And there Esmeralda stood waiting...

And there Esmeralda stood waiting

For what, nobody knew. Her body worn-down from many years of walking up and down the centuries-old stone pathways, her feet full of calluses and nobody in her life to rub them soft. How did life turn out this way? So difficult to just get water for the day, much less silver coins to buy quesillo at the market.

Where was there to go, really? She's been surrounded by ancient reminders that almost everything comes and goes – the needs for living stayed the same – food, water, paying the rent, and some laughter in-between. Love – well that’s a fleeting fancy. Roberto, Ricardo, Rodrigo – all had their day and good riddance. Their promises carried too many strings of having to endure their hot-headed dreams that were going nowhere on a donkey’s back ass.

It’s a shame with Esmeralda. She’s become what all women around here become. Alone, hardened, withered and no place to be but behind the loom, weaving blankets for tourists who believe she loves her quaint and simple life. They don’t look deeper into her eyes and notice that she’s somewhere else as she ties the ends of the threads, wishing that this was the last blanket she made in her life, her hands aching so much from overworking.

Youth seems to be a mockery at this age – wisdom from the elders merely given to warn the young ladies that, yes, one day, this is your fate, too, my dear, so don’t get too haughty about your fine figure. The men around here break hearts like their breaking beer bottles.

Oh, yes, the women here once had high hopes and dreams, too. Now we’ve shriveled down to the bare bones truth that no one will save our town – no matter how much money or ideals they’re carrying. They don’t have the heart to tell their granddaughters what sourness lies ahead for them from the moment they are born. The grandmothers do well feigning smiles every birthday – pretending for the sake of celebration, that there are blessings to being human. Who could have the heart to tell the truth of life to an 8-year-old girl who loves pink balloons and chocolate frosting?

There seems to be no cure for Esmeralda’s waiting. Every sunset her figure fades into the turquoise wall by the back door of her house, where the chips of paint are peeling off more and more as each day passes. Her shadow we’ve grown to know better than her. We leave plates of food for her, our only offering. But we respect her enough to do it quietly without her knowing who left them there. One day we know we’ll find the plate still there. And perhaps, then, Esmeralda won’t be waiting any longer.

dearest zack

Dearest Zack,

Every time we meet, you ignite a knowing within me, as we both seem to understand the drives and passions of the other. Your presence in my life has been so important to my soul journey, where you have been the masculine mirror to my feminine self in a family where both of us felt like we didn't belong.

I've always wondered what past life we had together, to have reincarnated and decided not to subscribe to the same rules of material life afforded to our other cousins. At times when I felt I was going mad, felt misunderstood, didn't know what drove me to create for the sake of it in a decaying urban landscape, wanting to explore these things called poetry, art, anarchy and spiritual delving instead of making up families of normalized structures, you were always in the background of my life doing similar things in different ways.

Remember the night when we toppled down East-side brick buildings with our fascinating wonder at how much we had in common, disregarding possible thug harm while crossing back alley side streets at 2 a.m.? What a freedom from anything named fear! . Was it possible? These attachments of genetic bonds so deep that made us have we endless things to catch up on about science, philosophy, metallic recycled art and massive dreams of a future world without industrial complexes and broken people?

Wasn’t it wild how we'd go several months without seeing or hearing from the other, only to reacquaint and discover we are were literally on the same page of the same book? Both of us questing for this gateway between love, life, death, suffering and holding to one's inner values, getting lost within different dimensional worlds without the binds of false responsibilities for systems we cared nothing about? While we awoke to earth pods, crystals and new civilizations of the imagination discovering our innate powers of attraction, descending us into underworld labryinth mysteries including oddball suspicions of crow-like characters?

See! This is what I mean! How you and I get these long stream of consciousness diatribes and see nothing crazy about taboo explorations into tunnels of generally misunderstood waves of consciousness. Call it the pot-head mind, I call it exploring the universe of unexplored recesses.

We co-mingled in our own esteems of super-tall ego family members, while our own egos twinned the other way -- constructing so-called humble self-deprecation. We went through our fascinations of dark paths only to discover the cosmic joke in it all -- how we really were just trying to distance ourselves from people we never wanted to become, forgetting at times along the way that our core yearning was to be loved by them in the first place.

