Dissolving into Grace

Saving grace,
whole heart back
in your arms,
you hold all of me
as me;
I never knew
how non-words
could feel the best route.
Unspoken is our reset,
mutual forgiveness,
moving on
but not leaving
anything unaddressed.
We understand,
silent resolutions,
in the simple language
of love.

Do you mind if I stay
extra near
awhile,
to just exist
in this balance,
a respite
from the drama
of being so much?

Sometimes
(more often than not),
I exhaust
myself
with this wild heart
and wild soul
I house.

Hold me tight, my love.
You are the only one

who can.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Parting Kiss

I must part ways with you now,
dear Darkness;
Light is forlorn
without its Laura,

my aura
is dimming
the further I drift
in this alluring
cradling
away from attempts

of putting forth
the efforts
to swim
back up
toward Bliss:

I still hope,
believe (barely),
that it exists.

A parting kiss…

Yes, I know
that means
I will have to let go,
for now,
of that dream,
but I can keep
the parts
that were seeded,
for weeds
they are not;
I feel it,
in that new spot,
how I can nurture
it into something
beautiful
still…

I will.

I return to the isle
from a distance,
leave a trinket,
so it is known
I’ll always
be near,

no need to desert
every future
possibility.

We will all
someday
see.

Dust-Covered Heart

The revelation
did not hit
like a ground-scorching
lightning bolt
disappearing theatrically
in a trail of heaven-retreated
smoke…

I simply looked around
in the settling dust
of the storm
I created,
and there you were,
steadfast despite being
injured,

waiting
for me to again
extend
my hand.
You’ve always been there,
the only one
who’s never
left,

despite the mess
I make
in trying
to emerge
from the grave
of my past,

buried alive,
but each time
my wings
open,
the ghosts reach up,
re-clasp.

You never waver
in your belief in me.
I hope this is the last
tentacle severed
to set us both
free.

Sun Sets on Christmas

In my backyard, I take a few moments to myself after sun sets on Christmas.

I am drawn to the silhouetting branches of a tree and the stars surrounding it and eventually retrieve my camera to play with all the ways I can arrange the composition. I realize again what could be one of the reasons why I am drawn to photography: control.

I, in fact, am moving the stars. Positioning them. I manipulate the light. Later, I can manipulate in even more ways with editing apps.

I have danced with control so many times over the years, I had begun to think I was actually the lead. Control for me, though, never has had anything to do with power, simply the illusion of stabilizing, balancing, the perpetual chaos. Little bits of time. Of moments. Of situations. For survival.

As much as I’ve danced with control, I’ve had affairs with denial. Love-hate relationships. I think denial at times was truly a friend, keeping me afloat. At times, I think a betrayer; I could have stood up in the water that was actually shallow. I could have walked out of the water instead of treading. I could have maybe avoided the future near-drownings.

I am drawn most to putting the star here, cradled between the branches reaching for it.

My Labraheeler has joined me, and I give in to kicking his ball for a bit, then decide to do a few laps around the half acre. He is used to this and follows beside me, jollily carrying his partially deflated mini basketball. We run, silently in companionship.

The weather is simply beautiful, the kind that the soul takes in as the breezy, summer-like night air is inhaled. I trust I know the yard enough to not trip in the growing darkness and trust my pup enough to not cross my path underfoot; I look up to the sky as my blood extra pumps, and all of me feels refreshed, renewed, freed.

This is peace.

The day was merry, and Christmas Eve too. I can’t recall another Christmas in which it truly was. Last year, I wore the smile, made it through, and then was nearly drowned in my after-tears.

I believe in miracles. And in magic. And in love.

I’ve always held fast to faith over the years, but in that hopeful someday kind of way, struggling to not drink in the devil-potions that would make me question and challenge the unfairness of the situations plaguing me. Only a few years ago did I fully recognize miracles, the direct hand of God at work, the Spirit inside me. I had a merry Christmas. We all did. That was a miracle. I’ve always wanted that. I did not think it possible.

I made Christmas magical and happy for my children when they were younger (with the help of my community most years), but I did so under the immense weight of all that being married to an addict-alcoholic adds. Add the strain of being the peacemaker, the glue, and often the leader of my whole family tree. Heavy. Stressful. Masked. Martyr. Superhero. Weighed. Bending. Cracking. Moth-eaten cape. Suffocating. Hiding. Pretending. Pleasing. Holding in. Suppressing. Swallowing. Denying. Lying. Stretched. Thinner. Thinner. Breaking.

Currently, light, airy, floating, feathered, free. Breathing.

So this is Merry Christmas…

I don’t think I’ll edit anything.

