A sanctity for words
A wonder to who reads
A glory for asking why
A flag in the night
Bright enough to see
A nap before light
Disappears
A holiday that calls
For coffee and wine
Fruit on the table
Emotional map
Wind is still
Water is crisp
I can walk again
As wild parrots screech
A soft bed beneath
My back I ask
Who reads what is said
How much of our words lay dead
© GÄ
The women they talk
The men they walk
Alone to one another
Little pockets of experience
I fight the system
Gazing at their every days
It is less isolating
Sun is sinking into
My skin
Stretch to reach for
Direction with drums
Broken conversation
Enormous effort
Every drop
I have to give
Is to reflect
A love I see
In every face
Ancient reflections
Upon the bare soil
Unexplained explosions
Shifting colors
Bleeding into me
©
Do not believe
What is not yet known
What is unknown
Is not yet ours to think
We know
Nor should we think that
We know
To trust in someone’s
Word is to think that
We know
But to trust blindly
Is to confuse what
We know
We do not sit but refrain
From pretending what
We know
Rushing to fill the void
With false certainty of what
We know
Deceives the soul
© GÄ
I’m like a bird
Free in the way that doesn’t land
Circling because the ground
Still asks too much
We’re on top of the world
Until we’re not
Until gravity remembers us
This boundary was not for
Anyone else but me
A quiet fence I built
So I wouldn’t keep bleeding
Where I already knew it hurt
I feel so down I don’t know
How I can make it work
I slept all day to greet the world tomorrow
And tomorrow arrives anyway,
Still carrying the sadness
I want fun
A drink.
A smoke.
A moment that doesn’t ask me
To be whole
Inescapable me
I’m torn up
I hope I find myself tomorrow,
But I can’t decide
If tomorrow wants me yet
I don’t know if I will ever go home
I know I don’t want to
And thinking I don’t have to
Makes me happy in a way
That surprises me
I can’t make sense of life
Right now
Standing in the middle of my
Essence falling apart,
Trying to conjugate a future
That won’t sit still
I just need fun
Relaxation
Something in me
Something to me
This is the moment before resilience —
Love has left,
And meaning has no resemblance
The structure I believed in is gone
The effort no longer feels legible
The world loses saturation
Something careful
Was treated carelessly
She responded with love
Because she knows who I am —
Not because she didn’t feel anything
Whatever I once was
And I don’t have to earn that grace
By suffering forever
The love for me is great at home,
Somehow I don’t think I can circle back to it
I will return to my mother
© GÄ
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
Poétique 