Remember that time when we both emailed each other as we were going into the same Vipassana retreat (tho’ in different places -- you in Nepal and me in Toronto). Yes our consciousnesses have been intermingling for eons in the yet-to-be-named star systems but somehow we agreed to ascend to the Truth at this point in time, lifting ourselves up from the depths of darkness only to discover that indeed the truth is that unconditional love and compassion are the only thing that govern.

Who else was as fascinated by coffeehouses in Kensington Market and gender-bending presumptions in backroom eco-building structures as you and I? We’d both watch how our personal desires for reaching our potentials would backlash in activist scenes where people were shooting each other down in subtle and idealistically maniacal ways. Who else could understand our motives to want to transition society from extremely heartless functions back to Mother Earth's wonderful new order? You see, I have been watching you the whole time, knowing that underneath all the seeming madness, your heart and soul has been on the wave of this time that has been wanting to uncover chaotic truth, dispelling the myths of dependable comfort in systems already falling faulty.

Then yet another journey, our own humbling recovery from our acts of self-destruction through the familiar ego of our fears and warrior stances.

Was life as vacant for you as it was for me when you learned that there is no enemy once we left our own ideals behind with the city? That there is a paradise that exists between the mires of pollution and consumer waste? Contrived in our helplessness of the vastness of this incredibly shameful collective delusion? Was there any way of reaching our Spirits up past the reality of some of our ancestors’ lack of caring about quiet beings other than humans in their walk toward God?

Yes, this letter is an outpouring of my Love and Appreciation for you. I have inklings of what you’ve been searching and yearning for in wishing a new reality for yourself and all humanity. This conflict of being on the verge of change and still having the courage to living according to what makes you pulse and inspired. I get the struggle you’ve carried with having to turn wanderings into an epic story because facing other truths about the real pain of not feeling like you had a home to come to or one where you want to stay for too long was too much to swallow and unburden.

How there are few people here in Ontario who could fully see your depth of compassion for all who have been excluded, rejected, neglected and those who most have given up on. It’s that very heart in you that has kept me so loyal to your walk, so proud of what you’re doing day-by-day, intertwining your dreams of creating rhythms from a place outside of how it’s normally been done, while inviting others to play with you, even for just a short while.

Just by writing this letter it is releasing all that has been built up in the misunderstandings of family dynamics, of feeling on the verge of not mattering and twisting and turning it into something magical – seeing how powerfully beautiful our determination to be True to Ourselves has really taken us, so we can sit in an element of peace that the resistances, inner guidance in the face of doubters, the restlessness of a world and people who couldn’t see the vision – that at least there are 2 of us who get it.

I can’t wait to have so many more awarenesses and awakenings with you in this human journey.

In love, peace and understanding,

yer cuz

My Dearest Angel

My dear sweet Angel,

Oh, so many wishes I have for you--as many as the dandelion seed floatings blowing through a summer afternoon wind's embrace.

I wish that the world would align in a way that keeps the sparkle in your eye shining--a world filled with experiences of innocence, joy, wonder, love and gentleness. I pray that your jokester heart tickles the Creator as you draw so near, and She giggles in rolled laughter that topples her mountains of jagged edges and opens up her vulnerable soft belly. I want your fingers to flipdeedoodle on the strings of your guitar, easing hearts and souls of heavenly masters -- so that your woooo-hooooo-hooooo-hoooo echoes up and up to Thunder Bay, awakening the Sleeping Giants of the northern beings.

I dream of a time when we can walk again hand-in-hand through forests of tree sprites, trusting the comfort of their guidance for those like us who are light in heart and foot, while the robin serenades our steps and the mourning dove cooos our lovers' language.

My greatest desire is that you get to touch everyone's being with your warm and uplifting wisdoms that roll out like fresh new sea pearls trolloping over your tongue. Where you are given accolades of simple compliments and stories of transformed lives from those who crack up over your corniest of punny poetics.

Now, with a wink, you already know that I have so many other desires for you, unspeakable for this common page. So I will simply say, in my heart dream for you, I want all to see that indeed compassion is sexier than superstar muscles. I invite you to come closer to me so I can show you exactly what I mean.

