My fairy-tale-heart
dreamt of an Adonis
but his countenance
outshone my dull
Found instead
a Demogorgon
divide my time
between up and down
Like Persephone
I negotiate demonic
Hades darkness
enough for me.
(Tuesdays I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson – this one edited. Image mine.)
One (me) plus one (you)
equals two (a couple)
So why is it that division
makes me feel less than whole
And subtraction (we minus you)
renders me an integer
And how, in this state of sub zero
do I solve for y?
(For Reena’s Exploration challenge: prompt here. Image my own.)
Bound to this saudade –
the agony of knowing
I let you go, rejected
a love so pure –
the road has been long
pitted with heartache
you, my greatest regret.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter. Image my own.)
Had a weird sort of lexicon
the man who professed
to be my dad –
Clamped in his chokehold
he’d demand words of devotion
Became inured to this dichotomy –
spent a lifetime searching for love –
Just the right balance of cruelty and kind.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Sketch mine.)
These barriers –
iced over sentiments
barbed-wire wounds –
How do we reconcile
when questions
resist answers?
What remains
to be solved?
I retreat into misery
Should never have allowed
heart to even hope –
Belle, you torture me so.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own.)
Bridging was his MO
caught me post divorce
when needs were slippery
Sapped my spirit
drained my love, then
latched onto new youth –
Most liberating gift
he ever gave me.
(Image from personal collection)
Don’t believe in soulmates
just soul power – the ability
of human yearning to actuate
love’s potential –
Of course, I’m far from a rookie
bear the scars of infatuation’s
fallout, prefer kindness
and respect to romantic fluff.
(Tuesdays I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson.  Image my own.)
Heart, craving expression
seeks the aid of paper –
A message with pizzaz
a testament to love
But my pen chokes
on the word itself
refuses the pronouncement
soul balking at the possibility
I toss the note…
…maybe next time.
(Tuesdays, I borrow from my Twitter account @Vjknutson. Image my own.)
Strains of Tijuana Brass flood the yard
while father on bended knee tends
his garden, tiers of stone edged rows
encircling a trio of birch trees.
Father points out birches on Sunday
drives, as if the bark is sacred, leaves
whispering a secret I cannot hear –
stirs in me an indefinable longing.
My husband planted birch trees
there amongst the flower beds –
how the leaves shimmer in sunlight,
how my heart quickens, bittersweet.
Imagine Father seated there, mellow
as he was in old age, angst expended,
tyranny of parenting set aside – understand
love unexpressed dwells in birch trees.
(Watercolour image by yours truly)
Remember that time
wading to the caves
St Martin’s summer
How the tide rushed in
Atlantic pulling us apart
my body weak with laughter
How you shouted, coaxed –
once ashore we collapsed
wet but warm, hearts flooded.
(My brother and I weren’t raised together, as his father abducted him at age 10. Reunited years later, I treasure the moments we get to spend together, even though they are few and far between. Image my own.)
One Woman's Quest 