All About Love

she turned to him and offered,

"one day you'll believe the mirror
reflections we hold up to you. the
pretty words, the handsome portraits,
the gentle acknowledgements.

 
one day you'll consider the mask
doesn't have to be amor, doesn't
have to be any more or any less
than it is or was or will be.

one day you'll trace the curves and
the lines with the same awe, the same
fascination, the same gentle touch.

 
and until that day, until that moment.
until that present and that history and
the future. we'll remind you that you're
a gift, a splendor. radical love.

your radical love.
you're radical love."

Restoration

how do you balance trauma informed
care, consent, and boundaries?
when harm is done? when
harm doesn't leave swirls of
purples and blues, but instead seeks
to strip you down to your barbed wire?

what about when the persons wielding
the weapon are protecting their own
vulnerabilities? what about when it
happens in shadows, in community
circles, in late night chemical concoctions
composed to implode? what then?

you could be led to believe illumination,
the intensity of the sun, could help, that
breathing life into naming it with precise
words could help. you could be wrong.
punitive and carceral and hierarchical
relationships riddled with toxicity and
power can also come in packages with
words like "restorative," "facilitated,"
"community session."

we all harm. we all. harm. swimming
through air so riddled with exploitation
ensures that. so how do we share air,
share oxygen, breathe, become more
than what we're taught to be?

without wanting to be more, without
hoping for more, from yourself from
others from everyone when maybe.
maybe. they don't want to. how can
you settle for this. this wasteland.
when better is as possible as our
imaginations are daring enough
to co-create.

I want to... taste spring rains with
you, that kinda growth. that sprouting
from one form to blooming in the next.

I want to... soak in sun rays with
you, that kinda heat. that melting
from everything to nothing at all.

I want to... gather fall leaves with
you. that kinda art. I want to make
a pile of all of our fears and hold
hands and jump.

I want to... nest in winter blues with
you. that kinda peaceful rest. I want
to know justice and know peace and
when it's time know death.

Contraction

verb

gerund or present participle: grieving

is layered, is growth, is setting

aside expectations and hope and

striving for an acceptance that's

bitter, like lemons? like acid batteries?

no, I think it tastes like betrayal and

sounds like assumptions from false

prophets, the ones who are more

trickster than they are kind, more

warrior than they are healer. We

grieve loss, but what if there was

nothing left to lose? Then what,

where will we turn but into ourselves,

and what shallow graves lie there

for us to sleep in when all this time

we were more fearful of our growth

than we were invested in our liberation, 

where will we turn to in our urgency

and what does swiftness obscure

from our vision when all this time

we were more fearful of our growth 

than we're invested in our liberation.