What are you waiting for?
you know the words are
right there
ready to spill
ready for truth telling
ready for spell weaving
ready to be told
just sit down
with an open journal
and a smooth pen
or the click – clack of typewriter keys
and a pristine sheet of paper
or the computer screen
and every bit of fire in your soul
no excuses
no time like the present
no where else to be
just write.

listen,
you, with your beach glass heart
you, with your moonshine teardrops
this is a poem for the world
and this is only a poem for you
both of those things are true
and neither, really
but either way
you, love
are holy

so, hold your capacity for melancholy
and name it strength
hold your righteous anger
and name it the pathway to peace.
honor your translucent skin,
your bone truth bruises
worship your geography of bones and scars
that roadmap of veins
the path to the center
the pulse of spirit
the gateway of want

Light torch to
bonds built from lies
let the flames build
ignite truth
and let it burn
merge ashes into melody
knit moments into worlds
howl visions into open skies
fold yourself into the endless rain
and call the wild things home.

sing rough croon
spill blood fever
coax magic spiral
nuture the fierce in your belly
let it expand
release the song in your pulse
let the explosion push outward
and rock your standing ground
let the quaking earth birth you anew

rise up, now

accept your catalogue of regret
gather close your imperfect history
this life can be violent crucible
grace doesn’t always look pretty
grief is a complicated ghost
and we are all
in some way haunted.

but this?
this is an invitation
enter your life now
build a home inside your hollow
cast a spell into the ether
evoke your own divinity
turn the music up loud
let it build
feel  the reverb
settle deep in your bones
until your spirit
pulsates

until the heat of it
permeates
your entire existence

and listen, you startlight seeker
listen jackhammer goddess
you’ve been holding on too tight
to things no longer yours.
loosen your grip, lover,
ease open your palms.
come out with your hands up.
this is not arrest.
this is the beginning.

and you
must not
be tamed.

