Funny how we let go
And get jerked back
What is the pull of
Forgetting and
Remembering
Missed opportunities
Forgotten cares
Returning only to
Haunt us again
After
Letting go twice
Of what we
Had once
Left to recall
What we no longer wanted
At least once more
A tug
A pull
And we let it
Float away again
© GÄ
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 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
Woe is me
You gave her every rite
To take it all away
One for each
Flashing lights
How strong are we
Squares and shadows
Beneath the beauty
Of her eyes
Absent lives
Misjudged love
Chew it all away
Gnawing at my bones
While I’m still alive
Do people always ask
The things they want
To be asked
© GÄ
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
© GÄ
A basis for true objectivity
Withstands not a shred of
Evidence to extort all intelligence
If I slept next to you in bed
Could I keep my hands off of you!?
Macrocosmes and microcosms
Cannot breathe without a
Universe to exchange their
Need to consist of pyre being
Past lives in a pavilion
Of our scientific hearts
There are many ones
We are building moment by moment upon
Just as there are ones of many
A multifaceted nature
Existing as a part within
One another
Freedom is theirs to decide
We don’t have to do or
Be anything
We don’t want to be
Or do anything
Unless what we don’t
Want to be is
What we end up becoming
In space and time
Unwinding the length between us
In the sheets I can feel
Your skin next to me
A scaled form of what
Humans have been known to do
Regardless of the parts
Mundane to be held back
Why should we exist otherwise
Adjusting to what it means
Superficially to others
Our bodies make up the same
Weight and volume in decisions
Measured next to the stratosphere
Our heaviness is the same
A lightness as well
Both densities can be
Measured separately and equally
By each hair on our
Individual bodies
What grandiose metrics
In an embodiment of passion
O what dreams to suck on your tongue
A consciousness that fulfills and
Defines our mutual gravities
© GÄ
My heart was racing kind of
Difficult to find my breath
She said “You just want something-
That you can’t have!” It’s a
Fantasy I know but also
Even once would taste
So sweet
To have something that
Feels right even if it doesn’t
Belong in the rest of the world
Like my outsides don’t match
My insides I would give anything
To make the whole thing line up
That’s the appeal
Again the point of having
A moment like that once
In a lifetime worth the risk
Is it proprioception?
What would it mean to have
Even one chance arrive with you
I’ll take what I can get
Completely as you are
Unfold you and put you
Back together with well wishes
Sweet kisses more than that
When I’m through with you
Dinner too if you’re up for it and…
Then maybe I could get you
To stick around?
© GÄ
Man she gave up everything
She just threw it all in the trash
That’s my opinion and a bounty
Of sores left like open bloody
Gaping wounds that needed
Dressing but would only happen
By gift of strangers a medicine
For miracles preformed by
Flowers and a gallery of words
Left like a houseless child
In the middle of the road
But with every amenity
One could need and then
Forgotten
This town is numb
You can feel it in the air
People sleeping in the streets
Outside of grocery stores
Inside of planters I guess
We don’t know what it means
To be humane
Shirt too small, pants too big
There’s no getting out of this
Long winded stories about
A history of universal healthcare
Where do we find
What brings these things
Except in poverty
Live or die the world can’t see
What is there until it’s gone
This is my Mother Theresa complex
To care for others that have also
Been thrown away
© GÄ
He never used to be so structured
Like he couldn’t have a spontaneous
Phone call before just pick it up
Why must everything be so scheduled
A bad habit he acquired from some
Long lost friend along the way
My gawd just to have someone to
Do it with to share the bliss
For even fleeting moments to
Feel the light of exchanging in the thing
That you’re doing because it’s
So much more delicious than
To do it only for yourself
Even if it can be done
Stepping in and out of the garden
He could feel both the end and the
Beginning of something real that
Had already happened and was
About to again but the timeline
Inferred a lot of when when when
And the moments of waiting were
Written in the dictionary as
Inescapably endless
Capture confidence in each other
In the face of a rose and the sun
In your eyes when you smile
Although I’ve yet to see that while
All the evidence of a new tomorrow
Lands in the home of our beloved
Untold future which hangs under
A moon of passionate unknowns
A reverie for spontaneity
© GÄ
Nobody’s meant to
Walk this earth alone
Can I wrap my head
Around you?
Remonstrate me
Take my birthday away
I’m fasting now
For your love
Hear the carnival sounds like
Their love that destroyed me in
Many ways I may have prevented
If I knew how much it would hurt
But so do many expectations and
Giving up the greatest love
To know what it looks like
To find it again is worth
Every second of the pain
Internal echoes of residual
Torture self inflicted
But only because letting go
Is impossible when the notes
Of the songs that you wrote
Are already an intrinsic
Part of these bones
Eat a sandwich
Blow your nose
Count your blessings
For those that let us go
We can always relive the memory
In our music and our poetry
In our letters and our photos
One two three
Do the next thing
Shake it off
Dig a hole in the beach
And bury that old part of me
© GÄ
Poétique 