Category: Poetry

A collection of poems for the wild ones, who were born full of longing. For those made of tornado and moon dust. For the ones who want, and dream and reach and dance.

Believe Her: A poem for survivors (and those who love them)

This is a poem for the women violated, and for those who stand in support and love and solidarity.
For partners, for lovers, for friends.
For all those women harmed, and for all those who held and loved them in the aftermath.
Maybe not perfectly, maybe not with unfailing grace, but loved and held them in fullness.
For all those who said in some way — I believe you.
For all those not yet believed.
For #metoo and #whyididntreport and every story that will never find a trendy hashtag.

No single human can live up to the lines of this poem in isolation, but together – if we truly try – we just might have a chance to make a difference, to the woman in front of us. To the girl or woman inside of us. And to the collective trauma held in the bodies and hearts of women everywhere.

This is an offering of love. To all of you. To all of us. To our mothers and our sisters and our daughters. To our world.

________

When a woman tells you she’s been violated:

Believe her.

No matter what words she uses to describe the violation.
No matter the drinks or the outfit or the degree to which she knew or didn’t know her violator.
No matter the time of day or night or the spaces in memory.
No matter her age now or her age then or how many years it took to speak it.
No matter how many times it’s happened or what came before or after.

No matter the questions that arise in your own mind, planted by a culture that has taught you that her-story is the one to be met with disbelief.

Believe her.

Hear her story.
Blanket her shame with your love.
Counter her fear with your faith.
Hold the relentless questions running on loops in her mind between your palms, tenderly.

Believe her.

When she says, “It was my fault…”
Tell her no.

When she asks, “Was this okay…?”
Say not now. Not ever.

When she wonders, “Did I bring this on myself…?”
Remind her that she has only ever called in goodness.

When she worries you’ll never look at her the same way…
Do not hesitate or waver.
Tell her that she is wrong.
That she is beautiful.
That you love her.

When she tells you they didn’t believe her before…
Remind her that you are different.

When she cannot look you in the eye…
Hold up the brightest mirror you can find, and show her the vast and unchangeable beauty of her being.

When she shows you her bruises…
Swallow hard and don’t you dare look away.

When she cries…
Let her.

When she reaches out in need of kind arms…
Hold her.

When she cannot find her voice to safely speak. When the words stick like swords in her throat. When the sound of her own voice is too much to bear…
Will your love to transmit across miles of silence.
Hold the space without sound.
Fill it with wildflowers and sunshine and infinite softness.

When she needs to tell her story again and again and again…
Listen. As many times as it takes.

When it takes far longer than you expected for her to heal…
Be infinitely patient.

When that healing looks nothing like they told you it would…
Find every dictionary in your house. Cross out the definition they gave you.
Allow her to write in her own.
Make sure to use pencil so she can change it as often as she needs.

When her body feels unsafe on the street or in the coffee shop or at the grocery store…
Walk closely beside her, ask if she would like to hold your hand.
Shield her energy with your own.
Don’t let go.

When she’s afraid of the dark…
Keep the lights on.

When she’s too terrified to sleep alone…
Plan to stay as many nights as she needs.

When her body feels unsafe in your bed…
Stop. Look her in the eyes. Remind her that in this space, always, she is sovereign.

When she asks you to make love to her…
Trust her. Go slow. Be prepared to stop.

When you’re not sure how to proceed…
Ask her.

When she answers…
Pay close attention.

When the rules change…
Accept them.

When you can’t touch her the same way. When what was beautiful between you is now a reminder of horror. When triggers arise in unexpected and tender spaces…
Don’t you dare take it personally.

When her body, her home, and the world transform into fields littered with landmines…
Walk carefully and gently and with great reverence.

When you trip over one of them — and you will…
Go easy on yourself. You too will need infinite kindness to get through this.

When you get it wrong…
Forgive yourself.

When the weight of what is required begins to feel so very heavy. When you fear your bones might crack. When your own heart is tangled and your soul is weary and longing for rest and a place to lay it all down….
Reserve tenderness for yourself.
Make a religion out of the most exquisite self-care.
Remember that you, too, deserve respite, comfort, and safe arms to hold you as you cry.

When you do not live up to the words in this poem. When you hit your limit and your own being is crying out for respite and you feel you are failing the woman you love…
Remember that you can call in reserves, that no single person can do this alone.

When she wakes up at night, sits straight up in bed, a silent scream caught in her throat, her body echoing memory knit into bones…
Sit up with her.
Light a candle and shine it in all the dark corners.
Breathe with her until her breath returns to her body and her heart stops trying to escape from her rib cage

When she can’t sleep…
Stay awake.
Invite her to nestle her head against your chest.
Play with her hair. Sing her lullabies. Whisper truths in her ear.
Truths about her beauty.
And her power.
And her absolute right to autonomy of spirit and soul and body.
Her ownership of her sacred yes and her holy no.
Her warrior strength and her ability to survive.
Now and for the rest of her life.

When a woman tells you she was violated….

Believe her.

And say so.

Don’t just think it.
Don’t just feel it.
Speak the words to her.
Out loud. Right now.

As many times as it takes.
Over and over and over again.

In words
In writing.
With your body.
In the way you look at her.
In public. On social media.
At the hospital.
At the police station.
In court.
At the bar.
On the street corner.
In your outside voice where other people can hear.
In as many different languages as you can memorize.

Because too many women in this world have been violated.
And too many are met with the violence of disbelief.

So, when a woman tells you she was violated.

You stop what you’re doing.
Look her in the eyes.

And tell her you fucking believe her.

_____

{image credit: Kat J via Unsplash}
remember to breathe

I woke up this morning
Slowly
Reluctantly
And this familiar heaviness settled into my being
The weight of all things
For which I hold responsibility
And even those for which I am not
Responsible
But insist on claiming as weight
As mine to carry
Out of some
Misplaced sense
Of duty or obligation
Or the eternal notion
Of what it is to be good.

And so the heavy was there,
And I noticed it
Simply observing
Not happy about it
But working not to judge it either
“Okay self
You are heavy today”

But then I noticed
That something felt missing
Absent
A spark
Of something
I have never been able to name
Other than to call
her muse

All I know is that
It is the thing that
Delivers the words
And for the last week
That spark
That muse
That energy
It has been pulsing through me
From waking to sleep
And even in my dreams
Making my pen fly across the page
So quickly
And even then unable to
Keep up with the flood of words
Wanting to be written.

So this spark
It has been
Bringing me to life
And bringing words to world.

Oh, the stories I have told this week,
Of feathers and wine
Of lion tamers and love
Of a week of unfolding
And even more than the ones
I’ve told you
There others
More fantastical
And also more true
That are just between
Me and the page
Or me and the mystery
Because writing doesn’t only happen
when words are recorded,
you see.
When the spark of muse is
Living in me
I am always writing
Even when I am not.

So that on weeks like this
It is not as if I am writing
exactly
But more as if I am being written
Into life
Or at least fully into the living

And so today
On waking
And naming the heavy
And recognizing the absence of this thing
This thing that delivers
The words
Which are – you see
My breath
The source of my aliveness
I felt panic
Immediately
And then grief

Because I had been living in a desert
In a drought
Or maybe on the moon – to mix metaphors
Because I told you it was air
And to live without
The words is to be
Without oxygen
To be cut off
From life giving
Inhale
And exhale
To be floating in an aimless space

Yes – there is a certain
Amount of
Melodrama
That tends to come
With being an artist
Or maybe just a certain
Amount of melodrama that comes from
Being me

And I am
Me
For all my flaws and failings
For all the stumblings
For all the times i confuse selfless with selfish
(and vice versa)
And get it all fucking wrong
I’m me
Kind and patient they say
Good and loving, also.
Perhaps a little prone to martyrdom
With a side of victimhood
And perpetually in chaos
But it’s okay
I’m willing to take the good
With the bad
In order to write a story
That is real.

And the me that I am.
Needs words like air
Needs the ocean in the desert
And when the words have been gone for a long time
And then they return
It is like breathing deeply
Or maybe even like breathing under water
(to bring back in the ocean metaphor)
Because I once was a mermaid,
You know
-Or at least that is what the
Dreams told me-
And I would come up to the shore every
Time the moon was full
And sing my songs
To the sailors
Who would turn them into stories
And tell them to the scholars
Who wrote them into books
That sold by the thousands
And thus made me famous
In a way
Though nobody ever knew
The stories
Were mine.

But I digress
Because this isn’t a poem
About mermaids
It is a poem just about this morning
In my little apartment
And waking up heavy
And thinking I had lost the words
And speaking the panic and grief of that

But you see what has happened here
Don’t you
I sat down to tell you how the words
were gone
And in the telling of that
It seems
That they returned
That they are
Perhaps always waiting
That there is air on the moon
Or maybe even an ocean under the hard
Packed earth
Of this desert.

Not all poems
Teach lessons
Some are just there
To be beautiful
But this one apparently
Had wisdom I needed to remember

The words will return
They always do
All I have to do
Is to sit down
At the page
and remember
To
Breathe
feather ( a poem about the ways we make meaning)

Today, when I went to my car
To go meet my good friend for coffee
And to visit another friend
And her baby
Who we hadn’t seen in quite a while

I looked down to see a feather
resting on the handle of the door
A little feather
Tiny, really.
Soft gray down
Belonging to a baby bird
I would guess
likely a pigeon
I’m sure.

Entirely, common
in a city like this
in a back alley
Where rows of parking spots hold cars
like mine
Where trash is left
Food discarded
And city birds congregate
To do the things city birds do.