Love always,
your dear Sweet One

That red-laced dress

Dearest,

Oh that red lace dress…

Do you remember the one I picked out at the 2^nd-hand store on Queen Street and called you to come and take a look? And so willingly, though with a roll in your eyes, as if to say “it’s just a dress…pick one”, you came anyways and suffered being the only man in a room full of 20’s-era dresses and pure silk stockings.

“Baby, you look damn sexy, I love it on you”, you whispered in my ear.

I needed that from you – that way you would make me feel so desired over the simplest things.

“I love your little tooth and how it sticks out over your lip…” you’d have a knack of finding the little parts of me that never seemed to be noticed by anybody else.

No matter what I would wear, no matter if I gained weight or lost it, you found something beautiful in me. You let me be me in my doc marten boots, made-it-myself t-shirts, silver nose-ring hoop and baggy sweatshirts and still you would hold me and make love to me.

That’s why it hurt so much when that night, at the gala when you drank too much of the free red wine, you agreed with the only other black man with the dreads that “red only looks good on black people...” I was the only person who was wearing a fully red dress that night.

When you mumbled to me on the way home in the taxi about what he had said to you, my pride turned into my stomach, pulling all of my beauty with it. Is this really what you thought? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you stick up for me? Why did you let me go out and look like a clown in public? Is this what black people thought of white people? The core pain of racial divisions around beauty stabbed through our relationship for the first time.

It is a terrible thing when you realize your beloved sees you as something less than wonderful.

Though I haven’t reflected much about it, it is possible this was one of the things that lead to our demise. Me not being beautiful in your eyes anymore, feeling you would much rather be with a woman who looks good in a red dress.

Dearest Unnamed Tree

Dearest Unnamed Tree,

I never knew that I would fall so deeply for you. When we first met, it was by mere chance, in the midst of the ancient playground of the Zapotecs, seeped of Gods and gameball sacrifices. I hope you don’t take this personally, but you had the funniest hairstyle I had ever seen for a tree -- parts sticking up and out, a do’ that extended way far out, and curly-cue branches tinged with burnt red-hue spatterings. And, my, your trunk, short-stubbed yet twisted in knots within knots of each other -- you had clearly grown into your own, standing firm, alone, yet confident, even though you looked a wee bit more eccentric than all the others.

I have to admit that at the time when you and I first engaged, I was far more enraptured with my travel soul mate, Ben. He is, after all, human, and you – well, you are a quieter sort. I wonder if perhaps you placed a love spell on me when you heard me giggling and twirling in love—such a reprieve, I'm sure, in a land weighed down with millenias-old conflicts. Yes, that must have been how you picked me to be the one and only for you! Though given the strength of the sun, I could be over-exaggerating, blinded by your infatuating talent of mesmerizing young ladies with your unspeakable stare. Regardless, in my heart, I carried you back to Canada and held you in tight.

Sadly, my dear mate, Ben, and I parted. Who else could I share with in the delight of your memory? What was I to do? I thought I had to tuck everything away in dusty treasure chests—including you! Yes, I am so very very sorry but it’s true. Even you, I tried to deny. Though I know that the specialness of you is far too great to be hidden away in the recesses of my own mind.

Without any loves to love in my life, I walked by store windows on Bay Street, envious at mannequined bodies who had no worries about soul mates and where-to-go-next ponderings. Yet I somehow knew I couldn’t be anybody without some kind of heart beating beneath the surface. No matter where I went I couldn’t find a cure for this malady in the grey, one-tree-at-a-time-lined sidewalks of Toronto.

Scanning the mini-forests of the Big City, I had an ache to reconnect with beings of the leaf-ed variety. I strolled through the massive oak trees in High Park, hoping they would let me be their little acorn, but they said – nope, dear one, you gotta go back home ---you’re just not so very mighty like us. So I pursued another, closer to my size. I admit that I pretended I was enraptured by the maple trees with their flittering red-tinged autumn glory leaves– yes…anyone would agree that they really are quite lovely…but they're reserved for somebody else, not me. And the sturdy pine trees, with their forever-needles aggrandizing Canadiana postcards -- they couldn't even accept my sorrows!

