As I watch her dying and she doesn’t even know. I’m embraced by a smell. It’s sweet. It’s not utterly unpleasant. It’s the smell of the grass in my childhood backyard and her fried cornbread and the Downy sheets in our clothes. It’s goodbye. Before I forget.
There is such noise in the ocean. But also such silence. The waves of knowing there is a landing place for everything. For covering footprints in the sand from yesterday. And sparkles of old forgotten shells. Awaiting the sunrise.
What’s happening now? We are forced to be apart yet I hear your cries for togetherness. You ask why I care. I ask why you don’t. I want to forgive you. But forgiveness is like my rose that’s dying now. And I nip it in the bud. And I wait. For the next season.
Time has no order now. One day someone will find the remnants of us on a beach. And they will stop and pick us up. And put them in their pocket. And we will live on. On their shelves. Hidden behind a mask. And unable to breathe.
Today was a day. Someone sadly told me they no longer wanted to live. Someone bravely told me they started gender transition. Someone fearfully told me their Mom has COVID. I realized. We need Love now more than ever. It’s the only vaccine that will save us. That. And each other
All of my favorite words were written in the wind
held for a moment
cupped in the hands
of the drops of rain
in that moment
before they broke
against your skin
#vss#vsspoem
We are singing to you tonight. The frogs and the cicadas and the crickets and even the fox screaming from our dens. Maybe you never heard us before from the depth of your sleep. But our voices will echo in your sunrise and make you wonder. Why. #JUNETEENTH
All the air grabs me like a ghost of yesterday. Reminding me of some other time. Where are you now my ancestors? Is this our fate. Or yours. Or ours together. Is this what you meant when you said goodbye?
I feel the pain like the birds that chirp in new tones we never heard before. So early in the day. So late in the evening. Crying out with songs of wonder and release. Waiting. For the silence. To end.
I heard a lawnmower today and I reveled in the humanity of it. A person. Near me. Ok to touch a yard but I couldn’t get too close. I hear the chimes tonight. It’s so quiet other than the chimes. Somewhere. Someone else hears them.
I am tired. Tired of songs and sunsets and sunrises. I’m tired of promises that break like glass on the floor and leave scars I can repair with a smudge of a pencil. But I’m so tired. Tomorrow is just another today.
Be the girl with the brick-red lips that spray stories like wild swallows. Be the boy in a moonlit thicket stuffing his pockets with stars. Be the ink of unwritten wonders. Be the carpenter of hidden doors. Be the fool who dreams with eyes wide open.
#SlapDashSat#vss365#writing
Paris. I first met you in 1996 and have never returned other than my memories of baguettes, real butter, strong coffee and sidewalk dreams. Our hearts hurt for you. Our prayers go up into a shell of a cathedral. But God is still there. We are still there.
I tried Old Love and New Love and the only Love I can’t seem to try is Self Love. It’s the hardest of heartbreaks and the only Truth that Love has to offer.