And I immediately wondered,
Who was this bird?
Where she was going?
And what this might mean,
this little feather
From a little bird
Just clinging to the door handle
Of my car

Could it be a sign of freedom
Or of the things that fall away and get left behind
Of going places or
Choices made
What sign was this
For me to make note of
and apply
to my own life?
After all, it was balancing ever so
precariously
Right on the handle of my car
This seemed important – this small detail
in the way that small details
often do.

Or perhaps it is just this
that the bird flew by
and lost a feather
one she’ll never notice
(I’m convinced, you see, that she was a she)
and then the wind blew from the north
heading south – like birds do for winter
and lifted the feather
and carried it until it hit my car
and there it stuck.
no more or less than that.
Perhaps we want so much to
ascribe meaning to things
Because we feel so accidentally assigned
To this life
To this particular set of circumstances
No reason given solid
Enough to explain the random
happenstance of it all.

To make sense of
the good and the bad
The way things happen to people we love
Or to ourselves
And we can’t stop it.
The gains and the losses
The way love ends
The rough gash of it all.
And people leave, even when you believe
with all that holds belief
That of course they will stay.
The works published or ignored
The bank account sliding from full to empty
The lucky pennies thrown in fountains
without any idea if wishes come true.
And the raw pulse of anxiety
Rising from all the unanswered questions

All the misunderstood signs
Call it karma or fate or destiny
or religious preordination
or just that simple yet specific serendipity.
the days and weeks and months
Where they seem in our favor
And they others
when they are not
Signals sent into space and returned
with a resounding yes
Wires crossed. And bodies unwound
Or lovers who collide in space
in a way that makes no sense
in a way that is just as random as
that tiny feather on my car door handle.

And all this went through my mind
in that moment
In that rush of thoughts
as I picked up the feather
And held gently in my hand
up to the light
With fingernails painted red like wine
And then placed it gently in the empty cup holder
In the center console of my car

keeping it for some strange reason
Some desire for it to mean
something
to say that this is not without significance
this small gray feather

and maybe that is what
makes meaning
In the end

Simply this.
Simply our desire
To take notice of
The smallest things
To mark them as important
To wonder about their mystery
And the wisdom they bring
To hold them close
to pay attention.

To say that this
Just this
right now
it
matters.
For the ones who write

This is a love letter for the writers…

Hey you.
You who writes.

You who keeps on writing.

You who pours out your hurt and your joy and your bliss and your ways of being and existing and understanding onto page and screen.

You who hits the submit button again and again. Even though you’ve papered an entire wall in rejection letters, because you know that somewhere there is a home for your words and if you keep trying you will find it.

You who writes in private, in secret, in the darkest back corner of your closet after everyone else has gone to sleep just so you can write the whole of you.

You who writes to follow the trail, to chart the course, to make your own map through the mystery.

You who writes the path to your own redemption, because you know that clawing your way back to forgiveness of self is the only way through.

You who writes in silence, in a whisper, in invisible ink.

You who writes with the risk of being dismissed, dishonored, ignored because the risks of not writing are even greater.

You who writes because nobody else is willing to tell the truth and the truth must be told.

You who writes to bring the perpetrator to justice.

You who writes to fuel the revolution, to feed the fire, to create the necessary unrest.

You who writes to bring the people into the streets.

You who writes so that your children and their children and their children will know.

You who writes until you are bleeding and then uses the words to staunch the flow.

You who writes to lift others even when you are writing through the thick haze of your own tears.

You who writes to shine a harsh and uncompromising light on what is unjust, on the wrong doing, on the abuse occuring in the shadows.

You who writes to unbreak your own heart.

To you who writes to weave the magical stories that lull the babies to sleep at night.

You who writes to make visible the ones who do the hard and lonely and dangerous work and who risk it all just to stay alive.

You who writes in gratitude and thanks that you are able to bring worlds to life on paper.

You who writes to give voice to the things nobody else is willing to say.

You who writes so that the invisible can be seen, the marginalized brought to center, the spotlight moved away from the stars and onto the ones in the background who make the show go on.

You who writes to make a thing real, to recreate the past, to return to yourself, to mark in ink the path of a new beginnings.

You who writes the body. The heat and salt and sex of it. The truth of blood and vein and the secrets the bones hold. The soft and wet and want. The body that winds and dances in the shadows. The body that heals trauma by naming and claiming her own pleasure.

You who writes to claim space, to name yourself, to create a new world you can stand to live in.

You who writes to own your history or accept your present or shift your future.

You who keeps writing love letters to the one long gone or the one not yet arrived or to fall in love with the miracle of your own being.

You who writes to make peace with the ghosts, to release the steam, as a substitute for the therapy you cannot afford.

You who writes because the world inside you is so magical and so real and even if nobody else believes you it must exist somehow, represented in concrete form.

You who writes because to not write would be like a form of death, and you’ve died too many times already.

You who writes to bring us all back to life.

You who writes to set the record straight, to hold the story, to alter the dominant narrative.

You who writes to bring hope to the hopeless and give voice the the voiceless, to share the stories of the ones nobody bothers to hear.

You who writes in the face of all that would silence you.

You who writes to craft beauty in the midst of devastation.

You who writes because the force of creation is what gets you out of bed each day.

You who writes to brighten hearts and lift spirits and to make the sun rise in the sky.

You who writes like the ocean, like waves crashing and crashing and crashing again against the shore of what is real.

You who writes the dance, the movement of clouds across the sky, the way the flowers blow in the breeze.

You who writes outside of the lines. Who ignores the rules. Who has no idea about grammar or punctuation or the correct way to spell things, but who writes anyway.

You who writes in an illegible scrawl on purpose to keep the stories safe from eyes unable to see the the beauty of your truth.

You who writes words that rise like smoke and fall like ashes, still alive from the fire.

You who writes to take the swirl of chaos and confusion and, waving pen like magic wand, makes the spinning stop and the truth rise to the surface, clear and true, like a fortune teller conjuring the future from her crystal ball.

You who writes only the necessary, who casts multitudes from scarcity, who takes the story of the entire universe and reduces it to the exact few words that say everything that has ever needed to be said.

You who writes even though they told you that you could not. That should should not. Who writes over the red pen marks and bad grades from teachers who thought writing had to follow the textbook.

You who writes the things that push people up against their own limitations, their prejudice, their hard edged bias, who forces us to see the things we would rather ignore. You who are willing to endure the discomfort of pushback in order to help us all grow.

You who writes the edges and pushes the boundaries and then calls the words back into the center.

You who writes the trauma. Writes the pain. Writes the ugly words that we don’t want to read but can’t turn away from, not because you want to, necessarily, but because you know we all we need to stay present with what is real.

You who writes the worst of the hurricanes and tornadoes of reality and then keeps writing all the way into the eye of the storm where everything is peaceful and beautiful and true.

You who writes the imaginary, the fantasy, the fiction, and in the writing you conjure a world that is deeply real and alive.

To writes who writes with irrepressible joy bubbling up through your cells, giddy with the knowledge that only you could write this particular story.

You who writes in service to the cause, to the greater good.

You who writes the birth, the death, the honest everyday mundanities of our humanity. The messy and the boring and the deeply human.

You who writes to honor who has come before, to uplift the wisdom of your ancestors and the truth of those who walked the lands long before we were here.

You who writes in the stolen moments, on the grocery store receipts, who scribbles poems on the inside curve of your elbow, inking skin with novels that wash away in the shower but that mark you forever.

You who writes to create a truth that is more true than reality that you are living.

You who writes under a name not your own in order to write the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

You who writes to understand what you already know and to learn what you need to understand and embrace the unknowing of all that exists beyond comprehension.

You who writes to remember the details your brain will not hold.

You who writes your way into your own wide open life.

You who writes. Period.

To heal the world. To right the wrongs. To save a life.

Because you couldn’t stop, even if you tried.

It is a brave and beautiful thing to create stories in the face of all that would stop you.

You do that. And it is everything.
{a love that rocked the whole damn world}

Last night
The earth started shaking
Where she lives
Though it was steady here
literally
If not metaphorically
Or steady enough
At least
That I didn’t feel movement
In the ground
Beneath my own feet
Thought it must have moved
I think
At least the smallest imperceptible amount.
Because if the earth moves somewhere
Mustn’t it also be moving everywhere?
How can that not be true?

And I thought about saying
In that exact moment
You know – I once fell into a love
With a Cajun snake charmer
She tied bones in her hair and smoke rose from her skirts
when she walked through a room, bewitching all who came near.
And that love, I tell you now
Well, it rocked the whole damn world
So that everyone, the whole earth over
felt the vibrations
Though they named
Them all sorts of
Different things,
Depending on their circumstances
And location
And who is to say if they were right or wrong
Except me,
and I know that that I fell into a love
That rocked the whole damn world

Or maybe it’s more true
To say that that love fell into me.

Not fell in the way that buildings crumble in
The epicenter of the quake
But fell
In some other way
Some more etheric and mysterious way
And I didn’t say that
Not then
But I thought then about how
There are so many damn ways
To fall
And so many different ways
To tell a particular story

It’s just that some of those ways
Are more true

And more true doesn’t mean
Not necessarily
More factual.
No, stories aren’t all
Simple and clean like that.
Can’t be measured
By the same standards
Of veracity
As science or mathematics

In fact
Some of the truest stories
I’ve ever told
I haven’t even lived
Not yet
Or if I have lived them
It’s been a thousand times and
Only when brought together
Do they create
The symphony of words that will
Hit you in the gut
Hard enough
That you’ll name them holy

Just like a story about
The day my heart
Broke
Is not just a story of that one day
But really a story of all the days
And all the hearts
And all the breaking
That there ever has been.
And in order to write of my particular break
I conjured a spell
and the words gathered force
And called in all the stories
Living in the air around me
And in the corners of my heart
And tucked under the roots
Of a willow tree
Halfway around the globe.
That’s where the richness is, you see
It is the collective
In this case
That makes the singular more true.