What was I missing??? I couldn’t sort out this soul frenzy.

So I just sold everything! Everything! I had to get out of this dreadful, uncaring city. I risked not having a place to live. I risked my life and personal safety. No job, no direction. The only thing I was sure of was that I needed to return to Oaxaca City. Something or someone was there for me. . .

So I went. And I sat in a room for 2-months in Mexico, pondering what madness would lead me to this place, no idea of what the heck I was doing there in the first place. The more I sat in the heat waves of time, the more I felt the heartbreak by previous lovers. The mariachi players singing latin tales of love gone wrong just added to the wounds. Was my destiny to simply die in this land of dreams of poets and painters who never get noticed?

Not knowing what else to do, I plopped myself on the bus that chugged cautiously up the mountain to the Zapotec ruins. Out the window I stared over the cliff that seemed ruthless in eating up tourists like me who never asked the credentials of the bus driver.

When will this pain and misery end, was my ongoing mantra on the trip. Yet I felt guilty for even wallowing in this self-pity given the level of comfort I was afforded compared to my fellow human who is living in a slum with threats of illness and invasion always around the corner.

I got off the bus, not wanting to relate with anyone, stretching my body into the clouds. It all looked the exact same as 2 ½ years before. The museum was still there. the ticket agent accepting payment. The same tour guide uniforms. But no Ben this time. Just me. Was I on some-type of roller coaster ride that would never end, coming back to the beginning only to go in another ridiculous circle?

I paid my fare and started strolling like a visitor who no longer belongs to the route of tourist first-timers. I am a more seasoned pro here and no one could tell me to stay along the road of historical explanations. I left my bus compatriots behind and decided I would, as was the essence of this journey, go it alone.

By one of the tombs, I met a fellow who was at least a foot taller than me. He asked if he could take a picture of me beside a tree. I had suspicions that perhaps he was just looking for a photo to send home to tell others he had found a young foreign lady. But, he made a believable argument with his awed enthusiasm that he was collecting the seeds from this tree because it is the very same tree that produces the resin for the traditional rubber ball game. He wanted to show his friends on the coast the height of the tree in comparison to me. What a phenomenal love slave he had become to this tree and the game, as I would soon learn I was the same to you.

The man left grinning with contentment from ear-to-ear. Why is it that I could make others happy and not myself? Why, Dear God, was I here in this land where there is endless pollution, suffering, people living in class divisions? How is it that my feet were walking on the same land that others walked 2,000 or more years ago? What is the point of it all?!

Then I stumbled and tripped over that great landscape I visited merely 2 1/2 years before. And I SAW YOU AGAIN! My knees wobbled at the sight of you...I had shamefully forgotten about you since so much had happened from the last time we met. I forgot we had this quiet relationship unbeknownst by others. That we had made some kind of pact that you held in your tree-trunk heart--that I had discarded somehow? Was it really you calling me across two countries -- yearning for us to reacquaint?

IT WAS! You called out for me to come to see you. You knew the depths of my own heart failing in relationships gone by. You knew I needed to see something familiar to salve this yearning for a friend who made no judgments about me or others. I laid under your shade and never wanted to leave. I felt I could die there and everything would be okay. I had found you again. I swear I felt the tickling of your tiny green leaves reaching down to my shoulder, saying sweetly "oh, dear Heather, I missed you. I love you and hoped you'd return."

You needed me as much as I needed you! After all, how many other people have spent the time to appreciate all the unusual gifts you have to offer, preferring to spend their time on the massive man-made steps of temples across the way. Of course! Two hours was far too short for this love affair but I knew I needed to return back to the city, otherwise I'd be mixing with Spirits under the midnight moon.

I collected all of your heart seeds into my being, promising never to forget you because I was now your newly self-appointed guardian who cares about you and will send you thoughts of love from ethers of long distances. It's sad but true-- I just can't physically visit like this all the time, for I have my roots as you have yours. But I love you and always will and you have not gone unnoticed in this world of people too busy to check out eccentric trees with funny hairstyles.

Love always,
Heather

Deareast Unnamed Tree

God puts hearts...