Take me to the wild sea

Bring me to where

waves mark time

where salt meets skin

where I greet the depths

Take me to the wild sea

Take me home

back to where

I belong.

~~~~

Where do you belong today?  Where would you go if you could?

As we begin the new year, I invite you to stoke the embers of your inner fire.  Coax the flames from your center to the edges of all you reach.   Make peace with the parts within you that crave that burn.  Let the flames get high.  Burn bright.  The world needs your light.

{a soundtrack for fanning the flame}

there is a girl

she is wise
and wary of flames
but still, she knows
she will survive the fire
life scorches sometimes.
she has been a phoenix before
and every time
she burns to ashes
she knows
exactly how to rise
again.

she carries
destruction grief
carved river deep in her bones
specializes in
wrecking ball
knows how to bring
the whole thing down
surveys the broken
claims it as wholeness
and names it all good
she knows well
the holy necessity
of beginning again.

she has gone mad
for beauty
found rapture in shadows
calls poetry her religion
she seduces uncertainty
like a dominatrix
bows to no god
names herself goddess
builds alters
to the divinity
of heat and sweat and sex
and claims righteous ownership of
the body she has been given.

she once held her truth
in bone marrow,
locked deep.
but she was always
prone to fracture
learned that words flowed best
at the broken spots
she wrote splinter point novellas
told shatter stories
knit words into worlds
and worlds into heat
and heat into breath
and breath into medicine
and she learned her voice
had the power to heal.

she lives transparent now
welcomes the feel
of air on bare skin
throws arms wide
holds out her heart
and says here
take this
all of it
she figured early
that far too much energy
is invested in veiling
truth
in hiding bodies
in cloaking love
she refuses
to cultivate shame
she saves her effort
for vital things.

she knows that
love is expensive
and always worth
the price
she knows home is not
where she lives
but something
inside held
and sometimes
only found by leaving
she knows that walls
are imaginary
and that open doors
are everywhere
and that eventually
we will all
make our way
back to the sea
back to the crashing waves
back to salt water truth

she does not believe in one day
no happily ever after
or black and white
hard truths
her forever is now
she finds her rapture in the fullness
of this moment
humanity is her only dogma
kindness her communion
and church a mountain top
in the center of the desert
while the city pulses below
she speaks amen
in every holy fragment of existence.

she always knew she’d have daughters
knew she would mother them well.
she teaches them the value of their
outside voice
their no voice
their yes voice
their my entire being is a temple voice
she teaches them that their spirit
is truth
and their truth
is strength
and their strength
is vulnerability
and their vulnerability is a gift.
she knows too many girls
are broken before they
become
she has done battle in the name of rebirth
carries her scars with fierce grace
she finds beauty in the breakdown
and wholeness in the shatter
strength in the fault lines
and goodness in everything.

she is not afraid to name her gifts
knows the magic in her words
knows the spiral in her hips
she has a vital spark
at the center of her longing
she has secrets behind her eyes
and will share them
with anyone
who asks
but she only wants those
who commit
to asking.

she knows that compromise
is for vocations
and that spirit
is non-negotiable
she accepts no labels or limits
build her a box
and she will dismantle it carefully
use the pieces
to create a stage
and sing her own wild song
knows there is a power
in the melody we carry in our
bones.

She knows the lotus blooms
in mud
she knows the phoenix
goes down in flames
she knows the rapture of lust
and the escape of captivity
she knows the center of the paradox
is where the truth is found.

she is full of sky
full of starshine
full of goddess flame
bleeds words
speaks truth
welcomes it all
howls at the moon

she is a girl on fire
she is stoking the flames
she is lighting the world
she burning to ashes

And always she is rising

And rising

And rising again.

this afternoon
I am doing nothing
but sitting here
reading poetry.

the muse is resting
she has lots to do
right now.
she simmers and burns
and holds things close
this is gestation time
I understand
the birth will come
when
the words are ready

and so I sit here
hot coffee
brick walls
cheap leather sofa
laptop open
music in my ears
and let the words
fill me

isn’t it lovely
I think
to absorb
to take in
to soak up
to call this
work
to name this
seduction
to file away words
and phrasings
jotting down
ideas that will one day
become

on the next sofa
two women sit
dancers
indescribably lovely
I can tell
by their posture
and the way their arms
speak stronger
than their words
fluidity a part of
their bones
their bodies
poetry
even while
sitting still

I read love poems
and stanzas on loss
and the heat of sex
and the diaries of lovers
long dead
and the imaginings
of fantastical worlds
there is wisdom soaked
into sentences
I claim it for
my own

my eyes skim
lips curve in a smile
hips shift in response
sometimes a sigh escapes
unbidden
because the combination of
a particular set of words
and the music in my ears and the
light that shifts just so everything
appears illuminated by magic
moves my soul
to a private
call and response
that is one of
the most true
forms of
worship I know

and this
will not make me rich
will not write
that novel
will not pay
the bills
will not move me forward
there is no
success to be found
