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.

California

Those that call California young

have not met California.

Those that scoff at the plastic faces

plastered on all of our advertisements

have not met a farmer, seen the lines on his face,

nor shaken his hand missing fingers.

Those that call California young

have not met California.

She wears her age in her dirt.

Old vine Zinfandel growing for 100 years,

evergreen oak tree's roots reaching deep

into the soil and the brick.

Even her roots look like bark.

California wears her age in her dust

circling us and settling on antique hearts.

And I sit and pause on her piers,

looking out onto the rocks the take the

beating of the ocean.

And I wonder if when the Spirit, resting on the

earth without form and void,

if he rested longer on this place.

So carefully, oak trees look like fathers

poised on the rolling hills -

our protectors.

So gently, hills look like mothers

guiding us home -

our comforters.

Those that call California young

have not met California.

The earth is so old here it makes me

wonder if we even belong-

intruding on sacred spacial history.

everyday i think about leaving with greater reluctance. who knew all this could be so amazing. who know it was just what i needed.

roots growing.

gentle man.

with all of the kisses i

regret not giving to your

perfect pink lips hidden

underneath the layers of your

gentle beard comes this:

one thousand i love yous with every breath.

one thousand i love yous i longed to pour over you

with one thousand i love yous.

and i was always holding them back and holding my breath.

and this i learned:

a true gentle man is known by his beard.

pins and needles climbing through my spine.

i cry out.

healing. please bring your healing.

"Madame, I answered, even in this world, the slightest thing, a mere stroke, can make us cease to know the people whom we've loved best of all."

- the diary of a country priest.

let me love you, that's all i'm asking you.

let me love you.

and how you didn't know i leaped

and agreed yes

and how you didn't know all my protests

were paper walls for you to knock down.

challenges.

how we failed.

how i could have submitted to you in all the vastness

of that word that i do not understand.

and how you could have loved me in all the ways

that took too much out of you.

love, in such ways, exhausts.

and now, the grand disconnect.

submitting to the iron rules that i have submitted upon myself.

and how unknowing leaves every uncomfortable movement

left to know alone.

and how many thoughts drift towards your knowing,

and remember,

they cannot be acknowledged without a fight.

and what a miserable scene,

when such an experiment of loving

turns so bitter.

(and i make no apologies for being so vocal and wearing so many hearts on my sleeve. i make no apologies for hearts spilling over into open-air life. this is life. we live it. these things are so mixed-up-hard in my head.)

only truth, it is that saddest thing to unknow you. i sat today, aware of the saddness.

unknowing may just be the opposite of loving.

james is coming.

a single man.

an arm around me.

a single woman.

friends to see.

so much life is always happening.

we fight.

we would love if we didn't fight.

we would love if we didn't fight.

we fight, still.

we fright from lack of love.

i am going.

a single man.

i want all of my words to come true in my heart.

Comfort

This is one of the nights that I slide into music

like I am sliding into beer.

And I sit atop of my bed, perched,

waiting for the words to come

as I am sliding into feeling.

And this is one of the nights that I imagine laying next to you.

My neck always fit so perfectly in your arm.

And your warmth made January easier.

This is one of the nights when I am cold.

This is all for comfort's sake.

This is all because I want some comfort from so much sleeping alone.