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Orlando

I danced with my son this morning.

I laughed this morning.
I felt guilty for my joy,
wondering how many beautiful souls were laughing when the first bullet struck home.

I hugged my child this morning.
I wept for all the mothers who will never have that chance again.

I kissed my husband goodbye this morning, and felt my heart swell at the thought of all the lovers lost. What if it were him?

I made a silent promise to 50 strangers today. That they would be remembered. That they would live on in my daily thoughts. That I would take action to try to save others. That I wouldn't let their deaths be a source of anger or hatred. That I would never be invisible for the sake of convenience. That I would carry on in their honor.

I laughed this morning. I felt the guilt of my continuance. I felt shame at my own joy.

I danced with my son this morning.

Eagle Eye

Butterflies and sand
The warmth of your hand
The love of a child
As we view sea and land
They collide like lovers
I blush in my knowledge
Think of last night
Look at your eyes in our child's face
Long for renewed innocence
And prolonged joy
The eagle watches knowingly from his perch
Our kind and his kind go back
Way back
Countless generations

We are the hope they broke themselves for
We are the fruit of sown seed and hand-tilled soil
We are the waking dreams of our grandmothers' youth
We are picnic basket auctions and ice cream socials
We are the plums picked on a working wedding day
We are the sweat on exhausted brows
We are linens on the line
We are endless piles of firewood, split
We are the sum of all that love

And still the eagle watches
wondering if we'll cave under the weight of time

Fever Dreams

A recent poem...

WTF?

When last I took the time to ask the questions that mattered, I was too scared to face the answers. I never got to the answers because the questions themselves scared me beyond reason. They say question everything, but where does that get you when answers are elusive, or when the answers leave you with more doubt? I don't even know where to begin. There are infinite questions, and one just leads to more. But the time is now. I must ask, and I must answer...

Disconnected

She sits silent in her darkened room
     wild-eyed, staring at the wall like a distant mirage
     eating her lower lip as if
     she hadn't had a proper meal in weeks

She feels the rain as it begins to drum on
     the roof; her toes nervously keep time
     on the old oak floor as her gaze shifts
     to the dark void that was once a TV
     screen; she is missing her stories...

She twitches occasionally as the electric
     tension she holds in her shoulders
     fires lightning bolts down her limbs;
     her anxiety could power a small
     city, if only she could plug into the grid

She is frozen in time, the fearlessness of
     childhood poverty now melted into the
     powerless-ness of adult desperation

She forces herself back to reality, picks up
     the pen, and writes the check
     she knows she can't cover

Prison

I've been in prison since the day I was born. It has taken on many forms. It is an ever-shifting, ever-evolving, and ever-present state of being, more than an actual physical prison. At times, I have been tricked into entering without the slightest idea that's what I was doing.
I have been in the prison of poverty all my life. I've also been locked in due to intelligence; loneliness; physical differences; differences of opinion and belief; love, and the loss of it; abuse of many kinds; and yes, actual, physical prison.
It seems that the fight is never-ending. There is a constant struggle to break free of whichever prison is most restricting at any given moment in my life. I just begin to think I am free of one form of prison, that I have finally stepped out of the gate into the sunlight of the free world, when I suddenly realize I have just traded one cage for another.
I realize that most of the walls that keep me in are of my own creation and exist purely through my choice to keep them in place. And yet, often, it seems that I have little control over this aspect of my life. In fact, I am often not even aware that the walls are there until they begin to close in so quickly I fear I'll be crushed. It seems that I am completely oblivious until the moment I find myself completely overwhelmed and aching to break free...
Some days, I fear I will never be free.

A fragment from my fragmented mind...

The world faded away...

Distilled itself into a mist of nothingness and drifted off...

Left me as I was making love to myself in the mirror of my internal void...

As I contemplated homicide, suicide, angelcide...

As I made love to myself by the righteous light of the television screen, computer screen, pipe screen, smoke screen, eternally screaming inane creatures finally disbursed to their respective asylums.

Help! I need somebody...

OK, so I'm in school, I have finally figured out what I want to do with my life, now I am in a hurry to get down to the business of living. Call it making up for lost time! I know what I want, and I know what I have to do to get it.
Beyond school and my career path, I have known what I want in my personal life for a long time. I want to settle down with an incredible woman, make a home, have babies (four-legged ones, that is!) and live some slightly-altered version of the American dream. Yep, that's right, I want to be a housewife! :) And you may think I'm crazy, but I think it sounds great! Let my partner be the breadwinner! (You didn't think I was getting a degree in photography to be a 9-5er, did you?!) In between cooking and cleaning and laundry, I would have plenty of time to go places and take incredible photos... Especially since Western Oregon has so much so close... There are enough incredible landscapes around here to keep a photographer busy her entire life! And of course, the plan is to sell all these incredible images, so I would be making my financial contribution, as well...
So it sounds like I've got it all figured out, right? What's the problem, you're wondering? I'll tell you...
The problem is that I have a picture in my mind, and I know exactly the life I want to live, but I have, as of yet, been unable to find a woman who shares my vision. There is a void in my family portrait. I know she's out there. I have felt I have come close to finding her, and yet she seems to always be just beyond me...
I have an incredible amount of love to give. I long to find a woman I can really romance and pamper and spoil rotten! I am a little perplexed to find that none of the women I have met in my life seem to be ready for or open to being loved...
I have been learning recently that if I want something, I have to really go out and get it, work for it, and I suppose love is no different. So here's what I'm asking of you, friends... If you think you know an incredible, creative, intelligent, open, bi or lesbian woman who is also ready to find love... I would love to meet her! Yes, maybe it smacks of desperation that I am now seeking to be 'set up', but frankly, life is too short to sit around waiting for love to somehow magically fall from the sky. It just isn't going to happen. And really, can you expect to find anyone of quality at a bar? NO! Online? Not likely. So I'm going the old-fashioned route. I figure if my friends like her, she must be something special, because I have some really awesome friends!
So introduce me, already! That's all I ask... Just an introduction, and I will take care of the rest! (Oh, and redheads rock! Just sayin'!)

For Phoenix

I wrote this for my niece, Phoenix, as I sang her to sleep and gazed into her baby blues. I am so in love, and miss her so much!

Phoenix
I sing you down into the deep
And just before you drift to sleep
I see myself reflected in your wondering eyes
As deep as the ocean and as wide as the sky
And there within I see the beauty that can be
The love that lives in you
And the hope that lives in me...