VERSE | IF I COULD

If I could live another life with you 
I’d talk of a few more things
More palpably, more honestly with you
Of things that gnawed
At my mind; at the way my gut wrenched
Balling up inside, or even when
The pit of my belly dissolved
In a fluttering crush of butterflies
I’d speak of love light-footed and pure
The kind that knocks you to the floor
And the next instant pins shimmering wings
On your tingling spine so you can fly
High high, breath-catchingly high!

I’d talk of heartbreaks too
That shred the organs into little bits
Where the pain ripples in screaming peals
My thoughts marking time with the cacophony
Where I stumble on my own feet
Where I want to just lie down and feel
Nothing for a while
I’d share secrets that I have held deep inside
Now frozen, frigid, petrified
Mute scars of speechless agonies
Never named, never identified

I’d also tell you that I loved
My quiet, my solitude
When it was just me in my room
Or just you and me
Sipping tea
In the lounge, watching tv
And then I’d tell you about the things
That would make my tone-deaf heart sing
A constant humming underneath
Beneath the sheath of my skin
Of peace that was soothing, softening
Of flame-bright hope and quiet joy

I’d talk to you
Of beginnings and of endings too
Some tragic some tender
Of sometimes going under
But always re-surfacing, I would
Talk of spirituality, the ethereal kind
That makes the hair stand on end
The kind that quickens your breath
That makes life and even death
A fleeting, splendorous enterprise
A mystical trip with no finish line

And when your time here or mine
Was drawing to a close
Together we would
Strum those notes
One last time
Of all the things that we’d talked about
And all the times that we had spent
And then I’d have held your hand in mine
We would have laughed and we would have cried
And we would have laughed again
Because nothing would have been left
Unsaid, unfelt at the end.
Image: Cathy Jacobs

VERSE | THE BOUGAINVILLEA

O Beauteous one 
This is for you
For all the times that you have bloomed
When all around have burrowed deep
Into the coolness of earth’s breast
Hiding away, biding their time
Until gentler, lighter climes
Bestir them in their loamy beds
But you, O Intrepid one
You have always overcome
You have worn your gem-like garb
In ways that made me catch my breath
Racing, chasing to my heart
Wondering if you’d shimmer on
Or if your time here too was done
But you wore your jeweled crown
Glittering in the scorching sun
I looked at you, O Enchanting one
As you cavorted with the breeze
Those molten gusts upon my skin
I gulped in then, the oxygen
That sat timorously in the air
But I was pulled
By the oasis that surrounded you
Perfect, paradisiacal
Unsundered by the elements
There you danced so full of joy
I came to you pulled by the spell
Of your vividness, O Alluring one
You swayed your head
Spangled whorls overspread
Across the fretwork of your boughs
Mesmerized I reached out
Into your magic latticed web
You pricked me then, O Bewitching one
Your thorns were invisible, hidden
I knew then that your glittering grace
Your wild gumption to face the sun
Aren’t just in the softness of your blooms
But in the armor you have chiseled from
The tempests - stormy and searing
I looked at the ruby that had sprung
On my fingertip that you had stung
It dazzled on my glistening skin
Its precious seams filling my lungs
My essence and throb, O Wondrous one
I found that day in the scorching sun.
Image: Fine Art America
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VERSE | LET ME BE ME

For all the girls, and the women young and old, who are made to feel less, inferior or impaired because they have dreams that are different to the ones dreamt up for them by others. May you find the strength and the passion to be you.

Why must I be what I don’t want to be?
Why must I change the state of my dreams?
Why must I cower in fear of my world?
Why must the story of my life stay untold?

Why must I hide myself away?
Why must I look behind me always?
Why must there always be danger to me?
To my spirit, my soul, my mind, my body?

Why can I not laugh out loud when I want?
Why must I hide all my joy in my heart?
Why can’t I turn my face to the sun?
Why must I hide in the shadows you’ve spun?

Why must I bear the ball and chain of these roots?
Why must I remain invisible and mute?
Why was I born if not to revel
In life’s ever cresting and falling swell?

I’m a child of this world, let me roam free
Let me think, let me speak, let me be me
I’m a creature of this earth, I belong everywhere
Let me spread my wings, let me lay my heart bare

Let me be, let me be, just what I want to be
Let me dream, let me dream, what I want to dream
Let me walk in this world unafraid and kind
Let my life tell the story of my heart and my mind.