Did you know that once I traveled
The entire world?
I wore a faded yellow sundress
With soft red roses
And a slightly torn hem.
In those days I woke up every morning
And washed my face
With dewdrops
And tucked flowers in my hair
I sang on street corners
And was hailed for the otherworldly
Beauty of my voice
One night I danced the tango with a sorceress
Under the light of a blood red hunters moon in a town so ancient it didn’t have a name.
She bewitched me and stole my voice and whispered in my ear that in exchange she would gift me an infinite stream of words but that I would only be able to write
If I promised to never abandon my own heart
It wasn’t black magic, she said, just the honest kind.
And that people often got the two confused but that
I could always tell the difference
If I listened with my bones
After that I could no longer sing
So I took handsome lovers in exchange
For a steady supply of ink
With which to write the truth

One day I left my sandals behind
On the hot cobblestones
Of a village square
Because my feet right then,
They needed to feel the ground
With nothing in the way
I left those sandals in a country the language was not mine
where I spoke to nobody and only smiled
And yet there I told more true stories than i’ve ever told you.

For a short while
Back in those days
I joined a traveling circus
Can you imagine?
I became
In just a short time
An expert at the flying trapeze
And every night
After the show
I slept next to the lion tamer.
No, it wasn’t like that
Not like you’d think.
I had enough ink by then
To last a lifetime
But he yearned for home
He hadn’t slept
not a wink
for three long years
Because he missed the sound
Of a mother’s heartbeat.

I only left because I woke up one day
And I had forgotten why i was there
Which is, I believe
The best reason for leaving
So I stole off that night during the tightrope routine
and ran straight
For the ocean
In my bare feet.
And I stripped off my sundress
With its faded red roses and slightly torn hem
And I left it there on the rocks in case
Some mermaid thought to try her luck on land
and I walked into the water naked and
Swam all the way home

And who are you to say if that was true
Or false
Or metaphor
Or prophesy
Any more than you could
Tell my friend
The truths
Her body knew last night
When it stood outside
In the rain while
The earth shook
Beneath her feet

Or to say that the stories
From the epicenter are
More true or important
Than the ones from the margins
That the buildings that crumble
Cry harder than the ones
That just crack

But either way, did you know
That I once fell into a love that rocked the whole damn world
Or maybe, as I said before
It would be more accurate to say
That the whole damn world fell into me
because I loved
And if you believe in the truth of that, and I swear
That it is so.
Then let me tell you my stories
And know in your bones
that I write
The truth

No. I have not flown through the air on a flying trapeze
Or experienced the earth dancing beneath my feet.
But the world is wide open before me
And I might,
I might.
honest

There was wine in a small round mason jar,
dark burgundy like old blood and older memories and the lipstick I save
for the deepest nights and fullest moons.

The name on the bottom of that tube of lipstick tube says Shame.
I just call it Honest.

There were hours of tears that marked my face.
I call those honest too.
I’ve lied before, no doubt.
But never with tears.
if I told you that was true, would you believe me?

And there was the dancing with ghosts,
calling them in on purpose and asking them to stay.
There was the telling of the story that is a reality that is a memory that is a mythology that is eternal inside of me.
The getting lost in the letters on torn pages and napkins from coffee shops, almost illegible words scrawled in black ink.
They are known just the same,
known the way only bones can know

There was the yearning – deep and sudden – for the specific pain of ink against those bones,
the bones that know all the stories.
The bones of my spine, this time, marking skin with poetry the way I envisioned so many years ago.
He told me once, while he settled my own handwriting along my lower left rib and I breathed deep into the pain of that moment –
that moment that was all loss and all grace and the knowing that everything had been changed –
he told me then that the pain was weakness leaving my body.

I wonder now, is there is a word for strength leaving your body? Or love?
What of its arrival?
Or is it only pain that the body names, and then only in it’s leaving?
it is true, I know, that there are some things for which there are no words.
Only the spaces between the words we know to say all that must be said
And I think about how some calls come deep, for years and years before I finally answer.
I wonder why this is so. And I wonder what this tells you about me.

There was the way the heat cloaked my body outside,
even at almost midnight.
And smoke curled upward on the patio and filled my lungs and settled something down deep inside.
I exhaled then.
Sometimes I forget to do that.
Some nights the darkness rolls on forever.
Sometimes what we need is only found inside of something burning.

Like the way I collected the candles from every room to fill the darkness.
And the way the letters all smell like a cigar box that says I love you in a language I’ve never learned to speak.
The way they smell like wood and smoke and foreign shores and the traveling forward and backward all at once.
There was the black silk ribbon that was once tied around those letters
and the way it burned after I tossed it to the side
and it landed, unnoticed, on the flame of a dark red candle that sits atop a rusted gear that sits atop a rock that still holds the salt of my Atlantic home.
The curls of smoke, the way they rose from that silk,
the way the pieces of the ribbon fell away where it had burned, silken ashes against white skin.
I caught the fire and put it out before it became danger.
Instead it was just another honest kind of beautiful.

There was the way I got up suddenly, because suddenly it mattered.
it mattered that I walked to my room and got undressed and raised my arms high and watched my own body in the full length mirror.
Watched the black dress that feels like a second skin
as it flowed downwards, falling soft against the top of my thighs.
And the way I piled my hair on my head and tied it in a knot and stretched my neck long and sprayed on a scent that melds jasmine and rose and amber and the slightest hint of peach.
I always want something sweet to counter the deep earth of me.
i always need something deep to counter the sweet of me.
And it mattered that I cleaned and repainted my tear-stained face.
Strong black liner and high arched brows and that honest lipstick I told you about earlier –
dark burgundy like the wine and the blood and the nights that feel especially true.

And so then I poured another glass of wine.
And painted my nails.
To match my honest lips
To match the candle
To match the fire
that burned the silk
that held the letters
that spoke of the story
that called on the ghosts.
Because it’s what is honest, right now.
The wine and this night.
And all the rest.
Because honest is sometimes the color of old blood and dried tears.
And ashes against skin.

Because sometimes honest isn’t soft and pretty.
Because sometimes I’m not soft and pretty.
I get tired of being soft and pretty.

And because just then the music rose.
And Van Morrison, he rocked me into the mystic
And then, then it moved deeper
I moved deeper
Music like hands
on skin
on purpose.
And I remembered.
Something I had read
That Rumi had said,
“where I am folded, there I am a lie”

So tonight I unfold.
Feet tracing patterns
on hardwood floor
Body long against the boards
Limbs reaching
Skin finding home in the dance
Hungry for something unnamed and holy.
Hips moving the only way my hips know how to move.

Honest.
steady up girl {you are way better than this}

this is an ode to the broken-hearted.
for those early days when the ground is unsteady and you are still measuring your worth by their absence instead of the staggering truth of your own presence.
this is a poem to hold you until you are steady enough to hold yourself.

listen to the audio recording | listen to the soundtrack on spotify

when she finally leaves, you will not want to let her go.
when she finally leaves, you will not be ready.

no matter that you thought you were fine
no matter that you thought you were moving on
and even healing and shit.

sometimes the heart plays tricks like that

when she leaves you’ll know better.

and no matter how much control you like to wield
over the proper folding of the towels
and the direction the toilet paper goes on the roll.

you won’t get to have a say in this one.

you’ll want to think that you’ll handle it with grace
but you won’t.
you’ll ugly cry.
you’ll drink too many whiskeys and not eat near enough food.
you’ll beg. and plead and send ill-advised texts and show up at her doorstep
unannounced and uninvited
your hopeful heart an earthquake, ready to take the house down to the foundations

you will not drive away happy.
you will drive right over your heart, splayed on the hot august pavement.
you will drive away not knowing if you will see her again.

when you get back to your apartment
make yourself some tea. add honey
you need to learn to give sweetness to yourself now
play all the songs that speak her name
sink into the sad like it’s the only home you’ve ever known
you’ll be living here a while
you might as well make friends with it.

don’t try to convince people you are trying to forget
when you are determined to not to let go.
when you’ve got a box tucked beside your bed
filled with two and a half years of love notes
and a hell of a lot of empty space
it’s okay to hold on for a little while
demons are not exorcized overnight.

but just a warning
what comes next is not going to be easy.

soon you’re going to have to forget her phone number
forget her birthday
forget the way she smiled at you first thing in the morning.
the way she said ‘sleep good’ and you bit your lip every time to keep from correcting her.
the way she poured a whole mug of coffee and barely drank any of it.

your memories will play tricks on you anyways
turning ordinary moments into magic.
and right now is no time for magic.

right now is time for hard truth
and tough love.

it will take a few times of ignoring good advice before the hurt is
deep enough for you to listen

please remember to be kind to yourself

listen
i know you don’t want to hear this
but stop texting her.
everyone will agree with this.
they will say that if you need to – you should get a journal and write your love letters there.
where she will never see them.
better yet. write them on your own skin and let them wash away in the shower
somethings were never meant to stay forever.

listen when they tell you that you are romanticizing things
listen when they tell you that it’s all for a reason
listen when they tell you that it’s for the best.

it doesn’t matter if it’s true right now
it just matters if you can believe it long enough to get through the night.

next:
change the playlist
change your favorite coffee shop
change the sheets
you deserve cloth that doesn’t hold the memory of her skin.

bolt the doors
stop waiting for the sound of her knock
it is not coming
she is not coming.

do you hear me – she is not coming.

walk alone at night and remember how safe you used to feel.
make the food she never liked to eat.
don’t go to the grocery store near her unless you know she’s at work
it’s too early to risk a run in with a ghost.
make new memories.
make new friends.
get a tattoo
get another dog
go dancing. go to the ocean. go to sleep earlier.