God put hearts in each of our bodies,
protecting us by the toughness of earth,
so it can grow and expand with the stellar system,
let the light of delight exude through the plane,
bliss permeating our entire body,
so we may lift away from all earthly dilemmas and be enraptured
by the connection of heavenly substance.

Oaxaqueno Mountain

Oaxaqueño Mountain

No Trespassing

to the obvious mountain,

so inviting with lush trees

though a blessing you're of the untouched

but I confess, my spirit kissed your peak,

so gentle you didn't even notice.

even if my two eyes never grace you again,

you can be assured I will do a quick sweep over, encircle you, embrace you

before I return to my Creator

and you will continue forth as the eternally endeared

steady, summit reminder for all us earthly crawlers.

Eternal Quest

Eternal Quest

When I was standing on sandy ground

In the middle of ancient ruins

I wondered

How is it the shapes of the clouds look different here?

And the smell of the landscape?

How is it that humans have built this?

And why?

The eagle overhead simply soared

How do I get there, instead of staying way down here?

This was when I added my name to the lang human quest for the immortal—

The transcendent –or better, ascendant –

From this limited, yet infinite, being.

Spiritual Freedom

Spiritual Freedom

I imagine my soul will be lifted by my Life

To an endless dance with daisies,

Where I can float between the stars and the earth

At Will,

In the hush of a dewy night,

Swimming in glee,

Shouting "yippee!"

While old men snooze in rocking chairs,

Unaware

And I bumble and somersault in thick clouds with free abandon

Yes, that's what they call True Spirit!

Love

Love weighs as thick fog

Unseemly

Yet can be captured by sccopfuls in butterfly nets

If lucky,

It's shared in still swirls

The fullness lasting forever.

Crickets

Orchestrate between blades of sundried summerly grass

A few chirp beneath fallen leaves

Sing melodies despite

Inevitable cosmic seasonal transitions—

Lulling us as if tonight's normal is eternal.

The Cat's Play

Cat's Play

Newton imitated the leap of his prey—

An absurd sight of a furred beast doing

A cricket hop here, a cricket hop there

Through the tall grass on a bright starry night

Ah, the clear mind to enjoy this simply silly joy of a cat!

The Pure Dream

The Pure Dream

Will transforms the elements of the Universe,

Where your Spirit tumbles into my ears and out my nose,

as a refreshing jaunt in autumnal woods of the mind.

Paradise explodes wonders

Regardless of a passing time

Through the flesh is marked in its numbered days

Yet, what forces are built up

Over a lifetime from giving and

loving and caring and Seeing!

To set the scales straight

In hopes of dissipating to a higher level

Striving to unblock energy that stagnates in

Old arteries of Nations and

Households and

Monstrous churches

To set free the suppression

so other innocent souls

can flourish

without gunshots, torments or realized nightmares—

so we are able to see our existence as

A big cradle in Mother God's arms,

Shhing us to sleep

Then we can help

the fruit trees grow so

All are nourished by the next day's dream without

fear of evolution or the onslaught of pain

In this vision of simple comfort,

we will see our sacred connection,

where the Star above,

not the buffoon on the ground,

Is where our puppet strings ascend

And our hearts can walk enlightened into His eternal imagination.

Gratitude

Gratitude

For each day I wake up to the sound of mourning doves,

I give You thanks.

And ask

that I may smell the pine trees again

enrapture in the crickets

cuddle the purr of my cat

and feel the crunch of the snow beneath my feet

I am blessed to have received heartened words in a letter

To have suffered through the pains of hopelessness,

only to come through , with Your resurging power

Knowing I am Loved by You

and indeed Love has always been peeking behind ironwork doors and crumbling buildings

There is Love in each natural design

There is a sacred purpose to this walk.

To love You. To feel You. To know You.

With peaceful nights You've given me the splendour to witness my youthful faults,

to understand the historical nature of All and my humanity

This is the peace you promised me

This is the peace I've been seeking.

With infinite wonder, thank you, Dear God, for showing me Your Way.

Gratitude

Gratitude

For each day I wake up to the sound of mourning doves,

I give You thanks.