in the beautiful light
or the ageless poems
or the perfection of rhythmic
beat

but today
is not time for any
of that
it is only a day for
loving words
for bearing witness
for filling up
for giving over
for waiting for
the lengthening of days
and the coming of
the light
to what feels good
for no other reason
than that.

and so here I sit
doing the important
work
of reading poetry
and giving thanks
for the choices
that have
brought me
here.

so,
this is how it is.

you get picked last for the team
left out of the plans
excluded from the circle.
the rejection letter arrives in the mail
she picks the other girl
the door you were about to walk through
gets slammed hard in your face
and you are left outside in the cold
stunned and alone.

yes
sometimes this is how it is.

you will stand in the harsh glare of the spotlight
looking out into a sea of faces and know
this performance will not be greeted by applause
you will want more than you get
and loved less than you deserve.

at the end of the day you will sit weary
having done your best
your very best
and realize that nobody has noticed
or worse, everybody noticed all the wrong things.

and you will know what they are saying about you
because you have heard it before
from those voices that live in the very back corner of your brain.
the ones that say
that you are too much
or not enough
or far more difficult
not near as easy as expected
bigger or smaller or louder or more silent than what
they
wanted-needed-expected you to be

and exiled from your desire
and chastised for your wanting
and ridiculed for your being
you ache
your shoulders droop
and you feel vulnerably visible
or maybe as a ghostly apparition,
ignored by those whose witness you most crave
naked before impossible judgment

this is when demons that stalk
roar out of shadows
perch on your right shoulder
breath fire into your ear
flamed whispers searing a brand into
the sacred flesh covering your collarbone

-inadequate
not good enough
stupid
worthless un-liked
less-than
too much
slut
boring
attention whore
waste of space-

and you will hear them loud and clear
every fiber of every muscle absorbing
every last word
drowning out quiet voices that speak other, highly suspect, truths
- you are loved, you are beautiful, you are enough-
because those words make bile rise in throat
skepticism entrenched deep fighting against
flowery words that yearn for a home
that cannot be found.

but right now?
this is not the giving up time
no matter how many times you’ve given up before
that would be a predictable end to a predictable story
and you are anything but a predictable woman
with a predictable life

this time the searing breath wakes you up
this time the numbing is excluded from the party
and your head lifts
and your shoulders square
and you breath deep into the exact
center
of your goddess power.

this time
you do not apologize
or sulk into shadows
or back off the stage in shame.
you do not accept their rejection
conform to their definition
you do not dim your colors
or fade into oblivion

No.

this time
you will start your own team
widen your circle
cast your net
change all the plans
rip up that letter filled with no
and paint the word
acceptance in rainbow colors across your skin
under the glow of the welcoming moon.

you will do what you damn well please
refuse to define yourself as
part of any half conceived partnership
decline the invitation to stay
when your soul only whispers, go.
and choose to exchange vows with
your own wild divinity instead
you will take steps to get what you want
give yourself every last ounce of love you have always deserved
discovering along the way the multitudes within you
so that alone is never lonely

you will buy enough paint
to create your own marquee
emblazoned with every last bit of your glory
you will step back into the spotlight
and magnify the beat of your heart
until it fills the room
and the sound of your own electric heart
becomes a standing ovation loud enough to power
twenty more women toward their destiny.

and you will take notice
off all the right things
and all things they took pleasure in labeling wrong
until your too-much-not-enough becomes just exactly right
and you wrap it all up in bliss
celebrate it as front page news
bold headline blazed right across the top of the wise night sky

and you will hear what they say about you
they will always say things about women like you
but the truth of your song
is now playing so loud
that their words will be drowned out by
the sound of your own singing
and by the festival of spirit that has been gathering in
celebration.

when the demons come
and they will come
you will usher them close
coax them near
seducing with piercing eyes and parted lips
you will perch on their right shoulder
and whisper
with quiet insistence
go. now is my time.
filling up your chest and your lungs and your mighty spirit
with visible proof of your inherent divinity.
your roaring sensuality
your selfless selfishness
and you will sear their skin with your brazen reclamation
of self.

and you will throw your arms wide
and lift your head back
and feel love radiating at you from all directions
especially from your white hot core
fierce with reality
righteous with conviction
certain of self

and you will breathe
it in deep and think

YES.
So THIS is how it is.

{we’ve been us for eight years now.  or a dozen lifetimes, depending on how you measure.  births. deaths. non-profits.  divorce.  freefall. crash and burn.  beginnings and endings and beginnings.  falling in love and lust and hate and forgiveness. this day marks the day of your beginning, dear one.  I celebrate it, always.}

We discuss
often
