Living in the fire swamp

Too languid for hoping
Where silence and heartbeat meet
In anxious beating and eyes burning
Slow dance for dreaming
Soft kiss for wanting
All for the taking

But time presses on
Pulling and stumbling
For want of your touch
I’m drunken and slurring
Calls of oblivion
Sink

All decisions fled
In the blurring lines
Between having and missed chances
Between smiles and cut flower laughter
Between you
And I

Take a chance

Rather have the burning wreckage of what was
and failed than the hopeful possible
of what may be
Than the dream of you
Than to hold you in my arms
In sleep, in distance, and know the answer is never
Better to hold my heart inviolate
Than to fall forever

Holding a breath

Still
Heat drapes
As in finery
The blank thrust of empty sky
Filling blue
A bowl of promises
Left unfulfilled

Time slows
Possibilities die
My hand reaches out
Wondering

Words ground down smooth
And all that
Was
Lays
Still

Waiting

here in this limbo
Time stands still
Just you and I
And all our baggage
But hearts made light
Words and deeds

with open arms
heart wide
for choices to be made

Silly heart: revisited

The reality is I’m starting to fall for you. I get butterflies when I see that you liked something and when you comment it makes me feel, about what I posted, validated. It’s not a game. It’s what I feel and I don’t want to play games with you regarding my feelings. What I am is afraid. Not just afraid that if I say something, it will be revealed that I’m reading far too much into things. But also that I may lose someone who genuinely likes my work, because I’ve made you feel uncomfortable.

You asking if it was a game was like a kick to the stomach. It’s not a game. I would never knowingly play with someone’s emotions like that. It’s a action dictated by fear. I only didn’t realize that until something was said. Now that I know I must face it. As I feel I have by publishing a response. Tell me whatever you wish. I wait.

Each grain falls alone

Broken up and broken
Shattered up and shooken
Beaten and battered
You’re all that had mattered
Dreams are forever
But in reality it’s never
Reap and repeat
I wish it were more upbeat
But it’s all just ruthless
All my efforts are fruitless
These aren’t games that I play
But emotions run deep
For all that I say
I am here for keeps
Need a word in my ear
Something to tell me to stay
To make me take that leap
To fight all that is fear
And wait.

My night out

That moment of hope between waking and dream
just that moment before it’s all that it seems
just the seconds that pass in heavy silence
just the times when on the tip of my tongue I’ve not said
I want you on the tip of my tongue
just these moments we let flow by
whether from desire or its lack
just this not quite fear
not enough to make me act
and the desire to say yes, mistress/yes, master
take me
use me as you desire
and in the morning make me coffee
and kiss
but this slow silence where it’s all ponderous dream
and the next round
the next dream
the next chance?
It’s on me.

Poem

I’m afraid
afraid that in exposing a personal truth I am in fact exposing those I wish to protect
relationships I wish to safeguard.
Do I write it out of ego
self sabotage or bravery
perhaps bound and determined to spin out
I am tearing myself apart again
She safeguards herself but it’s too late for me
do I now destroy all else in some reckless attempt to win back what was never mine
each time is a roll of loaded dice with Leonard Cohen
one more bet
one more spin of the wheel
this time
this time it’ll be different.