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
come to me with your confidence
and all
that you know i want.
you don’t expect me to be someone i’m not,
because you know i am vulnerable, right?
you can see the tenderness in
the reality of my defenseless heart.
i like my voice as it describes you to me
…and now, i have something i need to tell you
in person.
don’t ask me to show you what it’s like to lose a beautiful heart,
mine.
don’t let me go another day before i tell you i love you.
© r.e.l. 1/2/15
Won Perfect Poet Award in Thursday Poets Rally week 79 with Hyde Park Poetry
confidence in me
inching toward you breath by breath
i miss you today
© r.e.l. 1/29/15
I nominate Sina Saberi
You are an enigma.
This is about you
and the secret you keep behind your eyes.
It’s unreal to me that you could be there for me.
I see your smile
when you look at me from the place inside you
that is for me,
in the moments when we are touching
or even speaking
as if it’s not happening
when it’s what I want the most
to be cherished by you.
You can’t hide that from me.
It’s not unreal.
When you come to me, I see you with a sixth sense.
You have words but are silent.
I can hear you with your eyes that are blue and clear
staring into me.
Just a tilt of you head
as you hide behind your glass halfway
is enough for me to see
all of it.
My breath is gentle as you come closer, seconds taking minutes.
We are in slow motion and I want that to last.
I want to continue to see your heart beating…
You are more real to me than most things.
I want you in a precious way.
A world is formed
without speaking,
not desperate, or touched with broken hearts.
I don’t know what time it is and it doesn’t matter how long we are here.
I can hear you behind your face that cringes
with the power of the world on your shoulders
against us.
I look into your eyes.
I want to know the secret of you
but you won’t tell me
so I find it
through days or weeks,
through many words and senses.
I can hear you still
even in your fingertips
that lightly brush against me.
You want me in a way that I hold dear.
I believe in your conviction
to your heart
to your trust
and you won’t lie to me.
I find it through the pauses between sentences, unwritten
or smiles that you can’t hold back
(and lips that know me).
I want to sit next to you and hold your hand
and know you are near.
I want to take care of you,
your emotions, your world,
as if I am holding your hand to help you think.
I don’t want you to ask me questions
because you already know the answers.
I know you are near even when you aren’t.
We already have many questions
with responses
throbbing inside of us.
I want to take you home with me
and get tangled in memories, in us.
© r.e.l. 12/14/14
Published on Rebelle Society 1.3.15
Image source: unknown
encapsulating every inch, touching.
i imagine how your hands clasp mine.
we are a bravery that led to senses.
of understanding whispers, or of character in windows of time.
of future times, slowly with deep eyes.
like beautiful surrender wrapped up, frozen…
follow me to my heart that risks. vulnerable, slow down, slower. testing the dream, flames shift.
where your hands are a metaphor for your heart waiting for strength and a voice, waiting to begin and not end. to feel safe and live inside me to tell me your beautiful words.
© r.e.l. 9/28/14
Photo “ghost of past” by Kalee Prue
I don’t want to leave you, or myself, behind. When your words are near, my inner smile becomes me. When your body is standing in front of me, my heart shuts down.
Why? I feel you more now that I left, as if a piece of me is still with you. I leave it for you to care about, given freely.
Hold me now, I ask you, because I can’t hold myself in this way. Why would I want to take the place of your arms around me, pieces of us touching, filling gaps sensing all at once? How could I ever be without you after having you?
You come to me in my dream, my seed (you are), and I’m special. I’m the one you’d do that for. Our secret. And we are the way it should be. How I could not have that, I do not know.
But now, I cannot ask or show you this. I can only sit in my car alone, wait and cry over my missed opportunity. My closed heart—again, protecting itself, ego on guard standing tall against its tears. (When you’re in front of me, I want for you to be the one to say what I dream, as if I transfer my dream to you, and now it’s heard).
Instead, I walk away, and so do you, words uttered yet unheard. Too vulnerable to ask simple questions in person: Will you be with me? Can I have you?
With anticipation of us, your playfulness shining, I’m open and there. I’m ready for you. I’m ready for us. I have you. And now you’re gone… I want you more now than I imagined I could.
Here in this moment, I feel your eyes and you are hurting too, voice silenced but saying No somehow, not allowing us to be.
And now I feel that I am the one who won’t allow us to be. I can’t look into your eyes easily now as we did that first day, when we knew the mirror looking back was us. I want to hold you now with my eyes closed and just know that we both remember how it started and why.
I’m scared to even look now to see if you’re there, to see you watching me waiting for you, tears in my eyes like a cloud covering my heart, drowning instead…
The raw words that speak now tell me that I missed my chance to have you; I’m wishing you wanted me too, and wondering why you don’t. And, if I’m wrong and you do, I wonder if it’s my fault that you don’t come running, and my fault that you cannot feel me now. Do I block my heart from you?
I wonder what I have done wrong and how I can tell you so you know who I am. Without this, I’m reaching out for something that isn’t there, or isn’t possible, where you are waiting for me to just let down my guard.
And next, I hear you tell me (in my mind), “Don’t you understand how much I want you?” (but it seems like a dream.)
