Wednesday, February 24, 2010

how do i be free?

{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

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