god knows, our bones could all use a little more rest.

and listen.
for real this time
stop trying to cram your heart into the hands of girls with clenched fists
stop trying to cram your heart into the hands of girls with open palms

there’s safe space somewhere between holding on too tightly and letting things blow away in the breeze.

someday you’ll learn this.

but or now, don’t even think of trying to give yourself to the next girl you see
she deserves better than your heart in pieces
she deserves better than your mouth still shaped into an echo of the past
and anyway, it’s time to stop being afraid of your own company

and cry as much as you need to
it’s okay to be all the way broken.
that’s the only way to let the grief do its holy work
so go ahead
cry so much that the rivers flood the oceans
and the forecasters announce that the drought is over

and then be done crying.
be done.

steady up girl
you are way better than this

_________
to let a poem save you

one day,
in the midst of your normal ordinary everything
you will come across a poem
and something about it
will speak truth
to your bones

—you’ll know this poem by the
chill that rises along your arms
travels
down your spine
the one that pulses truth
the one that whispers
from deep in your solar plexus
that this exact poem may
one day
be the one thing that stands between you
and the siren song of the shadowlands—

you don’t need to understand why or how
you just need to listen.

when you find a poem like that
do not continue with whatever you were going to do
before the poem found you
I beg of you, take note
stop and write it by hand
on the prettiest paper you can find
in your most careful cursive,
just like they taught you in grade school.

you’ll need to keep this poem in your back pocket
you see
so fold it carefully
edges lined up with precision
make the crease lines just so
this is important work.

take the poem out
every so often
—even when everything
is perfect
and tomorrow looks like infinity
and you swear you will never
sleep alone again—

just in case
memorize the words
—and the words between the words
because those are sometimes the most important of all—
as a safeguard against the day you throw your clothes in the washing machine
without first rescuing your poem
or you lend your favorite jeans
to that friend who is forever
but her luggage gets lost on the flight back from visiting her parents
in Idaho of all places
and your poem is never seen or heard from again.

because quite likely, dear one, the time will come that you will need that poem
on blue black nights at 3am
on the days when the sun has baked your bones dry and
still the rains won’t come
when when the ground is too hard for rest
but not steady enough
to rise from
when food turns sandpaper in your mouth
and you call and call and they do not come home.

when those days arrive
you won’t remember the poem right away
so deep will you be in the sweet mess of grief
but eventually you will reach back to your back pockets
looking for a tissue or your atm card,
and you will feel the outline
of that well-worn piece of paper.

when you do
when your body finally recalls how you planned for this
take the poem out of your back pocket
unfold it carefully
smooth the creases and lay it flat.

take a minute to brush your matted hair
splash your tear ravaged face with warm water
and pat it dry with all the gentleness your soul craves
now straighten your spine
whatever it takes to
remember your beauty and worth

then take a breath
because even though it seems impossible
that a poem could have so much power
it is quite entirely possibly that
this poem will
remind you why you still want to breathe

it is possible that
when heart and ego are wrecked and ruined
it will sustain you
when the air is so heavy
you stay in bed until noon because
fighting gravity is just too much
and you’ve gone mute just to avoid the effort of speaking your hurt
just maybe this poem will be talisman and guide
on the journey back home to yourself.

so why not give it a chance
even if it feels unlikely
what is there to lose, anyway?
you have already lost it all, after all
you were holding so tightly and you lost, anyway

so go ahead now
read that poem aloud
through your tears.

give it the cadence
that is the exact opposite
of the love song you don’t think
you’ll ever be able to hear again without crying

roll that poem around in your mouth
suck the letters between your teeth
blow them out like rings of smoke in winter air.
take them into your fists and throw them
into the darkness

speak that poem clear
in a voice
that sounds nothing like the one
you used when you whispered her name
like it was the definition of hope

you are the definition of hope, love
and this is where you get your voice back

after all
there is a reason your body quivered
when you read this poem for the first time
there is a reason you listened to me
and took the time to write it out
—as implausible as it might have seemed—
and you saved it for today
carried it in your back pocket all these years
because you somehow knew,
you have always been wise like that.

so dammit—read the poem.
put your whole being into that poem
all the beauty and all the ugly
breath and body and blood and guts and tears.

read it again
and again
let the refrain rise
until the truth of it is a light composed of syllables
until the light is a bulletproof vest made of words
until the bulletproof vest is enough to protect you from your own fury

now read it again
until your fury becomes the vast heat of power
until the power lodges in your belly,
red hot and burning true.

and then—and only then
get yourself out under the stars
and howl that poem at the night sky with every ounce
of fire you have ever known

and when those words are all finally flying free
call them back to you as if you own them
because you do.

swallow them back down into your belly
feel how they are a part of you
warm them with the embers of your own tenacious heat
speak to them in the voice of a lover, or a mother, or a friend

now stop and breathe for a minute.
slow and steady.
until that all the fury and fire and power you threw into that poem transmutes
until the alchemy of it softens everything,
even the hard edge of your grief.

open your eyes
throw your head back to the heavens
see if there isn’t just a little more light
see if you don’t feel different now,
even just a little.

I can almost promise you will.
I know it.

because this is what it is,
my bravely broken one,
to let a poem save you.

how do I know this so well?

only because this is how
lifetime after lifetime
I have saved myself.
A letter to my queer family // Pulse Orlando

It has been one month since the massacre at Pulse Orlando. One month that has seen more death and devastation and violence than I can possible process. One month of communities ripped apart, here and abroad. One month of divisiveness and unimaginable pain and the rumblings of revolution.

Perhaps it is always this way — it is just that it takes events like this — events that hit us hard, and close to home and personally — to fully get our attention.

Still, there are some periods in this world where it all seems to erupt, all at once. And the grieving and the hurting and the righteous anger and the protests and the memorials and the demands for reform eclipse all else. As they should. As they must.

That week, much like this last one. I could not look away. Not from the news stories. Not from my social media feed. Not from the political response. Not from the attempted erasure of the color or sexuality of the victims. Not from the names and faces and stories of those lost and those who survived and those who were there to do the saving.

And most of all, not from the eyes of my fellow queers. My LGBTQ community. My family.

One week after the attack I went to a bar. My bar. My home. A lesbian honky tonk with it’s weathered wood dance floor and the bartenders who are like friends and the people that know me the best. The place where my muscle memory knows the music and my own feet have done their part to wear the floor smooth. The space that had sheltered me from the earliest days of my coming out. Of course we would be there.

Where else would we have gone?

We were afraid. We were hurting. And more than anything, we needed to be together. To be there. To defiantly claim this space. As safe. As our own.

And there, on that Saturday night, there was a time of silence. And in that moment, my friends and I hugged and we held each other and we took very deep breaths and we closed our eyes and opened them and just took it in. This crowded Saturday night gay bar, completely silent in memory of what had been lost just a week before. And then the music began again and we did the one thing that we could do. We danced. We danced and we danced and we danced — just like those 49 souls did that night at Pulse. We danced in safety and we danced in celebration and we danced in defiance and we danced in revolution.

I got home very late that night. Wet with the sweat of a night of spinning around and around and around that floor. Gritty and heavy and light and hurting and healed. And when I woke the next morning — it was with the words of a letter filing my my head and right on the tips of my fingers. And this came out — one of those times that the entirety of a piece has been gifted in the liminal spaces between sleeping and waking, and the only challenge to capture it all it before it is lost into the ether. And so I lay there in bed, and furiously punched out letters on my phone until my thumbs were aching, because to get up and get paper or computer was to risk losing what needed to be put down.

I recorded an emotional audio to send to a friend and later that day recorded a much more composed video version. I intended to share it right away. But I couldn’t. For some reason, I just couldn’t.

It was all too much. Too fresh. Too vulnerable and exposed. My queerness is not a secret, not by any means. As a writer with 15 years of online presence, when I came out, I did it publicly and wide open. My queerness — though often invisible unless I purposely call it out — is personal and political and refuses shame.

But this? This was raw-edged grief right on the surface of my skin. Grief mingled with gratitude and knowing and solidarity and a new awareness of what was possible. This was as wide open and bare as I could get. This letter was everything I was feeling, laid out in audio and video. No filter. No hiding.

And so it sat on my hard drive, and I wondered if I would ever share it. Today I woke up and sat down to work — and immediately saw that a month had passed. I knew it was time.

Two weeks after the Pulse massacre I was in San Francisco for Pride. That morning, I wandered The Castro on my own. I stopped by the Orlando Memorial. The candles, still burning, wax spilled all over the sidewalk. The pictures and the names and the flowers and the scrawled messages of love and support. I had my own moment of silence there, with the giant pink triangle on the hill above, feeling the echoes of Harvey Milk’s footsteps and the history — my history — heavy in the air.

That afternoon, in Delores Park, I melted into the crowd — this mass of jubilant queer bodies — claiming their celebration and their space and their pride. And later, in the company of two women I had only just met, sunburned and glittered, hands and lips sticky from the sickeningly sweet Smirnoff Ice grabbed from the slim options at a convenience store and carried in a ripped paper bag, I joined the Dyke March. And with thousands and thousands of others, we spilled into the streets.

And yes, there must have been hate somewhere in that huge city. There must have been. But there was no room for it that day. And there were people on the sidewalks and leaning out the windows and yelling from the rooftops. There were signs and chants and hugs from strangers. And there were bodies. Queer bodies. Transgender bodies. Bodies of allies and families and friends. All of us pressed together and moving as one.

When the march ended, back in The Castro — and the whole place was body to body to body of queer life, I looked again toward the memorial, now made invisible by the crush of humanity.

