“winter (reprise)”
i don’t complain
about the cold
anymore.
sometimes, i don’t
even feel it.
it’s so cold
they say,
scrambling in,
cheeks blazing,
one after another,
god it’s cold
huffing and puffing,
faces contorted,
rubbing and
rubbing their hands.
i used to hate
the winter.
i’m a summer baby
i’d assert –
all glistening
sweat,
waves rolling in,
green leaves.
none of this –
penetrating chill,
breathing smoke,
every cell
floating through
your frozen
bloodstream
drawn up tight,
each day getting
darker and darker
as you plunge
deeper and deeper
into this season,
the pure pain
of resistance.
now, though –
i don’t mention
it to anyone.
yeah i reply,
nodding.
you’ll be warm
again soon –
smiling,
as if whispering
this to my
own secret heart
instead,
the one that
desperately needs
the reassurance.
the cold can’t hurt
me anymore
because now
any amount of
burn from
freezing fingers
pales infinitely
in comparison
with the
actual cold,
the real cold, here –
the way my fingertips
could light
from lack of
warmth –
my god, nothing,
anymore –
radiating from
your frame –
out of you,
for me.
you, my
unintended chance
for something
more –
the absence, it
burns like only
a fire
extinguished
can burn –
captivated
by my own
sense of
alarm –
the cold can’t
touch me now
because
i have felt
infinitely
darker
and more frigid
when i cling
to you
and your
arms lay
lifeless,
talk to you
while you stare
straight ahead,
beg for you
with eyes and
lips and words,
so senselessly,
when i know
as well as you
know that
sometimes
once it goes away
it never comes
back.
my god, i know
what frozen
means –
and it is not this –
dead branches and
ice shards,
the nightly squeal
of the kettle as we
silently, separately
sip to
artificial
warmness..
no.
this winter now
means
the shiver in
my soul,
that ache
beyond loneliness
howling through
my bones
each time i
wonder what it
hurts so much
to wonder:
will i ever truly feel
that fire –
our fire –
ever
again?
“V. XII”
wild hearts can't be broken, i told myself when this all began. how far from the truth it now seems.. maybe this has happened because i’m so afraid to feel it – his loss, her loss, my loss – all internalized. i will be better, and i won’t break. this wild heart of mine – it will burn even after the rest of me has turned to ash. because yes – the universe has visited me. it beckoned me to the future, told me i would survive. it loosed my grip upon the ego and the sadness and the fear – all sense of entitlement and even belonging, save for the space i had in the cosmos itself. now – here i sit with the stardust in my trembling hands – they were too bright, i squeezed too hard – i thought i could, i thought i was.. the punctures don’t hurt. it’s everything else. the deepest aches that always strike without warning. they are what make me feel the most fragile – how they seize me from behind and buckle my knees – and oh, what violence i feel inside myself for crying – not only for crying, but for crying when i thought i was safe. hanging from my constellation, even by the tips of my fingers – still, it was better than falling. i couldn’t. yet the universe, in all its spectacular beauty and sorrow, insists on showing me what i’ve lost – pressing it into my consciousness like sand from the shore scratching mercilessly against stinging, sunburnt skin. even surrounded by the warmth of thousands, overwhelmed by the lights and sound, singing the words with a voice that is no longer my own, now choked by emotion – i am raw, raw as the moon unspeakable in its brilliance, as the explosions of fireworks that suddenly mean nothing, as the recollected glimpses of those nights we thought this would never, ever end. what do you do, now, in the aftermath of forever? in the postscript your bleeding hands can barely write? walk on, my child, and fall like a star. because it is the only way you too will be reborn.
“becoming”
with thanks to rilke, neruda, rumi
i am experiencing
the strangest
purity
of spirit –
like staring
into the face of
rilke’s angel,
so terrifying in
its beauty
and absoluteness.
i somehow feel
surged with the
energy
that could
launch me over
a cliff –
and, laughing,
i would descend –
and in
so doing –
float right back.
i feel like
i am in danger of
becoming
detached –
free-wheeling,
“heart broke loose,”
ancient
whirling dervish
spouting the
metaphysical
that is becoming
so much more
real
than the
real.
what is the
actual
danger here?
i am
propelled
by a force
that is
beyond and
within me –
i could lose it
all
but somehow
still
walk on.
perception is
pried loose
from the bonds
we make –
suddenly
there is such
grace
in the wildness.
the order without
order
sharpens
before our eyes..
the step,
sometimes –
it’s that easy
to take.