And ask

that I may smell the pine trees again

enrapture in the crickets

cuddle the purr of my cat

and feel the crunch of the snow beneath my feet

I am blessed to have received heartened words in a letter

To have suffered through the pains of hopelessness,

only to come through , with Your resurging power

Knowing I am Loved by You

and indeed Love has always been peeking behind ironwork doors and crumbling buildings

There is Love in each natural design

There is a sacred purpose to this walk.

To love You. To feel You. To know You.

With peaceful nights You've given me the splendour to witness my youthful faults,

to understand the historical nature of All and my humanity

This is the peace you promised me

This is the peace I've been seeking.

With infinite wonder, thank you, Dear God, for showing me Your Way.

She Falters

Imaginings beyond
flourescent imprint tiles

floating somewhere

wondering how she got here
in the first place

was it when she saw the grotesque picture
of human skeletons copulating?
that death couldn't shake free from her mind?

now she's locked
in sheeted answers between
folded tucks
perfected by nurses' standards

she sprinkles crumbs silently
for the single-filed ants
marching to the cafeteria

How did everything become so small-scoped
when once ideas of India
mattered so muchly,
and politicking was fare conversation

Yet life feels safe for the first time
gurneyed by others taking over

is this how peace forces herself?

a funny thing, this shock of death's stare
lures us to no longer care
enticing us to think it all didn't matter
why bother trying to make somehting anymore?

who carries the newspaper headline of the next bomb scare to heaven, anyways?

though, she discovered, regrets don't seem to melt away
on rivers of bullrushed babies

hearts untouched and agitated linger in the mind
wishing to undo it all over again this time

At some point in youth she cared how others felt,
enough to make good impressions

when was all of that lost?
the busyness of passersby took over
and she just threw it all over to her wonderland of fancy

leaving only red wine's taste on her lips
recounting light kisses from long-ago partings
when no one in the world noticed this perfect freedom
from the stares of envious blubberings

"While I sipped champagne on a yacht,
moved like Harlo in Monte Carlo..."

Amusing the haughty chance to dance
till the stars shone brightly over
stark skylines of typical rooftops in Montreal and Maine stages

It all seemed so perfectly easy
this life of no one fully in, she fully out

Bouncing between the human facades of taboo places
never afraid to jaunt into bars where good girls don't trespass
why not?
Walking past others who are brawling through arm-in-arm advances

Night life
street life
cool life
simple life
vodka paralyzer 2-for-1 special life

jiving her jazzing short-dressed spinning tales

those rigid rules of order
"why says?": a quote reacquainted by her father, 20 years later

28 years old finds her at the sickened gate
where she can line up with the other barmaid floozies
humiltated by life's impetuous reality--
she will get old, bones brittle, ugly and unwanted
just like all the other women she pitied and laughed at
when she was 20

"luckily"
(tho' that attitude about it took some time)
the redeeming letter came in the mail
of her mother turning over a new grave
by the thought of her brother owning the house
back in the East Coast

She had to return, with embarrassed glances of familiar faces
oldened by time's arrogant passing
her horror of this stupid game of "life that precludes death"
sucking the joy of vibrancy and youth from her hips

Passion faltered on some front or back doorstep
in some fool's garden behind an iron-gated snobster's mansion.

She grabs the meat of her upper arms and tries to hold on

The prick of the needle, medicine's numbness
every night at 6 o'clock
better than those news stories.
Better than facing Time's mocking
Better than showing the world the shame of a woman who walked
as if death would never catch her.

Head held low

I never should've said the words I did
spoken, written or telepathically transferred

Why did I adopt the road of suffering's gate
in the name of some kind of liberty's blinding?

Where I lost the grace and poise of
a true woman
and became closer to the realm of a human dog
used by others, dead to
even trying to hold my head up high

Now to regain the pencil's honour
where do I begin to collect
and recollect my misgivings?

To the One who chooses Hate

You see not
the me
that felt for you

rather you want to see
that I threatened
your sense of self
security
everything you believed to be true

I prayed you'd choose a path of your full potential
to help this world advance

if only
you could break through the delusion
of an inferiority complex
stemmed from history's glance

instead you compromise your path
and blame me

staying small by fighting with petty mean words

to say I forgive you
would mean I listened

all I can say is "I understand" why
knowing it could take centuries before you'll hear it.

