Marriage

I dreamt my husband left me and didn’t say why, like when we fight because I fail to read his mind.

I felt unlovable, alone, afraid, sad, and defeated.

I told him that when he drilled the ceiling above our heads it created so much dust, noise, and falling debris that I feared for our lives.

He implied that I should understand his master plan.

Though we may disagree, I woke up with the feeling that my marriage is worth more to me than I thought.

There’s the devil that you know versus the angel that you don’t…at least he keeps me out of the horrors of the dating pool, though gentlemanly bachelors seemed to abound after we got married.

I just need to keep the sky from falling, and the sky is my mind.

Nap Breeze

Candy glass, butterfly smash

Falling pieces fall together again

Riding on a dandelion seed, floating on the wind

Intergalactically I travel

Dreaming through open eyes

Effortlessly flying through starry skies

Harnessing the strength from which the planets spin

I am the daffodils, the earth and the rain

I feel the world weightless inside my brain

I can almost see what can’t be seen

Formless, colorless behind the screen

Until the breeze pulls this nap from me

Dreamboat

I dreamt my father piled his toxic masculinity on to me, the way he does

He found my secret stash of poetry and mocked me, reciting what I’d written with harsh tones of ridicule

Unlike real life, in my dream I confronted him

I told him I didn’t appreciate his critique of my truest expression of myself

He tore in, told me I was crazy

I felt pushed to my edge, the way I easily do

Still dreaming, I contemplated suicide, the way I readily do

Then I realized that I am ok with walking away

It felt liberating like a bell ringing, like a sunrise on the horizon of my mind after a lifelong night

If he wants to die alone, that is his prerogative

I’ve got my best life to live- no more will I give my power away to those who throw me away

What is this false belief that I could ever make anyone else happy

I became very unhappy trying to make everybody else happy

Growing up in a home of violent depressives, I didn’t stand a chance

I’m ready for a second chance at life- I will fall many times, but I will always get up

In my dream, I walked away

I climbed into a little boat with the man I love

We floated down a beautiful river

We were as happy as two people in a dreamboat can be

And we are

Tropical Moon

I could be a hula girl

I’d give my grass skirt a twirl under the tropical moon

My coconuts would sway to the sound of the waves in the bay under the tropical moon

I hope I get there soon

At night the sand is cool under my feet as they dance to the sound of the beat under the tropical moon

The fire is burning bright and the stars light up the night under the tropical moon

I hope we get there soon

The palm trees sway above our heads under the tropical moon

May this vision serve as a thread to weave a new tapestry of reality

I’d place it above my bed like a tropical moon

Goodnight, tropical moon

Heartsong

When I look at you

I start to move, my body starts to groove

My feet begin to swing

As my heart sings

My heartbeat goes bum, badum badum badum badum badum

When I look at you

You look sweeter than sugar, creamier than cream

When I look at you

I am in a dream and my feet start to swing

As my heart sings

Badum badum badum badum badum badum badum badummm

Flame

Your rage strikes my heart like a lightning bolt

Cracking it open and setting it afire

I am at a loss for what to do, so I warm my hands over the embers and wait

To transform, part of me must die

I cannot rush, only trust

How many times can one heart break?

As many times as it takes

To learn the sacred lessons

To consciously unite with the divine

Time and time again

Pain is pain, sensation is sensation

No matter the form or formal education

Lucid dreaming just before waking

I see a sea of broken hearts glowing in the dark

Each a floating lantern offered up

Burning with the same flame

Off My Chest

I need to get you off my chest

I’ve never felt relaxed in my life because you raised me in the war zone of your wrath

Bombs of panic explode in my mind all day every day

Choking me with your smoke and mirrors even though you are far away

My ears ring with your shouting

You were the biggest little tyrant

Not even two years my senior

Yet always more needy

Mandating, yet begging

I didn’t realize the power I had over you, and still do

You were the one dependent on me for affirmation, not the other way around

I didn’t have a choice then, but I do now-

To live a life without your storms brewing on my horizon

I’ve never slept well in my life because I thought you were going to murder me in my sleep throughout our childhood and adolescence

I used lie in bed wearing a cross around my neck with a note attached to it asking you to think before acting, waiting for dawn to break, dreading another day with you, feeling trapped and hopeless with no end in sight

I never felt protected, respected, seen or heard by our parents

In moments of desperation, I wish you had killed me

Instead you continue to torture me passive aggressively, and I am passive passive aggressive

Silenced, as if buried alive

I toss and turn, tormented between insomnia and nightmares

I’m trying to think before I act

I am upset that I’m even thinking about you now

I am upset about how you get upset ‘at’ me: you throw your rage at me and have me clean up the mess, time and time again, left to calm your ass down as if your reactions were justifiable or somehow my fault