And I thought — this is how we survive. This is how we know that it will be okay. This is how we go on.

And so this, one month later — is a letter to my queer family.

Thank god that you are you. Because if not, I could never have found the courage to be me.

***

Video

Audio

https://soundcloud.com/jeanette-bursey-leblanc/pulse-orlando-a-letter-to-my-queer-family

A letter to my queer family:

In our community we use the word family to mean someone who is like us. Who is gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, non-binary or questioning. Someone who claims one of the stripes on the rainbow flag. This is a means of identification and inclusion. This is the coded language of our own solidarity.

“Is she family” “I think he’s family”. “Don’t worry. They’re family”

In a community forced to the margins, this is how we create our own connection. This is how we build a home.

This is a letter to my family.

Dear family.

You. The exquisite gay men and the magnetic lesbians and the delicious queers and the defiantly breathtaking transgendered and the solidify bisexual and the definitively non-binary who fill in all the spaces in between. You, the questioning and closeted and fearful who have not yet figured out what it all means and where it will all land.

You. Who shattered the boxes and the binary and my limited notions of man and woman and gay and straight and danced me right into the liminal spaces where it’s all fluid and stunningly beautiful.

You. The family that welcomed me when saving myself meant losing everything I had.

You. Who held me until the world stopped spinning and placed me gently on that rainbow flag and told me I could rest now. That I belonged. That I was home.

You. Who taught me what it looked like to be comfortable in my own skin. Who showed me what love looks like made manifest and real when the world would rather ignore its existence.

You who taught me defiance. Who stood tall against legislation and regulation and complete lack of protection. You who refused silence and mobilized and raised voices and locked arms and demanded change.

You. Who gave me my history. Who sat me down gently and said once you know this, in your bones, you will be changed. This.. Stonewall, Matthew Shepherd, the devastation of entire glittering generation to AIDS, DOMA, Prop 8, unimaginable crimes of hate, god hates fags, don’t ask don’t tell, Leviticus, Harvey milk, Brandon Teena… This is now yours. And it will change you, but we will be here to hold you in the aftermath. Because we know. And then you must hold it in honor of all those who can no longer.

You who know what it is to hold hate in your being. Who have turned on the tv to see your love or your family or your job become a sound bite for some election debate or homophobic soliloquy in the name of someone else’s righteous God. Who know what it is to stand in the line at the grocery store and wonder which of the ordinary people around you just cast a vote against the worthiness of our soul.

You who have had insults hurled at you in the streets, or fists or weapons. You who have been sliced by the thin blade of hatred. You who understands what it is to scan a room before speaking, before kissing, before holding a hand or walking to the restroom. Because these things are not always safe. Because these things sometimes come with far too great a cost.

You, who do all those things anyways and you who are too afraid to even imagine you one day could.

You who lost your job or your home or your family or your safety or your religion or your community. You who were forced to exchange everything you had in order to be everything you are.

You who have dug deep enough to find the courage to come out. And then have come out again and again and again and again. In every new circumstance and at every new job and to every new person. Because that’s how that works, that risk that repeats itself anew every single time.

You the closeted. You the confused. You who know but cannot act. You who want that which you feel you can never have. Who live divided lives, who carry shame who do not know if they will ever find the courage to open that door. You who know it would never be safe to do so.

You who are grieving. You who were changed somewhere deep inside by this in ways you cannot articulate. You who cannot yet look away. You who are afraid to go to the places that always felt the safest. You with the tears that will not cease carving paths down your cheeks. You who cannot move on from this. You who have spoken their names and who read their stories and who honored their existence. You the candle lighters. You who raised your voices in song. You who called legislators and who made signs and who gathered in spite of your fear. You who didn’t hear from a single member of your family of origin or from the friends who mattered most. You who are not okay and who won’t be okay, not for a very long time.

You incandescent queens, you deliciously undefinable androgynous souls, you sturdy bears, you chivalrous butches, you tomboy dykes, you drop dead yet still invisible femmes. You with your flare, your flamboyance, your rugged individuality, your glorious diversity, your insistence on being seen, your quiet but steady presence in the places that matter the most. You, the cliche and every unexpected exception. You, the world’s stereotypes brought to blazing life and everyone who smashes the boxes and changes the paradigms and refuses to be painted into place. You, who knows that queer looks and speaks and sounds and moves through this world in a million different ways.

You the grieving. You the dancing. You the proud and the humble and the defiant and the free.

You are my family.

You taught me what it is to be proud. What is to stand tall in my reality. What it is to show up for the fight and to not back down and to never lose hope.

And I could not have made it through this week without you. I could not have made it through this decade without you.

I would never want to make it without you.

We are family. And together we will survive and thrive and live and love and lift and protect and build.

Because that’s what families do.

Xo.

Jeanette
We will always rebuild (a poem for the grieving)

You are here.
You are here.

Even though everything smells like love and loss and burning.
Start with this.

You are here and it hurts.
It hurts because of all you’ve lost.
Your heart is a 3am siren, driving through that sucker punch bruise of a night sky.
Never a sign of anything good.

Here, nothing feels good.
Now you’ve begun.

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy.
There is not enough air in the room.
The quilt on your bed is eight hundred pounds of weight keeping you from movement.
There is no going back

There is never any going back.
Now you’re getting somewhere.

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy and you are shouting bargains at the moon.
He is listening but does nothing.
There is nothing he can do.

You are on your knees in the grass,
clutching handfuls of earth.
This is progress.

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy and you are shouting bargains at the moon and there is nobody else to hear you
It is the darkest night you’ve ever lived through
You’ve lived through.
You’ve lived.

Do you hear me?
You live.
You make it.
You survive.

There is a faint tinge of light on the horizon and you made it.
Now we’re finally moving forward

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy and you are shouting bargains at the moon and there is nobody else to hear you and there is a grief wail building inside of you.
Through the earth, through your toes,
Your legs, your belly, your chest and lungs,
The reach of your arms, your curled fists.
Your neck
Your jaw
Your face
The top of your head.

Have you ever seen a building implode?
Yes. This is you.
Now you know you have begun the work of healing.

You are here and it hurts and the world feels impossibly heavy and you are shouting bargains at the moon and there is nobody else to hear you and there is a grief wail building inside of you and you crumbling.
The ground shakes as her own broken pieces slide rough against each other.
There is a red earth landslide and everything is tumbling into the sea.
On the ocean, a wall of water rushes toward land.
Disaster cannot be prevented, only survived or not.
The earth knows well the pain of things that cannot be fixed.

Your pain cannot be fixed.
There is no shortcut through this.
This knowledge is the key to everything that will come next.
There is more to come.

Sometimes healing looks like falling apart.
Sometimes falling apart is the path to what can be built.
Sometimes, we go through the darkest nights and there is nobody but the moon to hear.
He always listens.
Now you listen.

There is not enough air in the room but you are breathing.
There is nobody here but you are held.
You have broken and the world is breaking and we will always rebuild.

Do you hear me, love?
We will always rebuild.
10 things you should know {if you intend to love a poet}
1. We will always have a mistress. Poetry is our religion and the muse is our deity. She owns us. We will submit ourselves to her; beg for her to appear, turn ourselves inside out and go down on our knees to please her. At some point, you will come second to our burning need to create. You will be jealous of the muse. But if we do not appease her the fire will consume us, and you, in the process. She is crucial to our survival.
Let us please her.
1. Poetry is not always literal. Do not assume our poetry means what it says. Sometimes it will mean the exact opposite. Sometimes I love you means I hate you. Sometimes come here means go away. Do not twist yourself into a pretzel trying to figure out what it might mean. Let me repeat this again. Poetry is not. Always. Literal. Except when it is. You risk madness trying to figure this out.
Let it be.
1. Poets fall in love easily. Regularly. Messily. With people. With ideas. With food. With the way the light falls through your hair and crosses your cheek. With the sound of our own thoughts. Love is fodder for our art. Love is the root of it all. So much love, and not all of it for you. This is the danger of loving a poet. This is the bliss of loving a poet.
Let us love.
1. When the voices in our head start speaking we don’t talk back or look for a doctor to make them stop. We write them down. On whatever we can find. Receipts. The last letter you got from your late grandmother. Dollar bills. The entire surface of our right arm. If you happen to be bald, the top of your head is fair game in a pinch. Do NOT fall asleep while we are holding anything that can be used as a writing implement. We will write at traffic lights. During happy hour. Right in the middle of a particularly romantic moment. Our words must find a home or they will consume us.
Let us write.
1. You have never been as beautiful as you will be through our eyes. You will have never known that the hard edge of your hipbone was worthy of poetry, or the curve of your smile or the husk of your voice or the caress of your cheek against our own. But if we love you, we will turn you into a poem. You will be made immortal by the power of our words. You can count on this.
Let it happen.
1. When you start to date a poet we should read you your rights: Anything you say/do or think can and will be held against you. We will write about what an ass you were that one night, about how you drive us bonkers by singing REO Speedwagon in the shower, about the ways you have brought about betrayal. Still, if you censor yourself, we will know this too. You might as well speak your truth. It’s all poetry to us.
Let us write you into life.
1. At some point, we will get ink stains on your good sheets. Your best dress shirt. That super important report you stayed up all night finishing for your boss. This will drive you crazy. But know that we will also make love to you with ink stained hands. Finger paint typewriter font onto your skin, brand a masterpiece into the spaces between your ribs with the words flowing from our palms. Tattoo you with the imprint of our hearts. Together, we will become a living poem.
Let us get messy.
1. We will love you well, with words and nuance, with bodies and phrasing, with kisses and passion, with poems and love letters scratched on coffee shop napkins. So that no matter what happens between us, for the rest of your life, something in your soul will always be searching for the poem that we were together. This will make it very hard to be your next girlfriend.
Let us love you.
1. Poetry has a long, long memory. After our love is long gone, we will still be reading your poems. You will not be the only one whose heart this breaks. Know that we will stand , reading the words written about our love – and we will ache for you The body will remember the way you shifted and sighed as skin met skin and those words will pay tribute to the lines that were composed while we moved through this world together. Because of this, we will never truly forget you.
Let us remember.
1. If you’re going to love a poet you should know this. Our words are our truths. Our blood hums with verse. We break easily. Our words save us. Our stanzas keep us alive. If we loved you at all, we loved you truly. And you will never leave us but live under our skin and beneath the tips of our fingers and in the ink spill on blank page.
Because poetry, like some love, is forever.
Unlock it, Poet {our stories are where the revolution begins}

Look at you,
beauty
Sitting so quietly
I see you there
The way the light hits your face
The way the wind filters through your hair
How the curve of your neck is the definition of grace
How your story lingers just beneath the surface.