our past lives.
the way we have
been lover
and mother
and child
and midwife
and brother
and husband
and guru
to each other
a dozen
lives
at least
before
finally
crashing
here
in this desert
we make home
despite the
fact that
our souls
never stop
calling
for the
sea

we once
decided
a book
we proclaimed
we will write
and remember
all that we
have been
and done
and learned
together
yes
we smiled
and leaned our heads
together
like we have done
a million
times
at least
your light
corkscrews
mingling
with my inky
strands
our mirror
souls
coming
info perfect
alignment

and although
in typical
flighty
fashion
we’ve not
written a word
it doesn’t
really matter
none of it
really matters
not with us
not the where
or when
or what or why or
how much
or the indecisive days
or the stagnant months
or the hard years
what matters is
the afternoons
in bed
doing nothing
and the way
we always
mean to say
one more thing
before handing up
the phone.
what matters is
the open door
at 2am, and
the hands that
shake with anger
heal with energy
and the way
without writing
a word
we already
know the ending
of the book

it’s us
of course
us and
the pounding
pacific
back to back
your light
corkscrew curls
once again
mingling with my
inky straight
strands
the salt on our skin
and in our veins
and the words we
say
that our
hearts have
always known.
Of course.  It
has always
been
you.

Prayer For An Ordinary Monday

Blessed be your longing. Your endless ache. Your sharp crystal shatter. Your sea glass heart.

Blessed be the long, slow slide into desire.  The swift plunging wound to the heart. The bleeding out onto the kitchen floor.

Blessed be the fierce of want and the howl of despair and the swan dive of surrender.

Blessed be the indignation of right and the never more naked of wrong.

Blessed be your strong smooth body and your roadmap of scars and brittle bones that give way under the weight of lives unlived.

Blessed be the unmet passion, the relentless boredom, the absolute certainty of regret.

Blessed be the sweet laughter.  The hard fuck.  The bitter fight.  The soft  impossible forgiveness.

Blessed be the restless seeker.  The relentless urgency.   The unanswered call.

Blessed be the giving up.  The hope unraveled. The void at the end.  The clenched fists and the desperate grasping and the way it all slides away when the time comes.

Blessed be your trembling breath and your strong knees.  Blessed be your siren song and your briny tears and your frantic prayer.

Blessed be your violin body, your electric hipbone, your staircase ribs.

Blessed be your slaughtered dreams and your cynical projection.  Blessed be your fire of initiation. Your ritual of comfort. Your secret shame.  Your whispered confession. Blessed be your primal roar.

Blessed be the rejection.  The hollowed out, disregarded heart.   Blessed be the end of the rope, the absence of expectation, the way it all gives way eventually.

Blessed be the blood and guts and gore of it all.

Blessed be the emptiness of lust and the brutal havoc of love and the way peace grows in between cracks in cement.

Blessed be the dirty street corner hustle and the pretty surface of things and where they meet in the most sacred center.

Blessed be the harsh divinity.  The winged flight.  The salt skin.  The symphony of lust.

Blessed be the holy and the worship.  Blessed be the sacred mother. Blessed be the faithless edges. Blessed be the ritual of liturgy and agnostic devotion.  Blessed be the profane and the provocation.  Blessed be the brazen orgy, the unabashed revelry, the stained glass cathedral of your hungry flesh.  Blessed be the solitary pilgrimage and the long journey home. Blessed be the one who contains herself. Blessed be the one who contains us all.  Blessed be the truth that demands reckoning and the goodbye that wrenches secrets from behind closed lips. Blessed be the sucker punch bruises. Blessed be smooth slide of sun behind the mountains.  Blessed be the wise desert and the pounding sea.  Blessed be the sweet swell of words. The luxury of punctuation. The silent spaces between bodies. The ragged sign of breath on bone.  Blessed be the poet and the poem and the one between them who has no words of her own.  Blessed be the plagiarism, the thievery, the rash disregard for origin, the gratitude for the beginning of things. Blessed be our free fall into destiny. Our slow burn.  Our consuming fire.  Blessed be the breaking and becoming.  Blessed be the ugly.  Blessed be the sweet sin. Blessed be the rage. Blessed be the grace.

Blessed be. Blessed be.  Blessed be.

In the end, all words are just another way to say amen.

am I too much for you?

no, I’m not easy.
don’t come to me for simple.
you want that you’d best look
somewhere else, dear

i’ve got currents
beneath my surface
that will feel like ruthless riptides
if you come too close without
being ready to ride my waves

i don’t do surface well
and I’ll probably expect more
of you than you’ll ever dream
of expecting of yourself
but that’s only because I see what
lies beneath your surface
and I refuse to settle for less than your all

yes, I have feelings
and no, I’m not afraid of them
not even the shadowy ones
that you’d rather ignore
i gather them in
welcome them home
give them space to breathe
and light them on glorious fire
just to see
what might be illuminated
while they burn.

you wanna go deep?
come here baby
i’ll take you down
hold your hands as the air bubbles to the surface
and sunlight fades away
we’ll swim in the underworld
make friends with the merfolk and selkies
dance with ghosts of our former selves
and learn that yes
it is possible to burn underwater
