Flee

Maybe if I pretend I’m not breathing.

Maybe if I scream loud enough.

Maybe if I can get out of this room.

Maybe if I can get the clip away from him.

Maybe if I can tell him I need water.

Maybe if I can make it out the door.

Maybe I can make it to my friend’s house.

Maybe if I call the police they’ll protect me.

Maybe if I ducked fast enough I’d be okay.

Domestic violence isn’t funny. It doesn’t happen once. It terrorized me.

My things would come up missing only to be found burned in the back yard. I wasn’t allowed rest because of the mocking from outside my bedroom door that I had to put a lock on to keep him from raping me again. I couldn’t go to my friends without having to check in frequently to make sure I wasn’t doing anything inappropriate which I didn’t.

The first time he hit me was with both of his palms smacked into my shoulders pushing me backwards. I was so surprised that I didn’t respond. When he started going for the face, that was the most difficult. When he pulled the gun I’d gotten for personal protection, putting it to my head, I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want him to be the cause of my death. I chose to flee.

I read years later that he said he didn’t want a divorce. Then why would you beat on your wife? Why would you pull a gun on her? Why would you blame her for your shortcomings? I don’t regret leaving him. I only regret not doing so sooner.

If you’re in a domestic violence situation, or are uncertain whether or not your experiences are abuse, please contact Domestic Violence Hotline, or call 800-799-SAFE (7233). If you have been sexually assaulted, yes, even by your husband/partner/boyfriend/girlfriend, you can find help at R.A.I.N.N. (Rape And Incest National Network) by visiting their website at rainn.org or calling 800 656 HOPE (4673)

You are not alone. Help is out there. You will be okay.

Mythical

To capture the eyes that adore me back

To experience the breath of your kisses

To envelope myself in your arms

To be in silence with the chorus of rising bellies

To caress the satin that calls my name

To press my urgency to your ear, confessing

To know, understand, you are my mythical being

Abide

sexydancer

The taste of your skin

is the richest flavor of sin

Let me drink in your dreams

Collapse at the seams

Let me dive into your spirit

Steadfast as your intimate

Abiding in your soul

your voice, whisper soft, and low

Let me read your skin like braille

breathing in you, then exhale

Give me your deepest release

Let me paint you, my masterpiece

in skies of orange and purple hue

Give to me the art of you

Missed

I missed your birthday a couple of years back.

I was locked up, sorry about that.

See I got to running with a rougher crowd

They drank too much and partied too loud.

I knew they were bad, but it was so much fun

I knew my world was about to come undone.

I left you with your Grandma Jones

She took you in and gave you a home.

I couldn’t destroy myself while keeping you

I mourned your loss, but got your name tattooed

on my forearm where I see it every day.

I missed you but I had to stay away.

I hope someday you might miss me as well

while I sit here 5-10 in a 4 by 6 cell

I’m sorry I missed your birthday a couple months back

But I was locked up, sorry about that.

 

This is an imagining of why someone might leave their child behind for the sake of self-destruction. This is not based on fact or any person I’ve known living or dead.

Protest

You turn my blood the color of my skin

I’m made of mud, like you, my kin

We breathe the air made from the trees

We drink the water from stormy seas

We laugh without ever being taught

We’ve all done things that we oughtn’t

I object to your hasty dismissal

which, my friend, is abysmal

I deprecate you right to your face

I am far from being your idea of disgrace

I am human, just like you

Deny it all you’d like, we both know it’s true.

Shadows Vanish

shadows

Try as I might, I can’t keep from weeping

I wish upon wish, my traditions keeping

But from my heart, my tears are leaking

Your silence screams at my speaking

Oh, how I wish you’d trusted me more

Instead of looking for ways to score

From my chest, my heart you tore

But those are shadows of vanished lore

I love(d) you with every bit of my being

From our home you stole while fleeing

Every bit of our future fleeting

I wish, I wish that you were seeing

As these holidays warm others homes

 

I watch and miss you, feeling alone

My traditions are now gone to tome

May love find you someday, wherever you roam.

