Palms Interwebbed

I read the words
Of my fellow poets –

Not as a text,

But as a warmth

They inspire me
In the silent way
Of a creeping tide to a shore

I dream of what they think
As they write –

Whether the verse comes to them purely
Or whether it resonates within
Like a small god

Where do they place their feet
When the passage doesn’t find its mark?

On tiles?
On cold wood?
On the back of an unfinished thought?

How do they let their hearts
Free like flax in the wind,
Or is it nailed, precise,
A firey offering
To an indifferent sky

I wonder about
The distance from the ocean
To the place where their eyes gaze,

If they measure it in kilometers
Miles or in longing…

We are like palm readers
Tracing futures on our paper skin
That forgets us until morning

Scriveners of psalms
Half-believing our own
Graphically trembling voices
And yet… how quickly we
Contemplate our own writing
Dismissing the sacred as insufficient

Crumpled at times
Each of us, a silent heir
Mirroring the flame from a
Stone we claim as our own
While the mountain range hums
Beneath the page—this
A sweet urge to speak a truth
And to survive it

Reaching out through the
Thin electric veil, intertwined
A constellation of invisible hands

Touching nothing
Touching everything

© GÄ

Boundary Recoil

Not A Title,
Not A Fixed Name

Spoken Once And Held Forever—

But A Pattern
That Keeps Returning
Like Breath Against A Window

I Have Not Chosen One Life
I Have Followed What Repeats

I Build,
Again And Again—
Small Worlds Of My Own Making,
Tea, Rooms, Language,
Places That Hold A Certain Feeling

I Move Toward What Has Texture—
Sound, Air, Light,
The Way A Place Speaks Without Asking

And When Something Tightens,
When It Asks Me To Become Smaller
Than I Know Myself To Be—

I Leave

Not As Failure,
But As Correction

Consent
Coherent grief

There Are Lives That Stand Still
And Call That Certainty

Mine Moves

It Gathers,
It Refines,
It Rearranges The Atmosphere
Until Something Quiet Inside Me Says:

Yes, This Is Closer

I Do Not Arrive
I Tune

I Do Not Declare
I Return

And What Keeps Returning—
That Is The Path

In My Company
Μου Αρέσουν Τα
Πουλιά, Οι Γάτες Και Τα Σκυλιά

Not Straight
Not Secure
But Unmistakable
In Its Repetition

Something New Like
Its Own Resurrection

© GÄ

One More

We have parted —
We have outgrown the form
That contained us.

What we called — and “with”
Was a seam under tension —
Two truths pulling in opposite directions.

So I did not leave you.

I left our version
That can no longer contain reality.

Love has died —
It has changed shape,

Just subtly enough to survive.

And somewhere beyond the wreck,

Without needing to be held back or held back,

If
We are ever —
Untouched.

© GÄ

Daily Immortal

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

©

Hospital

Time is temporary
Love is permanent

Wherever we are
Halfway across the world
Will you stay alive
Long enough for me to return

We were abandoned
We fought we held on

Nothing holds us
Like we hold ourselves

Then we hold one another
In the absence of the physical

The sun is burning
Brightly

I won’t sleep any longer
All the rest I could need

Will not give me the
Security of your existence

My gravity is a magnet to you
Before I was ready to go
You could leave me first

Am I your heart attack
They all say it’s not my fault

Protecting ourselves
From what

One last touch
One last kiss

Are we our end
Or do we assume
Too much power

© GÄ

Intimataffect

Desire for affection
Doesn’t disappear

No longer sure
What I see when I see
What could be

Frozen in my head
What is the difference between
One position on the planet
Or another

We are the same
Our environment shifts
We are alive
Scenarios change

Wanting to be held
One rejection is
Many times over
Later

Reoccurring experiences
Are reminded where
To land inside of us

Alone at home
Is not the same
As alone in the garden

Furniture is not
Flowers and mountains
Climb up hold the stone
Fall down ask for less

© GÄ

Love Sans Armor

Also malevolent imagery
Although it feels like a
Life is ending that lures
Rather than attacks
A wilderness of adventure
Before me with a hollowed mouth
Paired with inviting eyes
Creating a very breathtaking
Psychological absence

I asked before bed.
Where are my angels?
How could you?!
Abandon me forsake me.
Leave me to the grave
Of my sleeping chambers
Push me into this
Out of this
What is your whim
Should you not wish to carry me?
Unprotected from targeted arrows
Flashlights in the night
To leave me hanging
In sadness with wounds for months
It’s ephemeral but shadowed hard
By my past a history to tell
A legacy built now
Reclaimed by the ashes
Of an end that is coming
So you drop it.

Exhausted and pleased
Simultaneously
Laughing and crying
Mostly sobbing then wrecked
From unintended consequences
Just for trading places

Poor nugacity
Flagrantly you then
Stopped protecting people
From themselves and
Hurt yourself again
In the end

Are we dying
From love?

© GÄ

Rendering

Uncertainty didn’t disappear before
passion— it was
positioned outside of you.

Looking for it—
Somewhere here inside of me

Not because you held power,
but because you built
an illusion that buffered you
from seeing where power
actually wasn’t.

Authority stabilizes uncertainty.
The bedroom becomes safety—
Sheets, a place where wanting
doesn’t have to fracture.

Don’t judge me for choosing hope.

I wouldn’t invite you
if I didn’t trust you
to be close,
to stay close.

Méfiance
ne m’a jamais appartenu.

I want your passion—
not to take it,
but to hold it
with my hands opened,
slowly enough to stay.

J’ai tellement à donner.

© GÄ

Axis

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

Minimal

Psychological vulnerability
Ending a pattern
The decision stands
The feelings are hers.

My box is squared
Top open

“Yes it’s for the best
But she’s not happy.”

Gives me strength.

It can be right and still
Be uncomfortable
For someone else

The forest lives
And breathes with
Unwelcomed visitors

Incorrect outcomes
Still equal
Universal bliss

Broken consensus
Feelings exist; my boundary remains
Operating inside a system that
Enforces decay

An exit
Whether we agree or not

Ejection is brilliant
Luminous loss
Love found

© GÄ