How beautiful to see your tears
and know your soul
has been kissed
by music.


How beautiful to see your tears
and know your soul
has been kissed
by music.
The darkness of life is a wonderful teacher.
I’ve been there a time or two,
and now I say, ‘no’.
Lovingly,
with fire and ice,
I say no.
No, thank you.
No. Thank you,
no more.
Such a lovely relief,
the roaring breath of certainty.
The trust of a self who deserves better
than they have given.
My worth is here to stay.
My love is mine to give,
not theirs to take, and take
and take.
Let others play in the dark rooms of maddening life.
Let this girl fly,
a darling wonder,
into the sun beyond it all.
Safe.
Loved.
And perfectly capable of asking for love,
respect
and home.
Home.
How beautiful it feels
to finally tell them I am home.
My
soul
knows
this
song.
My heart is open and bare,
laid out before the world again.
Their pain is mine: I give it loving arms.
I speak their truth.
I burn with mine.
They say these are words, but I know they are more.
I call them life, achingly true.
Here I am, the softest rose: bruised but sweet.
And waiting.
An open bud, thirsty for the dew.
It’s who I am, the rose, I know.
What is this dew to fall on me?
Is it love? This feeling, deep and strong.
For a world that doesn’t know itself,
a world too scared to open its heart and see?
Do not tell me I overthink.
I feel
for you.
I feel.
For humanity.
One day,
she sits alone,
and understands it all.
That she’s never been alone.
That all this time
their pain has lived within her,
pain she never asked for,
pain that is not hers to bear.
Clear air is what she knows she is,
not charcoal-grey squalls,
nor black-rimmed mud.
A heavy reality,
a scared, scared world
drowns her in the darkness
of humanity’s shadow.
Until she removes the soot
and clears the air
once again.
I knew it would take me there. To the place beyond everything, the place that shows me, really quite beautifully, who I truly am.
I can’t remember the last time I watched Legends of the Fall. A very long time ago. A lifetime ago, you might say, and if you did say that I wouldn’t argue with you. I last saw the movie before I had truly lived. Before I had truly ached. Before I had truly felt loss, and the echoing stillness of life’s fragility.
Last night I watched the movie through new eyes, and it tore me apart. Very beautifully, it tore me apart, but it tore me apart all the same.
It reminded me of the depth and softness of who I am.
It reminded me of the beauty of the human connection.
And it reminded me why I write: to feel and to help others feel, too.
Thank goodness I watched that movie, last night.
Thank goodness.
I do not care to be seen.
I do not wish to scramble,
do not wish to fight my way
to the top
to be seen,
to be loved
a little more than this.
Perhaps I should try harder
to care.
Perhaps I should wish
that I might choose,
one day,
to fight like them
until I have been
chosen
and loved.
A little more than this.
There is depth and beauty in loneliness.
It is quiet.
Peaceful.
And though I’ve never known it,
loneliness is the wave that has known me
a lifetime, long.
Its quiet waits for nothing,
it just hangs in the air,
aching,
holding me closer
and closer
until I am quiet, too.
I will try to let it be.
To never ask it to leave,
but instead,
let it fill me
until I have no room left inside.
I will let it be, now,
loneliness.
I will no longer be attached
to wishing it gone.
So you’ve forgotten what it feels like
to unfold yourself,
to undress, her soul
in your hands
like the dream
she was always meant to be
for you.
Music is the wind,
and I am the air.
And we gracefully dance,
and we blissfully play,
and we claim our place
within the fabric of
the other
until we are one.