I know you have things to say.
Things you must say

Didn’t anyone ever tell you,
That we have to speak our truths

Our stories are where the revolution begins.

So, unlock it, poet
Let loose the words
Unconstrain your endless restraint
Seduce your muse
Release your wild
Welcome this rebellion
Usher it inside
Sit it down by the fire
And dance into the night.

You are warm blood,
hot skin, tight words
You are history
and future
and magic and make believe
You are deep and raw and real

You are an uprising
A revolution onto yourself
The scarcity is over
The rationing has ended
and there are words enough
for all of us

So go mad now, poet
let the power of the story
take you over
take you under
carry you home.

Don’t dare tell me
You are not a writer
Because I’ve heard words slip
Honeyed from your lips
I’ve seen the sonnets form behind
Your graceful eyes
I’ve felt novels spin from the spiral
Of your goddess hips

Don’t you dare
Make this other
This is in you
This is why you are here

This is your story
Your vital spark
Your ache and your tears and your breakdown
Your joy and your revelry and your bliss
Your desire, your fierce longing, your unceasing want
Your utterly unguilty pleasure.

This is the root of your commitment
The space of your deepest promise
That eternal vow
To live out loud
To speak freedom
To own the deep
Of your existence
To know it is true
And good
And worthy and whole.

So unlock it ocean poet
Release it windmill dancer
Splash it on canvas watercolor darling
Play the strings, you maker of music
Breathe it in yogi, and then breath it out.

Unleash it, you goddess of words, and melody and paint and dance and sweat.
There are a million ways to tell your story

I’m ready for every last one.

Try me
all the proof i will ever need.

{for Monique and her beloved James, on the day of their wedding}

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/128517229″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
It is no secret
That this heart
of mine
Has broken
Enough times
That I’ve made
A serious investment
In a variety
Of materials
That promise to patch
Things up
For good

Many of the breaks
truthfully
My own doing
Fault lines I was born with
My unsettled and relentless seeking
leading me to look beyond
What I have for what I need
Then there is the leaving
The being left
The cold nights
On hard ground
The sobs that come not
From me
But from the center of the earth
The grief that twists
and pins me to bed while the sunlight
arcs all the way
across the outside sky
and I just wait for the night  to come again
because the whiskey pours more smoothly then
and the heavy dark is the only place
left that feels like home

but then there is this
the hope rising
stubborn and persistent.
the longing
the still beating heart
that says to hell with probability
I’m still here, and I’ve got a job to do.
the knowledge that this loving
it is the purpose of our placement on this earth
the chance we take again and again

so no, this is not a story of heartbreak
although you may have thought it was
and I couldn’t blame you
not really
my own heart has been toast for months now
and the words I spill repeating themselves
like a skipping record that is stuck on the sad songs.
because sometimes broken is the easiest place to stay

but no
this is a love story
a story of how all those breaks
and all that grief
and those unsuccessful patch jobs
place us there
right where we need to be
so when the love comes

and it does
it does and it does and it does

when it comes
if we are brave enough
to lift our eyes
and hold out our hands
and listen to the universe
when she whispers
this one.
this one for you.
and we say okay
again
again, I will try

no matter the risk
no matter my fear
no matter the grasp of grief
no matter the ridiculous odds
no matter that this one too
may leave me shattered

again I will try
because those eyes
are the ones I want to wake to
and that skin feels like a space my
hands were born knowing
and that heart, in all it’s own
history of broken glory
sounds exactly like the beat that has
always called me home.

So yes
This is a love story
the one that gets told in the midst of the war torn rubble
where the buildings and bodies are casualties of a battle without end.
And happy seems a figment of imagination
Where hope is the only thing
That keeps us alive

This is story of two souls
Who are all of us, really
Who will stand today
And promise
Not as naïve children
But as fully formed hearts
Composed directly from a hundred thousand breaks
and love stories too many to count
And those two
They’ll stand there with all of that
And say yes

Yes we will love
Yes we will try
Yes we will fight and bleed and hope and live.
Yes we will slow dance and run away, and return.
And she’ll say yes, your broken is part of your beautiful to me.
And he’ll remind her that her scars
are map that tell a story
that he loved before he heard a word.
And they’ll know that they alchemy of loss
Was part of the magic that brought them here
To this space today
And they will give thanks for all the ways
They were brave enough to break

So yes
This is a love story
Its theirs. Its yours. It’s even mine.
And here’s a secret
That even I forget
It’s all a love story
Every last bit
Even the parts that you think
you’ll never survive.

Because look at them
Those two
Standing there today
They are all the proof I’ll ever need.
wait. be still. trust. {a poem for quiet nights and wild moons}

hushed house
wide awake
music fills my ears
enters my body
stirs my spirit
darkness closes around
as if i could be the only one
alive in this entire world

and i feel the pull of the wild moon
calling me to witness
her brilliance
the way she cycles from a shadowed sliver of herself
to full radiance
over and over again
like such a thing is normal
and expected
and good

just like we become more and less of ourselves
just like we succumb to the shadows
and then spin to the light
over and over again
as if we had a choice
in the matter
as if we didn’t deserve holy reverence for
our relentless insistence on
surviving that very thing

outside
bare feet in wet grass
slow circle spin
arms out
head back
breathing in the night
footprints on warm cement
sharp rocks pressed into tender skin
forehead against metal fence
looking up
through twisted branches
to a sky filled with clouds
obscuring it all
even that wild and steady moon

but there
just there
in the one sliver of visible sky
a single star
strong and steady
only one
solitary and still
further away than my limited abilities to
fathom distance
yet still
resolved to shine

what more is needed
than just the one
one star. one body. one voice in the relentless dark.
to remind us
that there is always something ready to hold our fervent wish
something to close our hearts around
something in which to believe
to give us hope

a reason to be still. to wait. to trust.

{Jl 8.21.13}
Bring it all down on the side of love

Today I bring it all down
on the side of love
and I’ll tell you now,
yes, you should fly across the country just
for 48 hours in her arms
spend your last dollar and borrow more
to get there

steal words from the past and
ink them along your lower left rib
in a promise to never risk this.

then risk it.

let it get fucking messy.
get naked and swim around in the
havoc you’ve brought forth
by loving
claim fiercely only the brief moments
you are given.

then take more
take everything
take with relentless fury
take until the taking looks like giving
and the giving looks like a prayer.

love like holy looks when it says your name
like a confession booth redemption.
and like on your knees supplication
to gods you don’t believe in

then see what happens if you believe in them.

love like the cadence of poetry.
like nails down your back
like a battering ram
like a mother holds her child.
like a consecrated temple
and like a seedy hotel room affair.

love like everything depends on it.

because it does
and it doesn’t

so love them both
love wrong till it’s right
love like they tell you
you could not
should not
can not

and then do.

love like you had the chance and didn’t take it
love like you did and didn’t make it.
and in the quiet, desperate moments
before giving up everything.
love like you’re just about to come…
undone

now hold on. don’t let go.

love with your hands
just like your grandparents, arthritic knuckles clasped tight on their 50^th wedding anniversary
like a newborn baby
palm curled around your index finger with a grip so fierce you’d swear he could hold the weight of the world.
then let it all fall down.
and love like a fist fight
like a palm reader
like fingers trailing across braille.
like rock paper scissors
and like sign language speaking silent truths from across a crowded room.

love with your mouth.
like the sweet expectation of the moments before your very first kiss
and like the screaming match where you hurled words like they were the weapons that would set you free.
love like the taste dark chocolate and red wine mingling on your tongue
and licking a cherry popsicle on a hot summer day.
love like leaving bite marks on pale skin
and like swallowing bitter truths so you don’t hurt him anymore.