i don’t complain
about the cold
anymore.
sometimes, i don’t
even feel it.
it’s so cold
they say,
scrambling in,
cheeks blazing,
one after another,
god it’s cold
huffing and puffing,
faces contorted,
rubbing and
rubbing their hands.
i used to hate
the winter.
i’m a summer baby
i’d assert –
all glistening
sweat,
waves rolling in,
green leaves.
none of this –
penetrating chill,
breathing smoke,
every cell
floating through
your frozen
bloodstream
drawn up tight,
each day getting
darker and darker
as you plunge
deeper and deeper
into this season,
the pure pain
of resistance.
now, though –
i don’t mention
it to anyone.
yeah i reply,
nodding.
you’ll be warm
again soon –
smiling,
as if whispering
this to my
own secret heart
instead,
the one that
desperately needs
the reassurance.
the cold can’t hurt
me anymore
because now
any amount of
burn from
freezing fingers
pales infinitely
in comparison
with the
actual cold,
the real cold, here –
the way my fingertips
could light
from lack of
warmth –
my god, nothing,
anymore –
radiating from
your frame –
out of you,
for me.
you, my
unintended chance
for something
more –
the absence, it
burns like only
a fire
extinguished
can burn –
captivated
by my own
sense of
alarm –
the cold can’t
touch me now
because
i have felt
infinitely
darker
and more frigid
when i cling
to you
and your
arms lay
lifeless,
talk to you
while you stare
straight ahead,
beg for you
with eyes and
lips and words,
so senselessly,
when i know
as well as you
know that
sometimes
once it goes away
it never comes
back.
my god, i know
what frozen
means –
and it is not this –
dead branches and
ice shards,
the nightly squeal
of the kettle as we
silently, separately
sip to
artificial
warmness..
no.
this winter now
means
the shiver in
my soul,
that ache
beyond loneliness
howling through
my bones
each time i
wonder what it
hurts so much
to wonder:
will i ever truly feel
that fire –
our fire –
ever
again?
“V. XII”
wild hearts can't be broken, i told myself when this all began. how far from the truth it now seems.. maybe this has happened because i’m so afraid to feel it – his loss, her loss, my loss – all internalized. i will be better, and i won’t break. this wild heart of mine – it will burn even after the rest of me has turned to ash. because yes – the universe has visited me. it beckoned me to the future, told me i would survive. it loosed my grip upon the ego and the sadness and the fear – all sense of entitlement and even belonging, save for the space i had in the cosmos itself. now – here i sit with the stardust in my trembling hands – they were too bright, i squeezed too hard – i thought i could, i thought i was.. the punctures don’t hurt. it’s everything else. the deepest aches that always strike without warning. they are what make me feel the most fragile – how they seize me from behind and buckle my knees – and oh, what violence i feel inside myself for crying – not only for crying, but for crying when i thought i was safe. hanging from my constellation, even by the tips of my fingers – still, it was better than falling. i couldn’t. yet the universe, in all its spectacular beauty and sorrow, insists on showing me what i’ve lost – pressing it into my consciousness like sand from the shore scratching mercilessly against stinging, sunburnt skin. even surrounded by the warmth of thousands, overwhelmed by the lights and sound, singing the words with a voice that is no longer my own, now choked by emotion – i am raw, raw as the moon unspeakable in its brilliance, as the explosions of fireworks that suddenly mean nothing, as the recollected glimpses of those nights we thought this would never, ever end. what do you do, now, in the aftermath of forever? in the postscript your bleeding hands can barely write? walk on, my child, and fall like a star. because it is the only way you too will be reborn.
“becoming”
with thanks to rilke, neruda, rumi
i am experiencing
the strangest
purity
of spirit –
like staring
into the face of
rilke’s angel,
so terrifying in
its beauty
and absoluteness.
i somehow feel
surged with the
energy
that could
launch me over
a cliff –
and, laughing,
i would descend –
and in
so doing –
float right back.
i feel like
i am in danger of
becoming
detached –
free-wheeling,
“heart broke loose,”
ancient
whirling dervish
spouting the
metaphysical
that is becoming
so much more
real
than the
real.
what is the
actual
danger here?
i am
propelled
by a force
that is
beyond and
within me –
i could lose it
all
but somehow
still
walk on.
perception is
pried loose
from the bonds
we make –
suddenly
there is such
grace
in the wildness.
the order without
order
sharpens
before our eyes..
the step,
sometimes –
it’s that easy
to take.