It was never my fault

I am not responsible for how you feel

Leave me alone you evil bitch

I want to scream at you with the force of 35 years of repressed anger and tears

At the same time, I am trying to let go of the hot coal which burns my palm

I am trying to let the rippling waters of my pond be still

I am trying to not be irritated, for only then will you no longer be irritating

I am trying to take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings

I am tired of trying so damn hard

I am ready for ease

I am ready for peace

I am ready to breathe

Please, get off my chest

I don’t need to ask- I am responsible for how I feel

I’m not sure what to do next

I’ll probably meditate and self-medicate with raw emo poetry

Like the note pinned to my cross-necklace, you will probably never read this

But maybe those who matter will

Those who feel they are suffering alone

May find healing in this onion peel

And breathe just one breath more freely

For this I humbly pray

Namaste

Sleep Talking

Long ago and far away

On a bus grinding through the night

The air thick with sweat and grime

All we had was time

Beer and ice cream on my lips

Bitterness and liquor on his

The man next to me said that I was afraid of talking in my sleep

He overstepped the boundary that I failed to establish between us

Sometimes when I wake up alone, I wonder if my lover heard me sleep-talking and left me to wallow in my past

I want to tell him the truth about my life, but I fear that he would stop loving me,

or worse- rehash it endless times and tell his religious family who would judge me as a hell-bound, lying, baby-killing whore

They’d be right, in a sense

I have exchanged sex for money and I’ve had 3 abortions, each one horrible in its own way, but not as bad as being stuck in an abusive, disempowering situation

Judge not, motherfuckers

I don’t want any man to judge the decisions I’ve made about my body

Least of all a man who is financially dependent on my career: a profession which swallowed my fetuses whole

My past is nobody’s business but my own

I don’t want to be given a hard time for the hard times I’ve already been through

I’m trying to heal and move on

I’m trying to meet myself with compassion for the trauma I’ve endured

I am strong and tough and vulnerable and delicate

My dark secrets are at once more innocent and scandalous than my jealous partners imagine

I didn’t want to be pregnant anymore so I stopped being pregnant

You weren’t supporting me by being broke and leaving me shamefully unmarried

I didn’t want to spend the weekend with you so I didn’t

I regret the weekend away because the other men treated me both better and worse than you, but I love you- painfully clear now that the hormonal storm of pregnancy has simmered down

Why do I set myself up for drama and disaster? I’m trying to heal but your rehashing of the past dredges up emotional detritus, dragging me back

My old stress addiction dies hard

I clamp my jaw

My teeth grind like a bus in the night

I pray that I didn’t sleep talk last night

My Mistake

I dream of you, my favorite lover
Though it has been many years
Since that sparkling summer
When I was 18 and you were 17
I was unprepared to fall so deep

Your hand on mine
Was enough to stop time
I stayed awake all night
Electrified by your touch

And more terrified than I realized, to mess it up
It was my fear that froze me and left you out in the cold
I thought my feelings for you meant that we would never part,
I thought surely you must feel the same way in your heart
But our relationship didn’t even get off the ground
The engine of my airplane is still churning ’round

I wish I had been more reckless-
Gotten drunk with you, had unprotected sex and let you impregnate me
I’d give up my education and prestige of my career
Just to hold you near once more

Instead, my unrequited feelings for you became misplaced on others,
Those many unwanted lovers
No one holds a candle to you-
My heart is a bonfire burning blue

In my dream, you once again hold my hand
I feel the magnetic touch that I’ve missed so much,
Feel the electric current flow between us.
I feel blissfully happy,
Until I wake up to the real nightmare-
that you are married and have a kid.
I feel so happy for you and so sad for me.

In dreaming of you, that sense of magical love is awoken in me
As if I might turn the corner and find love staring back at me
And this time not drop the ball at my feet

But more likely,
I’ll open my eyes to the love all around me
Or look within and realize that I’ve always had it all

Rather than the wish,
I am the well.

I mistook the feelings you brought out in me as something that you alone could give me, like you were my heroin dealer, my poppy seed
I mistook you for the source, but you were the springboard
Off of which I catapulted into the abyss
Tumbling through the dark, I held onto to my spark
Let it glow and grow
And now I know
We are all source-
We are love manifested into physical form

The feeling of losing your love threw me for a loop
For a minute there, I lost myself
My mistake

Perhaps without you,
I would not have come to realize
That we are all love itself

Without the exquisite pain I felt in your absence
I would not have had to comfort myself
by curling up under the blanket
woven by the in-separateness of all
You, me, and everyone we know
Are golden threads in this tapestry
Leaves on the sole tree of life

Non-Binary Dreams

One of the most potent dreams I have ever had
Was of looking deeply into their enchanting eyes
Accepting the invitation to open their thighs
Like they were my favorite book

I want to savor their scent
Hold their every word in my mouth
Tenderly turn their pages
Until I know them cover to cover
My non-binary lover