Love like the past
like wandering through an antique shop and feeling the whispers of long ago memories in dust of discarded things.
Like old, soft leather and the hard crack of a whip,
Like a long forgotten love letter slipped in the back of an old book.
Like a typewriter with sticky keys that keeps on spelling his name no matter how many times you tell them you’ve moved on.

love like the day you walked down the aisle and the day you signed the divorce papers
like the way you drew in that shaky breath right before she touched you for the first time and
like you stopped breathing the day he went away forever.
love like you haveall the answers to all the questions you’ve ever asked and like you’ll never know a single one.
love like a tangle of hands and mouths and limbs
that goes on forever
and like it all ends. Right now.

so love in the brutal tearing apart of everything you’ve ever known.
and like your scattered pieces are finally being gathered together.
like your wholeness matters more than your goodness.

your wholeness is the only measure of goodness that love will ever know.

love like you loved Superman when you were five
like you loved New Kids On The Block when you were twelve
like you loved that boy in math class when you were 16
and that girl at the bus stop when you were 22.
love like you learned to love yourself yesterday
like the way you’ve found only yourself at the end
of every choice you’ve ever made.

love is at the end of every choice you ever made.

love like maybe possibly mmmmm ok, sure. If you wanna?
love like Yes! Yes! Yes!
and like saying “Hell no. I am worth FAR more than that”
and meaning it.
love like long lost soulmates
and like fucking someone who
could not tell you your own name.

love, you need to know your own name.

so love like a car crash
like a hospital emergency room at 3am
like a war zone
like a bomb shelter.
like a selfishness
like a submission
like a saint
like a sinner
like happily ever after
and like the sweetest one night stand.

just love.
stop pretending you can’t,
stop pretending you don’t want to
stop listening to them when they tell you shouldn’t.
love because you must
because you can
because you don’t really have to

but by god, you know that you will.

bring it all
down
on the side of
love

https://soundcloud.com/jeanette-bursey-leblanc/bring-it-all-down-on-the-side
always, always, begin again

It is all going to crash down
you know
everything
brick by brick
glass shattered
foundations
crumbled

there is no way to save this.

there
is
no
way
to
save
this.

the ending
was written
long before
you ever heard
the tentative starting notes
no last ditch efforts
no swan song redemption
there is no rescuing
to be done
here

so, let it fall
let it all come down
crumble like earth quake
like forest blaze
like armageddon times
stand amidst the rubble
with trembling legs
and stardust skin

survey the damage
hold your grief close
usher it inside
name it truth
and go ahead
let it twist you
it has to
there is no other way

there
is
no
other
way

fall to the ground
let it take you down
on your knees now
so that the debris presses deep
into tender bone
marks your skin
with the harsh truth of
never again

because this?
this was fated
like the falling was fated
like the bliss was fated
like that night where
infinity touched your soul
was going to happen
no matter what
you could not have changed things

you
could
not
have
changed
things.

it’s not just good things
and beginnings that are meant to be
sometimes
endings
are written first
and we live
just to catch up
to the inevitable
finish

you know this
you know it lover
you held on
you repaired
you patched
and you kept it all together
as long as you could

but
now it is time
to let it fall
to release fists clenched
tight around emptiness
to open
to let go
to admit
that it is done

now
it
is
finally
done

forgive yourself
this ending
this aching unmet dream
do not name it
failure
or
catastrophe
it is not
another mistake
for you to own

it simply
is what
it is.
it is what must be
what was always
going to be.

lift your eyes
let it all out
all the full moon howl
and the primal wail and
the grief
you’ve kept locked
in bones.
let it all come
down now

let
it
all
come
down

release your walls
now
invite the potential
of wide
open spaces
all the way in
and know that
after endings
come the beginnings of things.

begin again, lover

always
always

begin again.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/95608272″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
just write it.

What are you waiting for?
you know the words are
right there
ready to spill
ready for truth telling
ready for spell weaving
ready to be told
just sit down
with an open journal
and a smooth pen
or the click – clack of typewriter keys
and a pristine sheet of paper
or the computer screen
and every bit of fire in your soul
no excuses
no time like the present
no where else to be
just write.
poem for the world

listen,
you, with your beach glass heart
you, with your moonshine teardrops
this is a poem for the world
and this is only a poem for you
both of those things are true
and neither, really
but either way
you, love
are holy

so, hold your capacity for melancholy
and name it strength
hold your righteous anger
and name it the pathway to peace.
honor your translucent skin,
your bone truth bruises
worship your geography of bones and scars
that roadmap of veins
the path to the center
the pulse of spirit
the gateway of want

Light torch to
bonds built from lies
let the flames build
ignite truth
and let it burn
merge ashes into melody
knit moments into worlds
howl visions into open skies
fold yourself into the endless rain
and call the wild things home.

sing rough croon
spill blood fever
coax magic spiral
nuture the fierce in your belly
let it expand
release the song in your pulse
let the explosion push outward
and rock your standing ground
let the quaking earth birth you anew

rise up, now

accept your catalogue of regret
gather close your imperfect history
this life can be violent crucible
grace doesn’t always look pretty
grief is a complicated ghost
and we are all
in some way haunted.

but this?
this is an invitation
enter your life now
build a home inside your hollow
cast a spell into the ether
evoke your own divinity
turn the music up loud
let it build
feel the reverb
settle deep in your bones
until your spirit
pulsates

until the heat of it
permeates
your entire existence

and listen, you starlight seeker
listen jackhammer goddess
you’ve been holding on too tight
to things no longer yours.
loosen your grip, lover,
ease open your palms.
come out with your hands up.
this is not arrest.
this is the beginning.

and you
must not
be tamed.

https://soundcloud.com/jeanette-bursey-leblanc/poem-for-the-world-by-jeanette
take me to the sea