I have no time to wait for your faulty misperceptions.

The time to Love and release your hate is Now.

And I pray you can find that solace and realize
that there are people who Love you
despite what you think.

Liberation's Quest

Liberation is something we all want---
whether from childhood torment,
our disagreeable family
our boring sex life
from the mask of apathetic lies
the despise of bill payments
others' labels of us
or
the endless regrets of paths not taken.

We want freedom from
when we sacrificed our dignity
for the guise of comfort

Still, we wish all conflicts would cease
and this ache of separation
would unveil Herself

Why must it get to such extremes?

How does one sort out
her true wants and needs in a world of
over-indulgence in momentary distractions
and fake obligations?

What choices can I make that will lead to my
Ultimate Peace and Contentment?

Is Simply Being, enough?
But what of the drive of something more,
in connection of hearts,
ideas, creations and limitless understandings?

Why is there a determined and a lazy gene in me?

How do I Be me
without encaging
and adding to further suffering?

R-Evolutionary Healer

Yes

I could see the courage in your heart

determined to re-set right

the patterns of energetic

enslaved structures

of cultural rape and en-blindment

Yes

I could see your magical wonder

tripping between systems of power and ignorant religions

Your purpose mass-directed

by aching support of Other Side Sacrificed heroes

And yet you still failed to see within

your inability to hear the infinite pain

of that terrible oppression of people

threatened and locked away --

this is the pain, my dear, that comes before

the soul is squeezed out to her freedom

If you couldn't bare to hear the ugly yelp from me

then how could you claim to part of the compassionate master's company?

is it too dark and gruelling for you to bare?

or do I add to a scare of what you don't dare

to see of the Truth of our Nature,

lost in Fear that is real for most of us out here

the ones without Love's defenders and protectors

You couldn't dare to see the tears flowing from my face

because of the helplessness I felt

of the torture of people misunderstood

Yes, you're doing something about it

but so are my tears, Superhero

and often times this is what saves the world:

small acts of quiet, whimpering understanding.

Chrysalis Girl

Death seems the only constant thing
a perpetual knowing within
even though others see
She could become a butterfly

though nothing explains
her continual complaint with
death's inevitable embrace
willing and wanting to
take Joy's soul
from beating her own flitty dance

She never wanted to become something
that gripes "woe-is-me" human poetry

So she encased herself in her cobwebbed prison
til she figured things out

like transformative transcendence
in hushed privileges
of bouncing words
on unautographed pages

Friends and horrors have
passed her by
and still she sits still
pondering the worth of all
meditations and escapist desires
to find freedom by merging fire & water...

perhaps it was only to quell her fears
of drowning the tormenting
self-knowing, -loathing

Could anyone else
understand, comprehend
the heart that's been
so low in the dark;
between sheets of petulent violence?
lost in youth's mishandling;
ignored, disposed of, held in disregard?
like a dirty tissue that hasn't found its basket

In her "ohmmms" and "sighs"
and deep breathing embraces -- she seeks
more to life than oxygen and
empty space between the stars
to fit somewhere comfy in the unfolding encasement
she's built herself in

Wings peeking through the cottony curtains
she's been ready
almost lightning light years ago
but the Universe outside never fully able
to make 'delicate' part of its conformity
for her to feel safe and ready enough to come out and fly.

but to delay her liberation
because of endless devastations
would give victory to the enemy's enchantment

so she starts to spread her wings
and risk her life
even though it may be trickling moments soon
before she is blown away and dies.

Shhh...I will not tell

I will not tell
the times you came into the bed

I will not tell
the whispers you said

I will not share
the details to future generations
for they do not need to
bare such things

I will not call the police on you
because, dear, I pray
one day, you will see,
you will see me
as someone you'd like to know
more than you're fleetings

I will not call for help
because I hold hope
you will open your heart
greater than the sun's share.

One day you will love me,
One day you will care.

Forget-me-not

"Hunh?"...

The door is shaking. On the other side of it, curses and jangling metal bangs against the door.

I look at the clock. 2:24 a.m.

Typical.

"Babe. Shit, babe. Wake up!"

He turns on the lamp by the bed.

