How would someone love you
Not that much?
Not enough
Give birth
Watch you grow
Disappear
When does it end
Why did it begin?
Smoke rises
Into the eyes
Of the wanted
To be wanted
Disbelief
Not a crisis
Perhaps a burden
Only a seed
Formed into a
Fleshling
Becomes a whole human
Does it call you back
Do you let it go?
When will you wonder
Where your baby went
Now an adult
You press game over
Still their life is going
Where are you?
© GÄ
Silence is deafening
Comforting as well
Who is there
Versus what is gone
How may more times
Before we answer
Ourselves
Will we always question
Does sleep have a
Generosity
When we are holding
Our own futures
Do we grasp them
Differently from
How they are held
By others
A mind of longing
Is not alone
Even in sentience
© GÄ
Rumble of motors
Beneath the balcony
Call me back
So much pepper
Extracted
Will it all wear off
Tomorrow the same
Yesterday different
Stones are unchanging
Neighborhood as yours
You left in haste
To save yourself
Across the world
Another sea
Today is a day
To feel unlike yourself
If uncertainty is
A new consciousness
Can I stay here
While it’s still becoming?
© GÄ
I move within lines that
Aren’t drawn by this room
I stand at the axis
The noise circles me
Somatic placement is
Readiness staging
Intentional allocation
Of expressive energy
Me watching you forget me
I opted out of carrying
What was never mine alone.
Self-possession under pressure
Willingness to be disliked
Without retreat
Refusal to trade this position
For your approval
Telling the self:
You wanted that—
It creates room to act
Not just room to survive.
That’s the space
I’m stepping into now
Voice inside the head says:
Choose yourself
Instead of disappearing
Remain unavailable
For emotional processing
This inner life
My sanctum
Wasn’t part of the equation
Somehow
My humanity didn’t register
As something to protect
Like I dreamed it did
Imagined it would
Wanted it to…
I’m intense
I can’t help it
Is that ok?
Can I be intense now?
Translate indifference
Into generosity
Interpret avoidance
As misunderstanding
Silly me absorbing the cost
Of preserving a bond
That isn’t mutual
Grandma said not to do that
Severing feels violent
Dignity wounds cut deep
I found my dignity
Underneath you
Someone said
I was seen as useful
Not relational
Petting my head
My inner voice said:
You’re losing the version of reality
Where your care was reciprocated.
Stop disappearing for people
Who don’t notice
The cost of your loss
© GÄ
A place can be known
in theory
and still hold me
unknowingly
an unknowable life
we disagreed and
the voice of Jeff Buckley
entered the room
Why does vulnerability
feel dangerous
even when I value
its invisible armor
Wrapped inside my
own magnetic creativity
unspiraled from
borrowed promises
Doing for myself
morally risky
doing for others safer —
begging for harm
Internal permission
to exist
persists
A choice I made to protect
allowed me to pretend
that someone cared
when signs were showing
they didn’t anyway
removing the conditions
to pretend care is there
Protected
and still standing
without armor
ambiguous care
implied happiness
unchallenged hope
walking backwards
into my
untwisted future
© GÄ
Good riddance
You needed someone
Not necessarily me
But I was there to
Hold you up in
Your time of need
Sometimes a gift
Can feel like
A nightmare
I kept thinking
I would show you
When you are here
But who was I kidding
No one was coming
But the birds are here
And the philosopher
Teaches me how to feed
Them all insects
Not just seed
As one burying
Itself makes a nest
Into my thumb
I can feel the pain
Even when I am asleep
And the eyes of the birds
Are content in a state of
Hypnotic bliss as they
Float dreamily by
Almost like a cartoon
Unreal yet undeniable
Color doesn’t have to
Prove its identity
It is what we see
He was really
Too put together
For anyone to
Worry about to see
When he needed it
© GÄ
Losing and gaining a self
At the same time
Holding on and letting go
Simultaneously
One heart captures transformation
The other captures attachment
And then release —
Holding on and losing hold
Once a previous
Something and the empty overlap
Is intentional — it’s the void or silence
What whirls between them
A space where identity
Is still undefined
Shifting or
Being reborn
© GÄ
I think about the other side
Of this consciousness
What it means to think
About what is being
Thought about
To tired to write the words
Lawnmower over my head
Blades through the grass
Of my existence
Try to make sense of
Senselessness
Wishing for an easier
Moment to remember
How to collect signs
No color so much color
Symbolically you know?
Tired of the phone
Get up go to bed
Do it all over again
One or the other
Never both
But I always want
Both
© GÄ
Our realities are made up
By the worlds we surround
Ourselves with and I find myself
Settling as a house might
Crackling and burrowing
Into the ground
Maybe I’m just tired
Of keeping up or possibly
Creation knowing full well
There could be more
In some other place
In some other way
This is not it
This is not all
That there is
Halfway mark
Feels like a dead end
Maybe all that can be
Accomplished is already
I’m not sure what will be
Longer or shorter
Revel in the new
Forget about the future
Fishbowl
When we scratch off
The top layers and
Keep finding our way down
Do we have a place to
Go or end up
Keep going
Start over
Keep going
Maybe nothing
Sweet voices
Of children
Just beginning
Today felt like
An ending
So early
© GÄ
Would they notice until the
Moment you disappeared?
Like a red light flashing
Or an alert that says the
Person you once loved
Isn’t on this planet any longer
Tripped and fell in the garden
Bonked his head now he’s dead
Would they wish they said
All the things they didn’t say
Because their fuming or
Dry knit stuck in their feelings
Some type of world that
Binds someone from loving
I’ve heard it called jealousy
Grudges and otherwise
Like when you’re famished
You can hardly stand it
You’re starving so you
Feed the meritorious beast
Find a gift in the basement of
Dreams and delicious wonders
Everything you cannot escape
Eurythmia gracefully speechless
Only speaking in music
Check on me I’ll check on you
Dual serenade
© GÄ
Poétique 