{today a friend wrote a poem for me that brought tears of gratitude & honor to my eyes. this is my response. as poets, we joyously give so many words to the world but sometimes poets just want someone to write a poem for them for once, you know? with much love to claudia moss. thank you.}
say everything. set aside pride. bleed a little. risk something. speak the fear out loud so i can walk thru it. open. open. open wider. open bigger. open deeper.
speak give unfold unwrap unravel let go give in be wrong apologize recognize say what I mean
admit I don’t know
admit I do know
show the truth walk my truth
walk my talk. keep my word. be my word. be bigger than my word
courage in the building means more than cursing out a stranger when they piss you off
it means loving your lover
loving yourself
humble
on the humble
remember when tupac said “humility is sexy”? he was right
cry
cry again
cry for all that’s unsaid
not giving in order to receive reciprocity
not giving in order to be recognized
not giving in order to be thanked
giving just to give—that’s what love is.
grieving
not to disappear in the grief,
not to lose one’s self in the grief
grieving because it’s what I feel
and running from it don’t make it any less real
stop running
take off shoes
sit
listen
LISTEN
breath
breathe
open eyes to what eyes didn’t know how to see
until now.
if i whisper this tenderness into the night of my bed
& you're not here to hear
does the tender matter?
should I have given you the tender when you were here to receive it?
doesn’t matter
this is the only moment I have
and in it I am sending you tender on the backs of snowflakes and raindrops
I have to believe that that tender will make its way onto the curve of your neck
to rest there
like I would
if I was there
i love you. should i have not said that? cuz i do. should i have not felt that? cuz that's the only way i could not say that.
I wanna watch you watch me walking to you, wrap my arms around you, feel your arms around all of me. and melt
do you know how much I want to play it safe?
I want to hide from the simple fact of
I want you back and
ain’t no hiding from that
that fact is in my purse, on my palm, hanging from my earlobe, in my tea,
sitting on the bus next to me
coming out the mouth of an actress on the movie screen
it’s everywhere
it’s in my tears, in each step I run around that track, is under my breath
in my breath
is my breath
how do I be free
from the fear of exposing what I fear you will reject of me?
by letting you see the truth
the broken beautiful bruised perfect imperfect of me
the freedom for me
is in the offering of me,
not in whether
you receive