If we have to start somewhere, let’s start here.
© r.e.l. 7/17/14
Published on Rebelle Society 11.12.14
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
Fuck You! That says a lot, but does it really?
The extent to which I feel it is not adequately described with a common phrase. Dear Love, you do not remind me of red hearts right now.
You do not remind me of champagne and bubble baths for two, with chocolate kisses mixed in. You do not entice me to smile or make Valentines. You make me want to cry.
I haven’t cried though because it’s more fun to curse you and all of your celebrations — especially your presumption that all beings who wish to buy food on a given day also wish to be reminded of you. What do you expect me to do? I am the one who was left, the one whose heart was trampled on.
Should I buy paper and paste and send myself half a Valentine with a rigid break in the middle, with blood still crusty on the edges of its break? How do I depict the scars that have built upon each other, one atop the other in layers, in breaks?
Each break is different, so it’s not like they are all piled up nicely for display.
I don’t want to give you the power to allow me to cry now. You are only a fucking holiday. You are only trying to make money off of the unsuspecting, love-struck souls who have bubble hearts floating above their clouded hearts. You make plenty. You have them.
You think you have love too. But, think again. I didn’t say Fuck Love, I said Fuck You. You are a reminder to all of the brokenhearted that they should just go home and cry. You remind me not to paint my toenails red.
The worst part is that you make me want to hate love. Nice try. I don’t. I only hate you. But instead of celebrating love today, I want to wear black, and hide in a cave. All in your honor.
From there, I think I will make you a Valentine, as I sit here telling the fire these words. The fire is watching me type. I am being told that I should burn you up. To purify you? To purify myself? Truly, I hope you feel the pain and have no one to rescue you with water, no one to pat you until you are free.
I hope you die before you wake up.
Originally published on Rebelle Society 2.11.14
the edge of you… is deeper
because you have lived
beyond your tenacity
letting breathe
your heart, my pain
your strength, my tears
your solid form, my shattered intellect
© r.e.l. 4/11/12
image by s i m s h a
Posted for Poetry Picnic 5/6-5/13/12 on Gooseberry Garden
i haven’t
written
yet
or
spoken much
since the last time
i found
the way
to your
place inside you
that you protect
© r.e.l. 5/4/11
posted for Thursday Poet’s Rally 5/5-5/11/11 on Jingle Poetry
maybe i’m scared too. i’m scared to know that i do feel what you say.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux of Valenciennes
i’m scared to know that inside me is a seed growing, unstoppable.
powerful enough to find you. that if i water the seed it will grow, that it is already growing, that you are my future, that if i look into your eyes i will be swallowed like pools. to drown.
but in a sweetness that i won’t want to forget.
i’m scared that inside i know my life will have to change, that i’m not who i’m meant to be now, but i will be with you.
i’m scared that the unknown knows more about us than i do.
so, i ask you now, don’t stop.
© r.e.l. 1/3/11
inspired by song ‘Inscape’ by Stateless
Featured in Imaginative Skulls on redbubble
Posted for Poetry Potluck week 5/1-5/7/11 doubts, fear, inhibition, hesitation on Jingle Poetry
Posted (partial) for Micropoetry 3/20/14
Are you scared to face something within yourself? Do you sometimes feel that time is against you or that you cannot fulfill your wishes because of your fears?
You know that the answers are in your dark sides that you probably refuse to see. Did you know that yoga has the potential to be the place to confront what’s most deep inside you? This means, however, that you have the power to confront your darkest side of you in your yoga practice.
It’s a place only for the bold, that is for sure… But ask yourself,
“what are you scared of?”
It is true that we hide our darkest parts deep within our bodies. The best parts stay locked up in our joints and tightest places: hips, necks, shoulders, backs, and even feet. When moving through yoga with deep breath, these gems–these secrets–can become free…
Seriously.
Unlocked, their messages trace through our blood as the prana moves relentlessly through us in a vibrant yoga practice. It is the best kept secret.
As these parts of you move through you, and you encounter your difficulties, you can embrace them as gifts. To visit them and set them free, is truly a gift. An angel.
If you do not, these dark secrets stay below (inside your underworld), unconsciously controlling you. They cause you to repeat ugly patterns as “a fly mindlessly beating itself to a pulp bumping against a window through which it cannot pass…attempting to escape its misery,” as put by Absolute Palaver.
Don’t be scared. You have the power. It is you that you are unlocking. The true you.
Namaste.
© r.e.l. 12/30/10
Photo by Matin Demiralay of Turkey — demiralaymetin@hotmail.com
don’t startle
with fear
of losing
to change…
it is as true that i have you as the ocean has the wave
even though a spark
, like lightning
can shock me to know
you are not
who i thought…
as a moment witnessed
tells a secret.
and now
aloof to the subtle
you wonder who
these words are for now
without seeing that
i
am a mere mystery drawn to
attract the precious inside…
© r.e.l. 12/1/10
**this post is for Poetry Potluck Week 16 on Jingle Poetry
Received The Prolific Blogger Award from Jingle Poetry
Coming into wholeness. What does that mean? To feel yourself at peace, in love and at one with your path in life.
