WEIGHT
So I weigh more now.
The years have weighed
So much more upon me, ballast to all
My assayed and clumsy launches into the sky
Only to land by face-planting
Into ungiving rock and the insult of
Earth in each wound I open with
Every hard landing when trying to fly.
I do this every day.
Every minute I can dream
Of touching heaven’s floor
With an impudent fingertip.
I don’t stop, no matter
What weight I carry today,
Now, a minute ago.
It is the weight of all my life
Of noes and maybes and could haves;
The weight of all my what ifs
And what would have beens,
All the dreams stillborn
No matter my work to bring them
To life, to breathe into them,
To be them. To have them for mine own.
There are always dreams.
I will keep welcoming them
No matter the hurt they bring
When they die as they die:
Drowned in my tears,
Deafened by my fury,
Bruised by my fingers’
Unrelenting visegrip.
They only die when they are pried
From my hands and my strength is
Outmatched by the universe refusing me.
I pit myself not against the mortal.
Perhaps that is my flaw:
I would challenge the gods
For all that I desire.
So what if I am mortal and to wish,
To dream, to act on the wishing dream
Is beyond me or my means? I won’t know until
I find out. The hard way. The painful way.
Yet, still, I dream.
My wings are not broken,
My broom sits by the door.
I will fly to scout the firmament,
To chart its stars and touch the face
Of the Force that made me.
Exhausted. Battered. Torn to shreds
In heartbreak and sorrow,
I dream. I dream. I dream.
I breathe deeply now and begin to run:
I launch myself into space
Again, again and yet again.
I will have flight. I will.
I breathe. I think. I will.
I will fly.
One way, or another.
Broken or not, here I come.
DARK CHOCOLATE LOVE
For Trixie, who loves dark chocolate
Your love for me is dark
As chocolate from the Devil’s own hand:
Bitter shot through all the sweet,
Impenetrable as your eyes
Full of all things unmentionable
In polite society;
All those things that thrive
In the absence of light
And refuse to die when
They surface into the sun.
Your love for me melts
All over my hands
In my mouth,
On the skin and within;
In the cracks of my spirit
Where the world has forced its way in;
There to become the putty
Holding the me of mes in.
Your love for me is the dark
In my holy of holies
(my holiest holes?)
From which my voice broadcasts
To all and sundry,
Or not. Usually not.
There it is,
Where I need it most,
The dark that loves
All that has abandoned
The lightness of me.
There it is,
The honest sin,
The bare-naked skin,
The passion without filter.
There it is, my dearest,
How you take all that is
Umber and shadowed,
How you reply in kind
With no judgments,
No platitudes,
No whitewashing
To make it easy.
Easy is not my way.
That’s just the way
I love to get it:
Dark as coffee,
Deep as the nighttime sea,
Slightly acrid, slightly acid,
All so very me.
So I can lounge with it,
Take my time to savor
The heart of your unfettered flavor
Given openly, without reserve.
I need no filters,
Not too much sweetness,
No purity,
Not any form of restraint,
No blunting this keen edge
Biting into me as much as I
Bite into it: Deeply.
I don’t need perfection,
Just this moment of ars penumbra.
Yes, give it to me.
Hold nothing back.
I like my love
Dark as chocolate.