"perhaps this is what they meant by original sin, i thought"

this issue of liberty
occurs to me most,
(every time, really)
I emerge from the bellows
of underground tracks,
coming back from a home
where no one walks in on one another.
a home that values liberty -
- we had no curfew -
we were kept together by
the boundaries of propriety.

I emerge from the bellows into the
celestial overhead of the station.
every time with knees buckling,
my faint heart,
always ready to collapse at the oyster bar,
in the secret corner where
one can hear your whispers.
these days it hurts to raise my voice,
makes me tremble,
haunts my nerves,
shakes my ribs,
brings flowing tears.
when my loudest screams did not
stop you from opening my closed doors,
walking in on me: nude,
covered in self protection.

it happens here, every time
i scan for your face.
forgetting, every time,
that you no longer spend
your days pacing back & forth in the lobby
to and fro
to get your lunch
where i used to meet you.

the issue of liberty occurs to me
when i step out into the street
wondering when the golden starts will
be something to stand in awe once again.

yes

this is the first grey winter
i've had in years.
the beginning of the next quarter
begins in a grey train heading home -
the heart swells with the sweetest joy,
the painful longing to plant
my roots deep into fleshly soil.
let yourself grow, let yourself grow.
we wait until spring with joyful expectation and
i say yes.
let the robin in the snow
& the expectant mother
& the rainbow we watched
spread across the sky after the hurricane,
let them speak their yes.
and please, please
take it.
take this yes,
this foot holding the door ajar against all forces
of bitterness and otherness
take this yes & tell me truth-
let it tear off my clothes,
let it smear away my red lips,
let it bring me to my knees.
let it hurt.
but do not stop -
tell me all of the ways
i am cracked & bruised & not alright.
why does it send so many shivers of life
to hear "you're not alright?"
to be seen uncovered, in the reality of truth
let your honey-golden-joy voice grow in me.
just pour it over me
and then whisper your name,
whisper the name that
wraps itself in promises
& be ever with me, be with me always.
my heart is but a magnet ever aching toward your thrown.

chincoteague

what a scary thing, to feel so settled in a decision before all the facts.
in this way i begin--
---
love, at one time or another, was so much of a decision and less of a beginning.
we began, of course,
but in beginning i only chose.
only fought and only quit and much like edna pontellier, only drowned.
this was love and it was water about my nostrils
a choice i kept making, treading water, desperate for something that felt more like alive, more like kindness, more like knowing.
and did you ever know me? and could you have ever?
lying naked on the bed next to you, still feeling the need for cover: thin sheets and lies.
---
alone felt more like honesty and breathing in the ocean at eleven pm in june on cape cod.
have you ever been there? i am wrapped in the memories of thirteen discovering its open waves and its open sea. and have you ever seen the chincoteague island?  i am wrapped in the memories of seven discovering its ponies and its sand that turns green under your toes.
---
i am seven.
i am thirteen.
i am eighty six.
i am twenty five.
---
in secret i am wrestling with the soundness of my decision, and in feeling so settled i remember a promise i made to never forget the love i promised myself to. 'i found him whom my soul loveth, i held him and would not let him go.' it is written around my wrist to haunt me and i wonder, could you too?
---
life, it scares me.