I roll over, expecting yet another line of overdramatic stories, hoping that he would see my pink-flowered nightgown and tousled hair to realize that I really don't care anymore.

I look at him. Blood is trickling down his forehead tracing the scrunched lines that always made him look like one of those Wrinkles dogs.

"What the hell happened to you!?"

"Babe. I was with the guys, you know. Just minding my own business, eh. And, then, you know, some f*#&ing guy wanted to pick a fight. And...damn. I can't remember what else happened. But the cops are looking for me and I gotta get outta here ASAP."

He scans the room for what he needs the most. He picks up his gym bag and piles in 3 dirty undershirts that are sitting by the heater, 2 hoodies, his cologne, toothbrush by the kitchen sink, mouthwash, wool socks and the photo of his baby brother.

"I don't know what to do. I'm in so much shit, man!"

I sit on the bed, stunned, watching him pack everything he needs, knowing he's never going to come back home. I hold onto the moment before he went out with the guys, when I kissed him and said "I love you. Please come home safe...", a recycled statement these days; nothing but a waste of breath.

The man who used to wrap me in his arms is now a criminal.

"Don't forget these..." I throw him the pair of boxer shorts I gave to him for Valentine's Day.

He doesn't even hesitate to feel my quiet heartache, hoping that he will remember me.

He slathers mustard on a white piece of bread and grabs his wallet and clips the chain onto his belt loop.

The room is left with the linger of beer and puke mixed together.

He's gone.

I sit in the middle of the living room floor, the carpet scratchy on my bare legs. Which is fine. Right now it's the only thing that's reminding me that I'm still alive.

You

With you, my heart fills up
with the crispy tinkle of star sparkle love
smoothing the waves of self-urgency
I'm left only to ponder the wonder
of getting to see you,
even if only for one more time.

Dandelion Seed Kisses

Fluffy dollops bounce on my nose
Trollops of white sparklings
float as bounciful dancers

Alas, Spring plays me with Her
skipping traces between
snow-capped tall grasses
and morning dew branches

I can't help but haplessly
follow Her unknown
meanderings; pulling me to venture beyond
soils of earthworm castings toward
boundless stages above
Earth's sproutings

A moment's kiss from a delicate seed is a rarer
more honourable gift
than one proffered from
a lover's full-hearted, soft lips

Ave Maria

My face soaks up the moistness from the stone bricks. How long have I been here for? The sun has pressed my shadow into the wall. Not another morning. Shit. Where will I go now? The cops have seen me here before.

I try to pull my hand from the ground, my wrist still limp from my fall last night.

Creeeeakkk. Skkweeeekk.

I look through the grapevines on the chaink link fence. A woman so beautiful -- so at peace, pulling in her laundry.

Fuck. I wish I had such a life. So simple. Doing simple chores. And being happy doing it.

"Aveeee Maria! Aveee Maria!"

The sun beams again, floating her milk chocolate locks with a golden touch of caramel.

If I could only speak with her. She seems to have all the answers. The only woman who isn't afraid of me.

Maybe she can give me some food and warm me up.

I need someone to cry to. I need someone who will make this misery all go away.

After that nothing was the same...

We sat there, dumbfounded and yet open to every possibility. Staring through the windowshield, the raindrops linger and then roll away.

Our thoughts race down the road to a place past the apple orchards of unrequited affairs, where we can be at last be alone with each other.

I stare into his eyes, quivering with conflicting glances within, upwards and far away. "We should just forget about this, shouldn't we?" Our eyes tell each other, "just continue on as friends, as if nothing happened...walk past each other in the hallways and say "hello" and "it's a nice day, isn't it?"

The beating of our hearts bounce off the windows--echoing to the pine trees 20 feet away . To pretend we didn't feel the dreams and wishes pass between our lips would mean becoming cold and professional, fitting ourselves into dark blue business suits with boring grey ties.

We can't stop the Truth! This madness of living without a heart has been circulating throughout humanity for far too long. Even if we're ostracized, condemned or beaten. This world needs to know -- we love each other!

And it will move the mountains of the dead and hardened perceptions--pushing them to unfold the ways that couples are to look and be.

We can shatter all delusions. We will do it together.

His hand touches my leg. I can't resist and yet I know better.