagining

Mollify

Why is my grief
So important
I am only one person
There is no value
For that when it
Comes to the grief
Of a nation
Or the grief of a mother
My energy is strong
Screaming out louder
Needing to be heard
Like a crying cat
Insides twisting but
Why should my voice be
Louder than any other
An omen for tomorrow
Digital blue mollify you
Bitter comfort wrapped
In hues of light that
Leave us all renewed
Less subdued and hoping to
Recall the love in
Your eyes one last time

Outline

Turn to face me in bed
Watching my fingers
Glide over your head
Hands in your hair
Kiss at your brow
Wishing never to get up
Just to lay here
Breathe your breath
Nothing left but
Our heart beats
Hovering above us
In the air
Like two kids in love
Not a care to be told
Only to hold
Not afraid of myself
Or loving you too much
Protecting each other
Romantic distinction
Take this time to
Be here to feel special
To love you and
Undress you
How many years
Has it been
How many years
Have we left?
In between the sheets
After we meet
Turn to face me in bed
Watching my fingers
Glide over you sweetly

Pitié

Self pity flailing or
Just excessively theatrical
Moves that end up
Perhaps dramatic in behavior
Immaterial often involving
Bothered exaggerated displays
Something like
Waterfalls of emotion and a
Fire pit desire built
For attention

Physicality can describe both
Broken styles of acting in a play
Furtif or deliberate attempts to
Manifest a particular emotional
Fleeting response sucked
Out of others through
Deliberate gasps of insincere
Mountain cries

Over-the-top actions
Reverberate

Is there a void in his life if he
Forgot who his character was
Can we be friends with our past
If we commit to our future?

Floating down stream
Bloated with reason
Snapped into two streams

What is the inner dialogue
Saying right now if I can
Read behind the eyes
Between the lines
Cracks in the void
Deafening words
Chaotic lighting
Discerned

At the end of the day
Who are we really?