It is possible to find this peace from within yourself — not relying on another person or object. Allow yourself to let go of all the impediments that make your mind over-think, fear and worry. Without all of the excess, you are free!
You can access this freedom any time, in fact! The truest side of who you are, undisturbed, coexists with the emotional mind…
A metaphor… Imagine 3 buckets of water.
The sun is shining in all 3, and they each enjoy the sun equally.
Reflection in the first bucket is dim and dull, in the second is agitated, and in the third is peaceful.
Where the sun is the Self, the water is the mind, and the reflection is the Ego (mis-identification), we can make some conclusions.
My true self is a constant that is independent of how my mind is acting. If I appear to reflect “muddy water” I see dullness and depression. If I appear to reflect agitation, I will feel like I’m breaking apart in pieces. If I appear to reflect stillness and clarity, however, I will feel a profound peacefulness with my Self and feel at one.
So, if I am seeing muddy water, or water that is stirred up, how do I calm it? The answer is to calm the rajas (activity, motion and irritation in the mind) and the tamas (inert and dullness in the mind), so that you can feel the sattva (the purity of the mind). Rajas and tamas create imbalance. Yoga, meditation or other physical activity / mental-calming activities will do the trick.
For more on dream interpretation and meditative imagery interpretation, read here.
Independent of what is reflected by the mind, the sun is always shining and I am always whole. I just have to know it, feel it and identify with it.
© r.e.l. 9/22/10
Inspired by the teachings of Advaita Vedanta, Sankhya Yoga and the Upanishads…
I am now facing my fears… going off the edge to find myself in the depth of who I am. If I am bold enough and I don’t turn back, this action will set me free.
In the dark shadows, I might sail through my depths as if a dream and find the silence I need in order to find the keys I have searched for all my life. The best stuff is at the very bottom.
More conspicuous and offset against the darkness, the gems and secrets will be easier to see or feel. Sometimes they will shine with luminosity like a beacon, and they have my name on them!
Maybe the bottom is a bed of soft sand which I can dig my bare feet into and feel rooted in myself like never before. I can call it the ground of my soul. To touch this part of me is to release all that I previously imagined was hidden.
It will then transform itself, no longer in the dark, if I invite it to be a part of my waking, conscious being.
Freedom lies in moving into those places that scare us most. We hold those fears not only in our unconscious minds; they show up in one form or another in our bodies.
I intend to isolate the manifestation of my fears as they disguise themselves and ail me with tension. Like an instinctual animal would, I will shake it off to get it out of me.
I will not let the ailment which arises define who I am. My blood, or my chi (Chinese medicine), should move freely and uninhibited as it bathes me with its life force.
Yoga and meditation help me. Yoga nidra is a guided visualization that takes one into the state of “wakeful” deep sleep. It is a sleep-like state that includes relaxation as well as the psychology of dream, sleep and yoga. This was a helpful guide to me just today.
© r.e.l. 9/6/10
Inspired by freediver Guillaume Nery and an amazing yoga class I just took today.
Dear heart, sometimes I wonder who I am. I feel like I’ve never done this before, like I am new to love. Sometimes I get too nervous as if my vulnerable child is coming out of her shell for the first time. And when I do, I feel like a hummingbird alone in the rain.
A silent moment asks me to
breathe in all that I feel and ‘stay with me please’ with eyes looking into me. The answer is in the presence. To really feel the present moment with ease is to not worry about anything else but it. The answer is to not worry about needing to describe it in words, to anyone else or to myself. Those who share the moment too, will know exactly what I mean anyway. Silence speaks with a swirling energy between two people anyway, whether they are touching, across a room, or across the world. In that presence, another spirit is born… left to float off into the clouds at sunset but never to stop penetrating the everlasting moment.
© r.e.l. 7/24/10
Photo of Minnesota sunset by Michele Kamenar
Featured in Love Bytes on redbubble
i feel you behind my eyes
and then i run from myself
i inhale you
but you run too
what are we running from?
will you let me feel 
what you’ve become
since then
and never question why…
it’s a chance we need to take
until i know you
don’t lose who you are
save a part for me
© r.e.l. 7/22/10
Posted for Poetry Potluck 6/19-6/25/11 Void, Loneliness & Sorrow on Jingle Poetry
i fell asleep
with you
holding you tight
eyes closing
with a smile
your mystical roots
fears no more.
in the morning
you were still there
my hands in stillness
enclosing you
you whispered a secret…
you slept with
my magic
© r.e.l. 4/27/10
inspired by some magical gemstones
Featured in Touched By Fire on redbubble and Touched By Fire the blog
Posted on Poetry Potluck 7/24-7/30/11-Nature and Life on Jingle Poetry
i had no choice
but to move forward on my path
finding love in my heart
fearlessly opening to life
as i returned again
to the land
that was like a father to me
giving me life situations i needed
that were meant for me to progress
and seemed to have
the same heartbeat as my own heart.
along “the way” i was led to silence
a peace that i had never known
and a truth that will remain
with me
as magic
forever
begging my return.
© r.e.l. 4/24/10
inspired by the Road to Santiago, Spain–“The Way”
my secret innuendo® 
