I wish you well
at the end of it all

Even though
we never got to speak
at the turn of the sun
after the battle was fought
after neither won

Because I was too weak
to tell you I’m sorry
I couldn’t remove
the armour of pride
that would have clarified
how all my worries about you
were really about me

And now you’re a ghost
You’ve flown away
with the eagles and my dreams
of what could have been
had I said I’m sorry

All that’s perfect is in you
In the Wednesday clouds you see
Who have nothing in particular to say
While you drink your honey tea
Alone in your room
You have a million and no place to be
You’re as needed as you are needy

Leave me be
But tell me I’m perfect
Like the rest of them

You don’t know how to be the rest of them
Neither do they
Your tea and Wednesday clouds
Were always the same as their Tuesday tears
Which are as perfect as you

It’s carnage outside
The streets are all backed up
With cars and excuses
For why we lost grip
Of who we wanted to be
Why instead we became
A cacophony
Of noise and engines
Rearing to go
Tearing through streets
At break-neck speed
When we should have moved slow

Caught our breath
We should have watched our chests
Rise and fall
To the sound
Of what this means to us all
Then we wouldn’t be spent
By our own discontent
Or the barrage of complaints
For why we didn’t make it

Fast is not best
We know this now
It’s time to rest
The motor’s out

Let me give you the view
Of the trees from below
So that you might watch
Their branches blow
Not worrying that the leaves might fall
Or that the trees might one day
Not be there at all

Let us press our faces
Firm to the ground
Where giraffes and lions
And fables abound
A jungle of innocence all around
So that you might not know
That the hurt and the haunted
Will eventually roam
Or that you might come to decipher
A roar from a groan

Let us walk and walk
Like we’ve no place to be
So that you might choose the path
Only a child can see
Not shy of his freedom
Or the possibility
That yours is whatever you want it to be

Let me give you the voice
Of a man you accept
Let my words be love
Floating over your bed
So that you might never come to regret
Who you became
Not wondering if you were ever heard
Or if what you said was too absurd
For the ears of the world
To hear

Let us cuddle like bears
Tucked away from the winds
Snug in the shelter we built from within
So that you might be brave
Where I have not been
Never worried that others
Could ever break in
To our shared heart

I’ll meet you in the moonlight
Where I’m no longer scared
Of what might be tomorrow
Of who might not be there

Our fears will fall with sundown
As time becomes a friend
A chance to remake futures
A chance to stop the end

We’ll speak of happy memories
As if they were alive
We’ll pull them from the shadows
We’ll tell them not to hide

In the moonlight you are here
And we are friends once more
Bad words have passed through darkness
Bad blood washed to the floor

In the moonlight we are kind
Together, something brave
We can change the course of stars
We can change the road to graves
In the moonlight,
We are possible.

You’re still a mother
A damn fine Gaia
Even when the crown you made
Didn’t fit his head
Even with legs buried in the bed
While another gave him life instead
Of you

And you didn’t fail
Because he didn’t latch the Godly way
Because you chose not to read a book day
On the complex physics of milk

And when you watched
Your blood-stained pants
Spell out the words, “You can’t keep going”
You fed
Again and again
Knowing –
There’s still a mother in you

And you didn’t commit some heinous crime
By not shifting all of time
To meet schedules that steal days and minds
Because for just a minute
You needed you

And when he didn’t sleep
You didn’t miss the memo
With its zany workaround
That trending hack –
It won’t be found
You cannot bend a young man’s will

You’re not heartless
In the mess that is your heart
When you wept for moons on end
In the dark
Longing for what’s been and gone
Searching for your spark

You get it
You sold yourself to motherhood
A harsh exchange
That yields a mighty prize
And demands you wear your sacrifice with pride

You’re still a mother
You always were
He sees Her
In every cuddle and coochy-coo
He sees the immense Gaia
That is the whole of you

From your tiny kingdom
You’ll soon be hurled into the world
And like the bravest king you are
You’ll have to say adieu
To all the cosmic dreams
That held and grew you

It’ll crush your tiny mind
When you’re told to leave behind
The tallest, warmest walls
That have been your safest home
Because we suddenly declared
It’s time for tiny feet to roam