Mem’ries

monopolytennessee

The crescent moon tilts slightly

against the indigo sky

through the shadows, I move spritely

with unbidden tears I cry

I trudge the road less traveled

My warmest sweater unraveled

So I shiver in the gath’ring storm,

grief overwhelming, I MUST mourn

As daylight breaks the night

I allow my feet quick purchase in the light

A haven ahead affords me rest

I am given respite at my behest

Home is where I’m going to be

If only my mem’ries weren’t in Tennessee.

Love Bless You

allyouneedislove

Love = God

If God’s original intent was to be perfect love for creation, then does it not make sense that Love, in name, is vain? Because, it created itself to be adored; in fact it requires adoration and glorification. It means that without the nurturing, cherishing, and honor done to those loved, it kills the very thing it proclaims to protect.

This is particularly accurate in relationships. If one or both allows life, possessions, or other things to come in between two people whom love each other, that love can rapidly become resentment, frustration, and anger. But when time is spent to prioritize the bond shared between two people, love does, indeed, flourish. So in this sense, love is not above wanting or needing to be appreciated.

But then what of the flowers that know nothing else but to be beautiful? Or a worm that worships at the flower’s roots? Or the bees that tend to the needs of beauty without a thought to why they pollinate the face of roses, daisies, and daffodils as certainly as they do the dandelions? Are they proof of the love we are meant to experience? Or are they merely energy used to engage us in questions of our own worthiness to be loved?

Love = Mortality

However, the beauty we are gifted with all around us are all reminders of a darker fare. Everything is a reminder of our own mortality. We can witness the cycles, seasons, and lifespans of many things around us. They are all preparing for our return to our own place of death; our own return to the stars.

We are constantly reminded by these living/sentient beings that our time here ends. They remind us that, just as a frond pushes towards the sun to work in the symbiotic ancient growth of life and beauty, so will it return to the earth.

We see but do not accept. Even in our known mortality, we allow the people we love to fall away from us. We forget to nourish the very roots from which we have grown. We build fragile connections through various addictions or meaningless distractions. We find so many ways to keep from seeing the truth of our energies.

We can do the same towards those we love. We can “kill” them with our neglect. Assuming, as with life, they will always be there. Maybe we view those we love as possessions which drives a wedge deep into the love we’re born to be. We may also place undue expectations on our loved ones, demanding that they comply with our own ideal despite their own person. These acts tear us from love. Denying they are also mortal locks us into taking one another for granted. We ignore the facts laid out all around us as proof we will also die.

Love = Holiness

It is only when we understand that we are created, born, and exist to be divine love that we can embrace our innate holiness in service to one another. This is, in it’s pure state, a declaration of love of self. It affords us a view of our own energy bottled in a different package. By igniting our own holiness, we are taught that although we are unique, our own being becomes one with each encounter.

There are many reasons we may deny others the love we are destined to give. We may be teaching our divine self where we most need to heal. We may be rejecting the lesson we’re meant to learn. We may also reject others because the lesson has already been accomplished, has already been learned and processed.

Just as we may reject opportunities in accordance to how we feel we are, or more importantly, if we believe we are worthy of the gift presented. Even the poor of spirit wish, whether consciously or not, to be cherished, admired, even adored which lends heavily to the hypothesis that we are all divine; all forms of God of which we are, by the blessing of our birthright, born to Love.

These Are My People: Aunt Lizzie

The turning of the Wheel is honored in her space

the breathing of the seasons accounted at her grace

With eyes the color of summer sky she observes the holy

Appreciating each season as its revealed so slowly

Her hair is the color of bonfires, of cider mills or pumpkin pies

When she laughs, I mean really laughs, it could make you cry

She sees the world in music, notes upon a page,

Not a moment passes by that she’s not fully engaged.

She can make a piano dance a jig or an organ sing to God

But she believes, somewhere inside, that she is somehow flawed.

When she gives the gift of her, in whichever way she does,

There is never any doubt in mind, that you are truly loved.

 

“I’ll drink to that!”

Recklessly she discarded words,

that,

from another’s lips,

warrants confetti worthy celebration.

But because her breath is liquid lies,

the cloak of alcoholic obscurity

barely acknowledges discussion.

Smoke and mirrors,

meant with the road to hell’s best intentions,

whiskeys its way over the insult.

The gilded desperation staged as

Happily drunken after!