Sometimes it’s like this:

Stripped down, bare bones. Handfuls of dirt, clinging to the earth.

Bold propositions. Expectant, waiting.

I know the news is coming.

I trust the tender bow of the branch that bends as I walk out on a limb. Life has brought me here again and again. And as the tensile strength gives way to the ethers, it's time for me to leap.

Holding back this force, this dam is pressurized and pasteurized by the sanitized way we’ve learned to be free, which is no freedom at all.

I was studying the leaves to learn from them.

I noticed how easily they let go. Gentle, unassuming, bright yellow, whispering their way to the ground.

 Smeared.

Layers of flesh dissolved by the hand of your words, painting me naked, until I have no skin.

Until the warble of my heart is no longer my own.

There is no such thing as alone.

A memory:

Guttural cry rumbling up from the depths of my belly, feet planted firmly on the earth, I see you, and I stand my ground.

pour through me again. love, i have missed you. kiss me gently on the highest part of my cheek, where the skin is soft and sensitive to the way your lips press down, letting me know you feel the tender parts.

soften my spirit while preserving the strength to be bold in my caring, and fierce in my knowing.

I will take up space.

I will reach down into the cavernous inside and embrace the most precious parts with tender hands, peeling the petals back to show you little pieces of me that would otherwise remain a mystery.

I will take you in. I will feel you, rich and rippling inside me, where this love makes sense.

Dark. Deep in the secret compartment of the hidden drawer on the bottom floor where no one has gone, not even me, for a very long time.

I'd rather right the sunshine to replace the rain,

but the moisture is so natural and needed.

Waiting.

Waiting for a pulse. 

Springtime, I know you're there, though my body is still catching up to you.

My skin is aware of the light, while my soul has been stripped to bare bones. 

I must tap the well and drink - of the water that Feeds me.

Everyone has their own kind of dignity. Sacred and profane on the same block, in the same museum, in the eyes of the same people. And we're all the same people - in the eyes.

I know the puddle on the floor.

Right now, I am able to notice how elevated I feel in the chair just above it.

Somehow the fire has graced me with just enough will to sit upright, drawn to its warmth.

Is that dawn, just on the horizon?