i will love you until i don't anymore.

it seems that the closer i get to going home the more i ache for it.

you left a hole in me, you carved it yourself.

, easy girl

there seems to be such a continuous going until the final command to stop. i long for the heavy hand gripped on my shoulder, easy girl. when the heavy yokes weigh too much, i cast off the lightest one first. easy girl, slow down.

, easy girl.

how can we do anything else?

we talk in whispered wishes

late at night

when we remember

that some of what we invested in

must die.

like seeds planted and

turned over

in hopes of a newer, fuller crop.

we sowed in love

and we are reaping in regret

because the returns will

take longer this year.

and, really, what it might mean

is that we lived in hopes of life

and are having to reconcile death

in the midst of it.

and how can we look at the death of love

and keep our hearts from dying too?

how can we do anything else?

it is when

it is when the air is supposed to change

and instead of cool breezes

and i sit in the sun, too hot.

it is when i wish to be cold

that i wish to be warmed

be someone other than myself

and the lonely sun.

it is when i am not home,

for the first time i am not home,

to see the seasons change or

to feel the holidays advance

on us like soldiers,

window after window,

that i wish for my own -

that i am aching for my own.

it is when i am tired,

when my thoughts

and spirit are sinking

from the weight of independence

and higher impossible seeming dreams,

and a terrible loneliness

when i am tired of on-guard conversations

that i regret.

that i wish you were waiting to greet me.

but, brooklyn is not paris.

brooklyn is not paris.

I am a woman waiting for her lover to come home from the war.

I nest, creating a space for him to come home to.

In this perfect rearranging I am trying to woo him home,

to convince him that I have grown up,

that I am ready now.

unmoving.

i spent the day unravelling.

unpacking.

undoing.

unmoving.

i spent the day inside the same four walls.

i spent the day in stillness carefully laying

memorized mementos in their proper place.

my home travels with me.

no matter where i am there is a hummingbird and

there are red beads strung on the wall.

i feel old in this place. i feel treasured.

settled, settling in,

i am tired of the past.

i look up to my map,

the line drawn across it.

this is where i came from.

this is where i went.

i am tired of the past.

for now, i am here,

it is of no concern where i was.

the eastwardly mountains

and westwardly sea enclose me.

i stand still.

i do not desire to be anywhere else.