you know that feeling you get when you’re flying, no effort and—maybe by mistake—you stay there for awhile? stillness. and you stay in your body where time seems to stop. no fear, no goals, just being there.
you know that feeling.
you close your eyes. you are connected. and it doesn’t matter which part—it’s all of you.
it starts when you’re not looking. and remains.
©️r.e.l. 7/4/19
surge with me
in the same direction
at the same pace
toward the same cause
stare up at the sky
with me
for a moment, and see
that we are
listening
to the same
tune
no time for seemingly unreachable
confusion.
stand in front of me.
tower over leftover treasure,
and figure out what was
in the air between all of our words
© r.e.l. 12/16/18
she kept asking
the same question over and over
wanting to be inside him, to hear him speak
anything would do
answers that excluded him in her process
were not what she wanted to hear
she wanted him to guide her
by taking her hand
she chose him for a reason that stood
in front of her one day
and planted her waiting for him to pass
he was meant to become
a part of her
she wanted to tell him this
but she wanted it to last in his heart
and be held by him when he fell asleep at night
its essence on one of his pillows
she wanted to be special
she never lost hope in the silence between them
it was all she could do
to remember
his imaginary hand on her heart
helping her breathe
she grew up alone
reminded of her wish for his arms
around her, and where was he
sad of her successes without him
he became the ones she pursued
the ones who loved her
and then ridiculed her for loving
she learned early on
how to be provocative and walk away
to not connect was to protect her vulnerable heart
what she really wanted though
was for him to follow her
she wanted him to read her
she didn’t know how to ask that question
through waves of time
and heartbreaks
she learned how to protect herself
she loved
she became extraordinary
she yearned to be taken but was afraid to ask
© r.e.l. 6/25/17
for AllPoetry
…her eyes open to faint breathing. she reaches her foot out to touch his, and then his arms pull her toward him. breathing together, she knows their chemistry defines them.
…in that moment, she isn’t thinking about details in their lives that intersect, and that maybe they could celebrate those some day. she just wants him. all of him. she knows that it will all happen again. and again.
…in his absence, especially when she is cold, she imagines what he is saying to her in her ear. this protects her, living in precious memories that take over.
…feeling his heartbeat weighs on her as a comfort. inhales move all of what they’ve become through her, and exhales savor. he is a conduit to something important inside her.
© r.e.l. 12/11/16
i have no expectations, except that
you keep me
especially when i share myself
with you
in ways… that cannot be explained
with words
only space, and all that occurs
in the inhale
which is a lot, a world in and of itself
if you are listening
you know too
© r.e.l. 10/27/16
when i let myself want
to tell you myself,
i’m quick to convince myself to stop,
that i don’t want to matter to you.
when i only wanted to ask you,
(to show you)
the best of who i am
before my dazed vision
evaporates
to float away
the end of my story
where we float away
into our twilight
fading…
on edge
from the start
mostly…
i moved away
you missed me, only then
reality in absence
disbelieving heart
that couldn’t sleep…
not understanding
that despite you, despite me
i left
for a dream
reaching out to me
i decided to change
i needed to change
my life
© r.e.l. 2/5/16
Inspired by WriteYourselfAlive 30 day writing challenge through Rebelle Society
This is me and you saving the part that you want me to admit the answer to. That the parts between us want to touch, no different than before when we first began exploring about me and you, not lying through my smile.
Remember when I heard you whisper the first time, and you heard me without my speaking? I want to return to that moment, and state of being too. We were powerful then bridging beyond words to a place where sentences and phrases didn’t matter. The spirit speaks when musing and delight take over, along with wonders and desires to know more, to know everything.
My look toward you, into you, was authentic. Was it sad? You knew without a smile what I wanted. You knew as I grabbed my stuff, strong and powerful. You knew where I’d find you in my mind within moments. You knew you’d be there too.
And still I can’t help but cry a little that you didn’t take me away with you in that moment and whisper in my ear the words I’ve known, the language, the words floating above us waiting to be spoken.
When you placed my head gently against yours to hold me closer, I felt all that you know. I heard you say why but you know the answer and its source; because it’s still the same, hidden in your anger, in your lure and my regard. You no longer see through; you connect. You are there now with your eyes. I feel the difference in me now and then, in morning and in evening. My gage is you.
I want to be magic–a force you gravitate toward without reason and even smile when you know the reason. As you are dear to me, especially when I wake, especially when I’m tired. Your fingers run along my arm toward my heart, reminding me to never forget who I am.
An active clarity shining like roots, interspersed inside keeping us safe. My heart knows in silence how you link to aspiring my insides awake. I can write my way to you just as I look up in the sky at a cloud as I float.
Don’t you think that it’s time to be more than we are, more than our eyes sensing. You can take me now to the part where our worlds collide in the dimly-lit room. A candle lights the way to look at what we are, still eyes gazing in the direction of us, shadows behind us flickering.