It’s a lot to ask
We know
To touch cold air
That moves in strange directions
That smells of sweat and screams
At first, too much to bare
For little souls like you

But your cries
They’ll soon concede
We’re worth climbing from oblivion
To this dangerous, divine meridian
Where all the truths – hard and soft
Become risky and unhidden

You’ll come to relish days and nights
You’ll welcome in the noise and doubt
You’ll want to hang about
With us – the earth-side crowd
We’ve been waiting, waiting for you

Can you now see?
The incomparability
Of being held in earth’s first arms
So much lovelier than the womb
That you, our tiny king of earth
Can fathom why we made you
And now you want to hold us too

I saved a spot for you
in the last of my hearts

I’ve tucked you away from nostalgia –
from memory’s mighty hands
that slap you to remember
all the lost years
and wasted tears
that could have been spared
by holding you

But how can we know
that it only takes one word
to knock the other off course
By which time we’ve unravelled
at the kitchen sink –
the place we’d never think
would mark the end, again

When did we make it okay
for love to misalign?
Crashing in and out of ourselves,
for partners and epochs
that could have been spent
curled up in a future
imagined with you

We say this is it
We are all there is
And we slide our misgivings
into pockets that protect
false affections and wicked agendas
Leading so many to surrender
to the wrong other

They’ve all taken up too much space
in my sunken hearts
I wish I’d known
a long time ago
that you’d been so close
poised and ready – just out of sight
Standing at the edge of defeat,
waiting to tell me that you loved me

It surprises me too
that I had one more spot
in the last of my hearts –
saved for you
Maybe for all the missteps we take in love,
we all do

It’s another busy Monday
Or so my Outlook says
Cause it hasn’t clocked the court case
Calling me upstairs

Above the meeting madness
I left torpedoing downstairs
The judge is hearing evidence
The jury sits prepared

Black gowns sweep the floorboards
Dark-oaked and clocked
In years of withheld judgment
It’s time to pledge my oath

They’re demanding truth from me
But I say – they don’t get it
By now it’s too far buried
Beneath my long-gone wreath
And whatever they said I could be
Is forgotten

Or is it?

“She never wanted emails
The ones that find you well
She objects to dreams
That live to serve
Her empty clientele”

My Defence – my precious fortune
He sees what I’ve become
And still defends a future
Where my crimes can be undone

And by his words
That carry faith
That don’t belong in court
I see how fast I got dislodged
By lies now so well wrought

Perhaps I could get ready
To admit that I was wrong?

Wrong to dress in clothes I loathed
Wrong to sell the junk I sold
Wrong to fear that being bold
Would cause me to unfold
If I ever dared to close my Outlook

By now the jury rumbles
All propped up in their chairs
“This girl – she’s getting serious”
“This fraud has shown she cares”

“It’s done,” the judge declares
“You’ve started the repairs”
And by virtue of his verdict
I’m sent swiftly back downstairs

Back down here, I want to know –

Can a hint of truth be enough
To fight the mis-intention
Of monied greed that swallows up
Our hard-earned self-connection?

With no court to test my honour
No Defence to save my name
The meetings might just kill me
But I’ll no longer take the blame
So I’ll keep trying all the same
To close my God Damn Outlook

Once again I’m on the floor
First comes the fall
before the memory
of being here before
crawling on all fours

There’s indents in the carpet
that fit my searching hands
and knee-prints shaped like desperate hearts
longing for a glance

From the figure up ahead of me
I know that silhouette
I’ve sketched it in my mind –
a dozen times
So many lines I’ve drawn for you
wishing that you’d sketch me too

Back then when I was upright
On some days,
you’d fling a look my way
and I’d take that semblance of affection
and beg that it would stay

But all the while I was aware
that all your piecemeal care
could only spread so far
It couldn’t reach me deep enough
to translate into love

With time, my falls cracked upwards
subverting how I stood
till the worth of being seen by you
no longer did me good

I curse that desperate crawl
it muddles sturdy minds
It stomps on roads I’ve built so I
can leave that shit behind

There’s no more time to waste
not one more night I’ll spend
held in a pulse that’s set to please
someone make pretend

Take my sketches
Take my love
Throw them to the ground
because I won’t be here for you
when next you turn around