and your lungs will ache and your heart will pound
but you’ll see things
you never dreamed
floating on the surface

and when it gets too much
i’ll let you go
watch you rise
witness you learning
to save yourself.

and then i’ll fly you high
soar you miles above your limited notions
of self and life
until you are so full of your own beauty
that you have nothing to do but
fall.

and when you do
i’ll be soft for you
stay in bed all day on Tuesday soft,
trace your skin like a roadmap soft
hold your truth between my lips soft
and I’ll be hard
push you past your comfort zone, hard
open us up to pain, hard
bring it home together hard

risk?  bring it on.
safety? nurture it fiercely
grief? cradle it gently
contradiction? claim every last one as precious and yours.
love? hell yes. every day.  over and over and over again.

despite the risk.
despite the current.
despite the too much, the depth, the pull from below the surface
despite the lure of the easy

because we are all feeling and physicality and razor sharp mind
we are heart and blood and life-giving paradox
we are mothers and lovers and warriors
we are everything and nothing and everything again.

but easy?

no – you’d best look someplace else for that.

____________________________________________

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for a Circle of  Women Fine Art Print  - just leave a comment telling me about your circle of women and how they have changed you.  Details here.

For you, and for the lifetimes you’ve lived in one short year:

For the endings, and the beginnings and all the spaces in between.

For last year’s words and this years voice and for everything that must remain unsaid.

For boldly speaking your truth and for all that you still hold inside.

For falling over and over and rising again and again.

For life lessons that left you in stunned disbelief and the gentle eyes of an unexpected teacher who lifted you up and carried you from the void.

For living the questions and for discovering the answers.

For losing your way and finding your tribe.

For being willing to break in order to become.

For lust and for trust and for the long twisty journey in between the two.

For head up and eyes wide open and for moments of faith when there is no light to be found.

For quiet resolve and for wailing confusion.

For eyes locked across a room for the first time and for the way your hands find each other in the middle of the night after years of sharing the same bed.

For the courage to strike off on your own and for the comfort of knowing you can always come back home.

For taking up arms against fears and demons and those intent on harm, and for laying down your weapons and walking away in peace.

For claiming what is rightfully yours and for releasing what can no longer be.

For loving what you don’t understand and questioning what you thought you knew for sure.

For letting go and holding on tight.

For losing it all in order to gain what matters.

For standing tall and learning your truth and for forgetting it all in order to start all over again.

For blind faith in something you cannot see, touch or feel and for knowing that all of life is at your fingertips.

For the beauty in contradiction, the bitterness in the compromise and the brilliance of the mystery.

For dancing with ache and longing, and for making peace with what you have.

For grasping tight and for releasing to the wind.

For the knowing and the unknowing and that sliver of space where both coexist.

For the buckets of salty tears and the kindness that dried them all.

For pleasure and for pain and for the ability to hold both in one body.

For simple pleasures and crazy imaginings.

For the releasing the wild spirit within and for holding yourself in quiet dignity.

For blazing seduction, for the wild rhythm of bodies and lips and teeth and skin and for tender reverence and holding hands and spooning in the dark.

For the ease found in comfort zones and for the fierce reality of smashing down walls.

For angry battles, and grudges held and for the sweet bliss of forgiveness.

For the desolation of the desert, for the pounding of the surf and for the forever green of the forest.

For boundaries crossed and limits held firm.

For the dishes and the laundry and the dust bunnies.  For keeping up with the Joneses and for leaving the mess to go out and play instead.

For building a house of cards and for burning it all to the ground.

For painstaking attention and determination and for wasting hours on beautifully impossible daydreams.

For red wine and dark chocolate and hot sex and all the earthly pleasures that ground you here.

For celebration and for mourning and for surrounding both in the ritual of spirit.

For believing and for questioning and for the unsteady ground that bridges the two.

For holding your breath till your lungs burn and for the sweet relief of the exhale.

For head-spinning kisses and mind-numbing loneliness.

For thinking you might never get what you want and for knowing you’ll always have what you need and for the bittersweet edge that this acceptance brings.

For companionship and for solitude and for the spaces you can have both at once.

For solo living room dance parties and for singing in the shower.

For hula hoops and crayons and roller skates.  For growing older in body and staying young in spirit.

For the times you thought you couldn’t go on, and the moment you realized that nothing could stop you.

For knowing that you are divinity personified, beautiful beyond comprehension and powerful beyond measure.

For all of this I honor you, the year you have lived and the one you are about to begin.

Happy New Year.