© r.e.l. 10/8/15
Submitted to Rebelle Society 10/13/15
Image source: David Whyte http://www.davidwhyte.com/
i sent this to you now because i know there’s no agenda in the silence.
although it may seem i’m timid, aloof or afraid, i surrender to you… disappearing like morning sometimes.
please don’t be scared. forgive. forgive like i can almost see you.
it’s better to laugh it out. at your heart, but never disregard.
mean the world to me. my wounds remind me of you, and look forward to me being precious to you.
© r.e.l. 5/16/15
if you saw through my eyes and heart to who you are to me, maybe it would be different for you now in your mind that wanders.
if you saw my teardrops when i think of the way you turn away when i say it wrong, maybe you’d know the truth.
if you remind me of someone who i hurt deeply or who hurt me, maybe you’d know that any word or look could activate that and become you.
if you heard me explain through my wounds, maybe you could feel yourself and me better and then know why i am shielding you from me.
if you knew that i could and desire to protect you and know exactly what to do and how to hold you, maybe you would feel content now just imagining it.
if you knew that every day i imagine where you are and wonder if i could find you in my days, maybe you’d look for me.
if you knew just how much i care and my capacity to love, maybe you could feel my vulnerable self who worries that it would overwhelm you.
if you only knew just how much i could love you…
if you only knew what a hole your absence leaves, maybe you would come back to me.
if you knew how turned on i am just to be by your side, maybe your heart would smile when you saw me.
if you knew how awkward it is for me too to be alone, maybe you would see yourself in my mirror.
if you knew that i already know you from my dream last night, maybe that would help you live in the present right now and connect with me in the spaces between us.
if you knew that to look in your eyes revives me, maybe you would look into me more and see who you are to me.
if you settled into your true self and asked yourself ‘why?’, maybe your answer would be my voice and then you’d know.
if you truly become your heart, you will really feel me… do you still think i don’t care?
if you feel your breath the way i do, sense your presence the way i do, hold your moments the way i do, you would know how much you are loved.
© r.e.l. 2/25/15
Received Perfect Poet Award for Thursday Poets Rally week 81 on Hyde Park Poetry. thank you…
Published on Rebelle Society {poetry} 5.26.15
I have rose petals on my mind. They are lined up, as if placed mindfully by one person who cared. This person cares that the rose petals were all lined up, each touching, following each other to shore on their path to me. They are floating in the warm ocean toward me, direction swerving as the waves transmute the ocean.
These rose petals have something. They are love, ashore in my life. I am the ocean. I am floating now. This is all that needs to be said.
It is obvious that I have a big heart, and love only men who don’t know how to love yet wear an armor with a heart on it to disguise their brick walls they quickly build when real love—mine—comes along.
That doesn’t diminish my heart. So, Valentine’s Day, please don’t tell me to Go Hug Yourself or imagine your romantic adventures pictured on your billboards. (I plan to eat your chocolate samples and take a nap.)
You, the one I devote myself to, are expecting me to be someone… you’re waiting for it to happen, as if it’s up to me to turn you on by unleashing all of who I am. But in order for me to be all things, I need to do it in the right order. You need to Be Someone too. I need to first get to know your kisses, the look in your eye, the way you hold yourself, how to come closer to or move farther away when you feel overwhelmed, how to know if you’re overwhelmed or actually don’t know how to ask for me to come closer.
If you were here now in front of me, looking into me, I would tell you about my heart. I would tell you about its secret wish that I promised to fall in love and never leave it. It’s hiding alone, willing me to see its angles and curves first that blinded you and me. It is pure, speaking only in silence, waiting for us to argue it away or brush it aside as something else so that then it is what’s left, and believed. It won’t wait now — staring at us, smiling from within, feeling liberated. People will say we are in love.
I want to capture it in a story to tell myself until you are here, and I can practice my endearment speaking not away from you, but into you; I’m not afraid anymore to be real, to be spoken, to be inside you.
You are beautiful to me in ways I knew early on. I wanted to wait though until I felt you inside, until I loved you in the most precious way—from within me. I wanted to wait until the anxiousness and weeds that covered the truth dwindled and blew away, so that the complication wouldn’t ruin us in our sensitive ways, wounded hearts wild and uncompromising.
Caged for a while, with new freedom to be anyone it chooses, it is now volatile and unconditional. It’s safe when loved and alive yet destructive, needing to feel its pain and the process of knowing it’s okay—that love is okay—as I learn to trust my bruises.
When I write to you now, I feel safe finally, as if I have given myself permission (or you have) to love you inside you now, no armor needed. I love you, I do.
© r.e.l. 2/3/15
Published on Rebelle Society 2.13.15
Image source: tumbler (unknown)
sometimes i think i like chaos too much.
i can hide in it.
it’s like the chaos of a coffee shop, while concentrating.
i like to watch it build up, so that i have it, so that i can swim in it.
it soothes me to know its presence–its opposite of order.
it is rebellious, yet a container to work within, to be all things.
all at once.
it is also a puzzle, a trail to follow, to connect dots, to follow the rope on my way out.
it is me, my chaos.
© r.e.l. 10/24/14
Do you know that I will lay my strength beside you and surrender? Forgive me, but it’s who I am, weakened into broken submission when I feel you close. When you are as the ocean, you are my iconic metaphor with clarity—the kind that floats by unnoticed, hides in corners, or drops to the floor.
