wildfire

I am calm now
for the moment
the fire has subsided
and my insides have only ashes
The damage remains
I have not forgotten
it is a vivid memory
I pour water on my heart everyday
to keep my insides in
and the outside out
it is a fragile world
not even a bud has sprung
do not bring your food steps here
you are not welcome
let me soul grow

Just a Thing

You didn't fall for the
Scream dance fear of
The empty basket
The broken hustle
Leading nowhere
No, you didn't
Fall for the fast
Legged race to the
Cliff side of security
And endless yearning
Deep deep hole of nothingness
Disappearing hands grasping
bright eyes tears
Waterfalls into daggers of
Broken promises
You didn't fall for it, Dad
You escaped with bruises
And tales, nourishing knowing
You said "it's just a thing"
And made me feel
Like I made the Earth
Spin but
I'm not you, Dad
And look for relief in
The places you aren't
Falling falling
Cliff side feelings
Manufactured hope for
Certainty
When will I learn?

Starving

Some days, it seems,
without my choosing
I am not grateul
not thankful
not happy to be alive
without you
But here I am
anyway
Gorging on your memory
digesting the past over and over
and over again
with starving eyes and lips

Some days, I am not grateful
Only faithful that you have
fed me enough
to keep me full
without you here

Too Far

When the words in your throat
Strangle you
When the hope in your heart
Is replaced with complicity
Not able to remember pain
Or joy
Or future
Or past
When the poet in you is covered
Buried alive
Barely alive
When you feel the pain come up
And you tell yourself
No, I can't speak to you today
Or this week
Or this month
Or this year
And the pain buries
deep down
Cuddled around your happiness
For warmth
Growing bigger and sicker
Each day
When the life you live begins
Killing you from the inside out,
That's when you know
You've gone too far.

Salvation

I feel you everywhere I go
and I find you, traces of you.
sometimes it's unexpected
jimi hendrix painted on a street corner
in Dublin
Jefferson Starship on the radio
on the really hard days.
A really funny, inappropriate joke
at the table over
Days that just work out
and days that don't.
Those times, finding you is a 
secret code only I know
and you
those days, finding you
feels like salvation and
loosing you all over again.
Craving your soft hugs and
fearing the coldness after the warmth.
Those moments
I forget.
I painted my eyes with you
long ago.

No

The day you took my home
ate it up and left me
empty
the day you destroyed my voice
swallowed my "no"
I couldn't recognize it
I had been preparing for this day
trading dignity for safety
years of dulling my fear with
The illusion of control
Believing I could stop the fire inside you
From burning me
Not allowing myself to feel my
Already chard skin
I turned over and exchanged
your rage for my spirit
Your touch burned and
branded my skin
and my silence told me
It'll end soon
I don't know why I said "no"
on that day
the reservoir of refusal cracked
and slipped out the truth I
had avoided
contained and hid
the day you took my "no", and
flatened my words underneath
your weight
was just another day.
My life had ended
long before