1. |
The Compass in her Blood
06:25
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I’m sitting across from Feelings again.
she is painfully unpredictable
hardens like New Mexican dirt after a drought
not enough rain to cleanse the surface
her heart swings, ringing out the muck and dirt
she runs it under water
its red ooze, like a new tattoo
slips in the folds of her fingers.
I’m sitting across from Feelings again.
she is painfully unpredictable
Her grizzly hands claw
about my thoughts
tearing a whole in the map of my mind.
She stares at me shape shifts
sleek and seductive
prowling with her quiet paws.
I wait for her to pounce.
The cage around my chest
restrains her desire, but
Raven begins beating her wild wings
pecking wholes in between my ribs
with magnetic precision.
She is wild and unpredictable.
I don’t understand who sent them
or their purpose. My mother was
a lion keeper. She tried to teach me how to
live with wild beasts.
Feelings reminds me that we were told at a young age
that we didn’t need our mothers
that birds could survive in cages,
hippos in a pool of snot and snow cones
she uses this zoo analogy like its something we can understand
says we were asked to suppress her
using drugs and cheap talk
sticky sheets and sea foam
Feelings says she is tired of only being free in the dark
In the light of the sun, I cross my legs real tight
like a lady should. high collar and tight buttons
hair pinned back. yet nature is still
tattooed on the nape of my neck
and I can’t seem to escape the monsoon
pulsing through my pelvis
with electric regularity
whenever feelings comes around.
Why can’t we own loving ourselves?
like lips to ice cubes on a cold summer day
too hot to fight it
too hot to separate wind from bare skin
Why can’t we own loving ourselves?
like lips to ice cubes on a cold summer day
too hot to fight it
too hot to separate wind from bare skin
our own shark music
rampant in tear ducts
moistens us with water that
we finally dreamt we would taste
running down our cheeks
Why can’t we own loving?
like the way men’s eyes
follow those silver beads
that dangle turquoise dew drops
down my chest.
spread wide and extend
past the boundaries
of expectations where
rain can leak pleasure
soften the knotted chords
down the back of my throat
and open to the sound
of feelings strumming
on that which contains
the members of this body.
Feelings told me
she granted permission to sunlight
to use her taste buds as the bed for pleasure
dissolving what is left of her lead body
onto the roof of our mouths
and in her offering she reignites
a 4,000 year old desire to feel love
to be heard
to seek understanding in the depths of her soreness
to know that every human face is looking for its own reflection
and we will naturally gravitate to the way she moves the compass in our blood
we will learn to forgive her when she is too much
too unruly
even for the Zoo
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2. |
The Raven
02:34
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I know this Raven
no one can see her,
she comes and goes with the changing of the tides.
I don’t understand who sent her or her purpose
but her presence is undeniable.
She is wild and unpredictable,
she is perched on the inner recess of my breast bone
cawing waiting to see how I will respond.
I hinge open my chest and breathe
spread my arms to the warmth
of the winter sky stretching east
to the sound of the sun rising.
This is the inner landscape of the Woman I Keep to Myself:
She is wild and unpredictable.
She rises and falls from that which set her in motion.
The good glad holy fluid urges her on
she drives me to the edge of ocean cliffs
the entire ledge about to give.
I am trying to carve a space for her to live in home
where she is free to reveal the wisdom of her body
but I move to slowly
she flutters through my blood stream
stabbing thorns in my fingers
so that I have no choice
but to bleed across these pages.
She doesn’t want me to keep this woman a secret
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3. |
The Sound of Stillness
04:13
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sound of stillness
i used to speak to god
but i dressed him
in a poet’s skin
covered his wisdom
with golden strands
of untold stories.
i imagined i was the story
teller, running my fingers
through his hair to unearth
images i couldn’t paint
(mining precious minerals
to construct divine metaphors)
then a nightingale sang
and stained a rose red
in the tree of my lungs,
but when i went to speak
the petals got stuck in my throat
i lived in silence for years.
i used to speak to god
but i dressed her in a wise
woman’s cloak. i studied
her heavenly eyes
and glimpsed my reflection
in a tranquil pool of stillness.
i imagined i was her apprentice
training for some future sermon,
bending my voice toward
the sound of service.
i lived with the anxiety of my expectations for years.
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4. |
The Gift
05:31
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