Do you know that I have it in me to wonder if it can be brave enough for you? I’m right around the corner of your confidence, wide awake with hunger, but I need you to hold me to show me. Hold me now, I ask you, because I can’t hold myself in this way. Make all of my toes touch the floor at the same time.
Do you remember that I miss you? I wonder what you feel, when you believe it’s not possible to be with the me you know me to be. Am I an illusion that floats above your head while waking, that which you cannot comprehend, even to yourself? And still, I carry holes of you within me.
Do you know that my smile was always for you? It was hidden at the bottom of me. I was looking down, and within, really listening. I heard you there, when you saw my smile. I feel you know that.
Do you believe that I am typing these words just for you? I wonder if I should be there now while you read this. You are wondering why I’m not. I should have been. I made eyes with you across the room while you did though, and I lightly bit my finger in shyness as I watched you come towards me.
Do you know that I dreamed I was wrapped in you last night? You deserve an explanation for waking without me; it was a dream. It doesn’t seem fair to wait much longer, to wake to a pillow instead—where no one can see your face when you cry, to count the seconds to another day gone by before you should be.
Do you ever think of my shadows or yours when you brush against me? My tears seep through and tell you to stay with me in your presence that breathes even when it doesn’t try.
Do you remember our silent moments that connected us despite our lack of patience? I am working my way toward you. You are expression of desire met beyond imagination, by your side. You are delight at being enough to be wanted. You know what to say, even when no one else is listening. You are the experience of my teardrop. You are a gift.
Do you believe that your eyes melted me each time then and still do? Don’t give up on me. I am not going anywhere. I know that you are that which rises and you know me to be the one who senses you now, a reprise. And I heard you last night when you spoke to me with your dream, intense and beautiful. You spoke of a ride you foresee with ups and downs, receiving and holding. And now it is so close that I can taste it.
Published on Rebelle Society 12/19/14
© r.e.l. 9/20/14
Image source: gravityglue.com
you are that which rises.
and you know me to be the one who senses you now, a reprise.
did you know that i heard you last night when you spoke to me with your eyes?
you were the ocean then, yet not.
you were an ironic metaphor with clarity,
the kind that floats by unnoticed, hides in corners, or drops to the floor.
you were that which you cannot comprehend, even to yourself.
© r.e.l. 8/29/14
for someone special
You love the fire. You are it, moving quickly, emulating its spark. Your miles to go in your mind, before calmed, drive you. Transfixed on you I am.
Be you, be the you I have known. Smile at me until I melt into something else. You are beyond getting my attention. You make me know why I’m alive.
And now I’m on fire because when I first saw you, recently and not, I fell in love with you. All I knew from before, relived in a moment, rejoined with all that we created then, to be continued later. You smiled when you knew I loved you then. You knew. You know now.
© r.e.l. 3/25/13
Featured on Feminine Intent on Redbubble
Posted on Medium 3/18/14
i’m scared to really look it in the eye
(what i really want)
because i don’t think i can have it.
i can’t keep it.
and what have i done wrong to make it so that this is so?
i’m covering my heart and drowning instead.
i want my experience to hold me
because i can’t hold myself in this way.
in my dream, the seed that is planted makes me special.
i’m ready for it.
then it’s gone when i open my eyes.
then i want it back even more than imagined i did.
© r.e.l. 7/16/14
i like your whisper…
from the start
you drew me in.
you don’t know this
but
i couldn’t hear
what you said,
that day.
but the words didn’t matter
it was your
whisper
that i remember.
© r.e.l. 7/14/14
what i really want to say
is too real
that you are more
than i can imagine ever knowing
all of.
why is it so hard to ask you
a simple question,
the only question i have?
i miss you when the time passes
and i’m scared of being left alone
with only my words.
i want to be the answer
you’ve searched for.
© r.e.l. 7/8/14
Posted (partial) on Micropoetry 8/15/14 for #heart theme
i don’t know you or how you do it, but when i’m not looking you trap me and hold me down. your arms are heaviness encapsulating me. your eyes look into me. and then i feel you grounding me, as each of my toes touch the floor at the same time and know their purpose. {root chakra}
i want you to understand something. it isn’t me, it’s you. i need you. i don’t want you to leave ever. i want to eat you up. i need to keep you close. {sacral chakra}
i have a hard time waiting, as if impatience is my path to you. run to me as i run to you, please. i’ll meet you there. hurry. i’m waiting. {solar plexus chakra}
with you i believe how precious the teardrop is. you feel me then. how could you not? i am full. i have been carrying the holes of you. i love you. {heart chakra}
do you know what i wish to say to you? how did you hear through my silent fog? it’s ok, i know how. {throat chakra}
i know before you know. it is a feeling. it’s knowlege. it’s truth. i would bet anything on it. circle back and find me. {third eye chakra}
you are like the candle flame that always burns, the one i cannot tell is you or me or we. {crown chakra}
© r.e.l. 6/17/14
Long version published on Rebelle Society 10.3.14
my secret innuendo® 