Take me to the wild sea

Bring me to where

waves mark time

where salt meets skin

where I greet the depths

Take me to the wild sea

Take me home

back to where

I belong.

~~~~

Where do you belong today? Where would you go if you could?
The Core Of Your Strength

they say you are soft?

so be soft.
you have nothing to
prove.
nothing to
gain
from a forced
toughening of
your wild soul.

be soft  because you
can
because you
are
because you
know

that it is
life that has  softened
you
that has taught
you
that hard is
for brick
and wood
and cement
not for heart
and soul
not for you

you bend
and sway
you welcome
you enclose
you buoy
you float
you adapt

and you do it soft
watercolour edges
blending with the earth
and sky and sea

so be soft
sometimes
it’s the very best
way
to survive.
girl on fire { a poem for women ready to light the world }

I invite you to stoke the embers of your inner fire. Coax the flames from your center to the edges of all you reach. Make peace with the parts within you that crave that burn. Let the flames get high. Burn bright. The world needs your light.

__________

Download Girl On Fire as a magazine style PDF – print and read it when you need a reminder of who you are and the power of your light. Subscribe and download by clicking on the link above.
***

Listen With Me {a soundtrack for fanning the flame} on Spotify.

____________

there is a girl

she is wise
and wary of flames
but still, she knows
she will survive the fire
life scorches sometimes.
she has been a phoenix before
and every time
she burns to ashes
she knows
exactly how to rise
again.

she carries
destruction grief
carved river deep in her bones
specializes in
wrecking ball
knows how to bring
the whole thing down
surveys the broken
claims it as wholeness
and names it all good
she knows well
the holy necessity
of beginning again.

she has gone mad
for beauty
found rapture in shadows
calls poetry her religion
she seduces uncertainty
like a dominatrix
bows to no god
names herself goddess
builds alters
to the divinity
of heat and sweat and sex
and claims righteous ownership of
the body she has been given.

she once held her truth
in bone marrow,
locked deep.
but she was always
prone to fracture
learned that words flowed best
at the broken spots
she wrote splinter point novellas
told shatter stories
knit words into worlds
and worlds into heat
and heat into breath
and breath into medicine
and she learned her voice
had the power to heal.

she lives transparent now
welcomes the feel
of air on bare skin
throws arms wide
holds out her heart
and says here
take this
all of it
she figured early
that far too much energy
is invested in veiling
truth
in hiding bodies
in cloaking love
she refuses
to cultivate shame
she saves her effort
for vital things.

she knows that

love is expensive
and always worth
the price
she knows home is not
where she lives
but something
inside held
and sometimes
only found by leaving
she knows that walls
are imaginary
and that open doors
are everywhere
and that eventually
we will all
make our way
back to the sea
back to the crashing waves
back to salt water truth

she does not believe in one day
no happily ever after
or black and white
hard truths
her forever is now
she finds her rapture in the fullness
of this moment
humanity is her only dogma
kindness her communion
and church a mountain top
in the center of the desert
while the city pulses below
she speaks amen
in every holy fragment of existence.

she always knew she’d have daughters
knew she would mother them well.
she teaches them the value of their
outside voice
their no voice
their yes voice
their my entire being is a temple voice
she teaches them that their spirit
is truth
and their truth
is strength
and their strength
is vulnerability
and their vulnerability is a gift.
she knows too many girls
are broken before they
become
she has done battle in the name of rebirth
carries her scars with fierce grace
she finds beauty in the breakdown
and wholeness in the shatter
strength in the fault lines
and goodness in everything.

she is not afraid to name her gifts
knows the magic in her words
knows the spiral in her hips
she has a vital spark
at the center of her longing
she has secrets behind her eyes
and will share them
with anyone
who asks
but she only wants those
who commit
to asking.

she knows that compromise
is for vocations
and that spirit
is non-negotiable
she accepts no labels or limits
build her a box
and she will dismantle it carefully
use the pieces
to create a stage
and sing her own wild song
knows there is a power
in the melody we carry in our
bones.

She knows the lotus blooms
in mud
she knows the phoenix
goes down in flames
she knows the rapture of lust
and the escape of captivity
she knows the center of the paradox
is where the truth is found.

she is full of sky
full of starshine
full of goddess flame
bleeds words
speaks truth
welcomes it all
howls at the moon
she is a girl on fire
she is stoking the flames
she is lighting the world
she is burning to ashes

And always she is rising

And rising

And rising again.

__________________________________

Download Girl On Fire as a magazine style PDF – print and read it when you need a reminder of who you are and the power of your light. Subscribe and download by clicking on the link above.
follow your heart

this afternoon
I am doing nothing
but sitting here
reading poetry.

the muse is resting
she has lots to do
right now.
she simmers and burns
and holds things close
this is gestation time
I understand
the birth will come
when
the words are ready

and so I sit here
hot coffee
brick walls
cheap leather sofa
laptop open
music in my ears
and let the words
fill me

isn’t it lovely
I think
to absorb
to take in
to soak up
to call this
work
to name this
seduction
to file away words
and phrasings
jotting down
ideas that will one day
become

on the next sofa
two women sit
dancers
indescribably lovely
I can tell
by their posture
and the way their arms
speak stronger
than their words
fluidity a part of
their bones
their bodies
poetry
even while
sitting still

I read love poems
and stanzas on loss
and the heat of sex
and the diaries of lovers
long dead
and the imaginings
of fantastical worlds
there is wisdom soaked
into sentences
I claim it for
my own

my eyes skim
lips curve in a smile
hips shift in response
sometimes a sigh escapes
unbidden
because the combination of
a particular set of words
and the music in my ears and the
light that shifts just so everything
appears illuminated by magic
moves my soul
to a private
call and response
that is one of
the most true
forms of
worship I know

and this
will not make me rich
will not write
that novel
will not pay
the bills
will not move me forward
there is no
success to be found
in the beautiful light
or the ageless poems
or the perfection of rhythmic
beat

but today
is not time for any
of that
it is only a day for
loving words
for bearing witness
for filling up
for giving over
for waiting for
the lengthening of days
and the coming of
the light
to what feels good
for no other reason
than that.

and so here I sit
doing the important
work
of reading poetry
and giving thanks
for the choices
that have
brought me
here.
So This Is How It Is (A Poem To Remind You Of Your Divinity)

so,
this is how it is.

you get picked last for the team
left out of the plans
excluded from the circle.
the rejection letter arrives in the mail
she picks the other girl
the door you were about to walk through
gets slammed hard in your face
and you are left outside in the cold
stunned and alone.

yes
sometimes this is how it is.

you will stand in the harsh glare of the spotlight
looking out into a sea of faces and know
this performance will not be greeted by applause
you will want more than you get
and loved less than you deserve.

at the end of the day you will sit wearily
having done your best
your very best
and realize that nobody has noticed
or worse, everybody noticed all the wrong things.

and you will know what they are saying about you
because you have heard it before
from those voices that live in the very back corner of your brain.
the ones that say
that you are too much
or not enough
or far more difficult
not near as easy as expected
bigger or smaller or louder or more silent than what
they
wanted-needed-expected you to be

and exiled from your desire
and chastised for your wanting
and ridiculed for your being
you ache
your shoulders droop
and you feel vulnerably visible
or maybe as a ghostly apparition,
ignored by those whose witness you most crave
naked before impossible judgment

this is when demons that stalk
roar out of shadows
perch on your right shoulder
breath fire into your ear
flamed whispers searing a brand into
the sacred flesh covering your collarbone

-inadequate
not good enough
stupid
worthless un-liked
less-than
too much
slut
boring
attention whore
waste of space-

and you will hear them loud and clear
every fiber of every muscle absorbing
every last word
drowning out quiet voices that speak other, highly suspect, truths
– you are loved, you are beautiful, you are enough-
because those words make bile rise in throat
skepticism entrenched deep fighting against
flowery words that yearn for a home
that cannot be found.

but right now?
this is not the giving up time
no matter how many times you’ve given up before
that would be a predictable end to a predictable story
and you are anything but a predictable woman
with a predictable life

this time the searing breath wakes you up
this time the numbing is excluded from the party
and your head lifts
and your shoulders square
and you breathe deep into the exact
center
of your goddess power.

this time
you do not apologize
or sulk into shadows
or back off the stage in shame.
you do not accept their rejection
conform to their definition
you do not dim your colors
or fade into oblivion

No.

this time
you will start your own team
widen your circle
cast your net
change all the plans
rip up that letter filled with no
and paint the word
acceptance in rainbow colors across your skin
under the glow of the welcoming moon.

you will do what you damn well please
refuse to define yourself as
part of any half-conceived partnership
decline the invitation to stay
when your soul only whispers, go.
and choose to exchange vows with
your own wild divinity instead
you will take steps to get what you want
give yourself every last ounce of love you have always deserved
discovering along the way the multitudes within you
so that alone is never lonely

you will buy enough paint
to create your own marquee
emblazoned with every last bit of your glory
you will step back into the spotlight
and magnify the beat of your heart
until it fills the room
and the sound of your own electric heart
becomes a standing ovation loud enough to power
twenty more women toward their destiny.

and you will take notice
off all the right things
and all things they took pleasure in labeling wrong
until your too-much-not-enough becomes just exactly right
and you wrap it all up in bliss
celebrate it as front page news
bold headline blazed right across the top of the wise night sky

and you will hear what they say about you
they will always say things about women like you
but the truth of your song
is now playing so loud
that their words will be drowned out by
the sound of your own singing
and by the festival of spirit that has been gathering in
celebration.

when the demons come
and they will come
you will usher them close
coax them near
seducing with piercing eyes and parted lips
you will perch on their right shoulder
and whisper
with quiet insistence
go. now is my time.
filling up your chest and your lungs and your mighty spirit
with visible proof of your inherent divinity.
your roaring sensuality
your selfless selfishness
and you will sear their skin with your brazen reclamation
of self.

and you will throw your arms wide
and lift your head back
and feel love radiating at you from all directions
especially from your white-hot core
fierce with reality
righteous with conviction
certain of self

and you will breathe
it in deep and think

YES.
So THIS is how it is.

_____

Photo by Fabrice Villard on Unsplash
Happy Birthday – Dear One

{we’ve been us for eight years now. or a dozen lifetimes, depending on how you measure. births. deaths. non-profits. divorce. freefall. crash and burn. beginnings and endings and beginnings. falling in love and lust and hate and forgiveness. this day marks the day of your beginning, dear one. I celebrate it, always.}

We discuss
often
our past lives.
the way we have
been lover
and mother
and child
and midwife
and brother
and husband
and guru
to each other
a dozen
lives
at least
before
finally
crashing
here
in this desert
we make home
despite the
fact that
our souls
never stop
calling
for the
sea

we once
decided
a book
we proclaimed
we will write
and remember
all that we
have been
and done
and learned
together
yes
we smiled
and leaned our heads
together
like we have done
a million
times
at least
your light
corkscrews
mingling
with my inky
strands
our mirror
souls
coming
info perfect
alignment

and although
in typical
flighty
fashion
we’ve not
written a word
it doesn’t
really matter
none of it
really matters
not with us
not the where
or when
or what or why or
how much
or the indecisive days
or the stagnant months
or the hard years
what matters is
the afternoons
in bed
doing nothing
and the way
we always
mean to say
one more thing
before handing up
the phone.
what matters is
the open door
at 2am, and
the hands that
shake with anger
heal with energy
and the way
without writing
a word
we already
know the ending
of the book

it’s us
of course
us and
the pounding
pacific
back to back
your light
corkscrew curls
once again
mingling with my
inky straight
strands
the salt on our skin
and in our veins
and the words we
say
that our
hearts have
always known.
Of course. It
has always
been
you.
Blessed Be

Blessed be your longing. Your endless ache. Your sharp crystal shatter. Your sea glass heart.

Blessed be the long, slow slide into desire. The swift plunging wound to the heart. The bleeding out onto the kitchen floor.

Blessed be the fierce of want and the howl of despair and the swan dive of surrender.

Blessed be the indignation of right and the never more naked of wrong.

Blessed be your strong smooth body and your roadmap of scars and brittle bones that give way under the weight of lives unlived.

Blessed be the unmet passion, the ruthless boredom, the absolute certainty of regret.

Blessed be the sweet laughter. The hard fuck. The bitter fight. The soft impossible forgiveness.

Blessed be the restless seeker. The relentless urgency. The unanswered call.

Blessed be the giving up. The hope unraveled. The void at the end. The clenched fists and the desperate grasping and the way it all slides away when the time comes.

Blessed be your trembling breath and your strong knees. Blessed be your siren song and your briny tears and your frantic prayer.

Blessed be your violin body, your electric hipbone, your staircase ribs.

Blessed be your slaughtered dreams and your cynical projection. Blessed be your fire of initiation. Your ritual of comfort. Your secret shame. Your whispered confession. Blessed be your primal roar.

Blessed be the rejection. The hollowed out, disregarded heart. Blessed be the end of the rope, the absence of expectation, the way it all gives way eventually.

Blessed be the blood and guts and gore of it all.

Blessed be the wanton emptiness of greed and the brutal havoc of love and the way peace grows in between cracks in cement.

Blessed be the dirty street corner hustle and the pretty surface of things and where they meet in the most sacred center.

Blessed be the harsh divinity. The winged flight. The salt skin. The symphony of lust.

Blessed be the holy and the worship. Blessed be the sacred mother. Blessed be the faithless edges. Blessed be the ritual of liturgy and agnostic devotion. Blessed be the profane and the provocation.

Blessed be the brazen orgy, the unabashed revelry, the stained glass cathedral of your hungry flesh.

Blessed be the solitary pilgrimage and the long journey home.

Blessed be the one who contains herself. Blessed be the one who contains us all.

Blessed be the truth that demands reckoning and the goodbye that wrenches secrets from behind closed lips. Blessed be the sucker punch bruises.

Blessed be smooth slide of sun behind the mountains. Blessed be the wise desert and the pounding sea.

Blessed be the sweet swell of words. The luxury of punctuation. The silent spaces between bodies. The ragged sigh of breath on bone.

Blessed be the poet and the poem and the one between them who has no words of her own.

Blessed be the plagiarism, the thievery, the rash disregard for origin, the gratitude for the beginning of things.

Blessed be our free fall into destiny. Our slow burn. Our consuming fire. Blessed be the breaking and the becoming.

Blessed be the ugly. Blessed be the sweet sin. Blessed be the rage. Blessed be the grace.

Blessed be. Blessed be. Blessed be.

In the end, all words are just another way to say amen.
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