Mythological Growths

Cycloptic serpent
scorched deep
into my being,
color of decay
not even attempting
to camouflage
into my resilient green,
laying eggs,
disease breeding,
growing larger,
but still unable
to see,
for at my core
is also my heart,
and it bleeds
in light.
You try
to grow more eyes,
but this love
inside
will always
render you
blind,
not Karma
but what is right
finally
for I have falsely seen
too clearly
all my life

your lies.

The exorcist has arrived:
self-love.
Parasite,
good final bye.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Almost Worthy

The silent tear
and its companion,
slipping away
from a hidden river
subterranean,

an inner well
I wish to visit,
I pay the obol
but am refused
admission.

I touch the solution
risen to the surface,
released to me
at the green-galactic
entrance.

It absorbs, vanishes,
as if it were only
imagination,
but I know it exists within,
the ancient pool
of my essence
preservation,

disturbed
by a pressure,
a fissure,
from the near past,
a conflict of interest
to who I am

attempting to contaminate
the purity of my heart’s intentions,
sent from the sacred waters
to get my attention:

two harbinger drops
to warn of the bubbling,
but how can I mend
the underground rupturing

when I cannot access
the pre-war,
cannot reverse time
to remove the source

that lies beyond
the lies
in layers
of conditioning,
beneath the protection
of pain
self-buried?

Desperate, kneeling,
thoughts begin spinning,
I get dizzy
in the spiraling,
plead for the ripples
to take me down
into the spring.

“I want to go there!
I want to come!
Let me face
what I know not
head on!

I am brave!
I am strong!”

The portal
closes shut.

What more must I do
to be worthy
enough?

Flickers

Fear resides on both sides,
in the direct sun and in
the borderless shadows;
the light, however,
competes with mine,
so my soul still remains
largely unexposed.

I unzip my skin
behind the bushes
and dip into the sea
of all that I am
and all that I have
yet to be,

a flame underwater, inextinguishable,
no longer chained to the illusion
of drowning;
I dive deeper in belief
of my self
and arise, wet and glowing.

In my new skin,
a more comfortable fit,
I swirl together
the sun and shadows
as I dance,
and the flickering
upon my upturned face
reveals another transformation
taking place
within.

Fissures

Fissures shift,
the inner lifts,
though I wish
to keep it
enclosed.
Exposed
to the elements
becomes my soul.
The tears rise
and flow.

When the painquake subsides,
there are less toxins inside.
I suppose it is nature’s way
of eliminating the accumulating waste,
that which we bury in false deaths,
that which we hide beneath the surface,
a sort of protection and procrastination
of that which we cannot bear in the moment
to face.

Two-faced
are we all.
How are you?
Good, thanks.
Why do we ask
that question
in passing?
Too often fake.
How am I?
Probably actually
similar to how you are
especially in the way
that we guard
the answer.
Brief eye contact.
Continue walking.
If only we acknowledged
anything.
Hands on phones,
hands of clocks.
Bombs inside.
Tick. Tock.

Fissures by nature
are meant to be breaks.
Down is mine. Again.
No brakes.

Not a fall
but an opening.
An involuntary wound-seeping.
Weeping.

My inner, risen now.
What will you do
with what’s come out?

Red is the heart
and magma
at the core.

I’ve left a puddle
of lava
upon your floor.

December Pinks

The pink blooms I never planted
are more beautiful than ever
as I return rejuvenated
to the patio in December.

Autumn has rained
its traditional hues too;
warmth in the setting sun
dries a wet spell of the blues.

I am tickled by the message
of the southern bell for whom it tolls,
waking the possibilities in me
of choosing the way it goes.

I’ll keep growing these pink blooms
even if they get winter-taken,
for I’ve reseeded in my heart
a season of hope to never end.

Solarium

It’s not an attic window,
there are no shutters bolted tight,
no tower, no moat,
no strandedness by height,

no yellowing wallpaper,
no final-resting dust,
no musty-air poisoning,
no bed coils caked in rust.

You are in a single-story solarium
with windows open wide;
the enticing garden path
tries to lure you outside.

I’ve laid it myself;
it leads away from here.
The butterflies know the way;
the fireflies by night, steer.

There is no warden present.
There is no warden at all.
You are not kept prisoner;
screens and panes make up the walls.

I do see your ghosts;
they cordially serve you tea,
sit faithfully by your side,
read you books of false history,

but they are apparitions
as thin and weightless as the breeze
I blow into your windows
in hopes of distracting.

You feel me again,
look past them out the window;
your heart flutters to wake you,
but it’s noticed by one ghost

who floats to the window
to look out again at me.
I try to stare through him;
he grins maliciously.

I come by again in each tomorrow.
You are starting now to grey.
I’ve since given up my immortality
to free you from these
non-chains.