A tree wanted to visit me, so, using
            the wind, it swept bits and pieces of
       itself to afford me a wealthy sample
of blooming fragments, abstracts, petals shattered
       by conflicting twigs, flavorless
                leaves coated in pollen dust
now entwined rapturously in my hair.

A body without legs....

I am tired of being Eve-- ill

at ease in the garden. I ate

an apple; they said it made me sin

but really, I was stricken by

the venom of a serpent--

(surely, my Father knows, he will

protect me, surely, my reputation)

but it was a man who found me

first, fallen, "Eve-- ill, Eve--

fallen ill

in the garden; how will she recover

the grace afforded her?"

They did not

rest my head peacefully in a bed

of roses; rather, threw me to the thorns

where the serpent's venomous weave

enveloped my form; I became

a body without legs.

when threatened or unwanted, i always end up the first one to push away...

in fact, i push away before anyone else gets the chance to push....

sometimes i push away without needing a true reason, just a bad feeling or a hint of discomfort...

i don't know if i have abandonment issues. certainly i've been abandoned, though not willfully, by any one thing. they say those afraid of being abandoned will usually be the first to leave, before they risk being hurt by others. i don't know if this is true. but i always assume i am unwanted. i always assume i am intruding. i always assume i am inconsistent with the group, somehow out of reach, on a border, foreign, unfamiliar. i always assume i am disliked, and out of this i try to make myself likable, but end up feeling, instead, like i am secretly despised by others. i hold myself aloof in the hopes that no one will form an opinion about me, because their opinions are hurtful. better no opinion than a bad opinion. better no opinion than a good opinion. better no opinion.



and my true opinion of myself is that there is no self... there is no theresa, no writer an no voice... all i am is a tangle of knots, emotions roiling and twisting around an empty void, or rather, a solid void where all is peace and nothing truly matters. sometimes i am the storm; sometimes i am the eye; sometimes i am the peace... and always, i am alone, and wish to remain alone.

better alone than unwanted. better not loved than unloved.

Of the heart that has gone astray....

i find shame in lamenting the loss of you,
as loudly as i may;

lesser hearts have split over lesser spills, but i'd rather
they think me beyond splitting-- no gaps in my design,
every piece fashioned in the shape of your absence.

i would contend with my greaters, but i have not yet recovered
a heart; nothing to compete over war-torn turfs, dug under.
it seems like a sudden age, gusts over fields;
the years ahead are what make me heavy, hammered, sullen
with endless wonderings: why be strong, why conquer the fear of others

when i cannot conquer the fear of you, of distant lands
uncharted yet inevitably looming-- your flattened face
was the final sight of love, buried now
in minor crevices, compliments, vague lingering remnants
of a heart which has gone astray, outdone.

Faith, A Rope, A Knife

in the beginning, i followed a single chord into the earth.

birth, at times, is death

i scaled ropes, earthen anchors

tied to those who would be tied together.

you need a knife, a divine edge

for cutting ties, cutting halves into smaller halves,

lesser selves, big chunks of soul

falling down crevices to places unknown, far away

from He who fashioned the blade. we seek freedom

in the roots of others, but we must

cut back; travel light.

carving the rot from our flesh

makes us born into new life; the beginning

of a rope, a thread, a strand

and now, destroy it

The Weather

I am ready to move beyond the blank flurries,
the voice of solitude, which banks next to me
and sails over my neighbor's roof --

I am ready for a forecast, for a simple weather drop,
but this is my sixth season remembering you
and as I count back days, it would seem that daylight
no longer keeps time; you are at a distance

i could never reach

between my watch tower and my neighbor's walls.
there is the sound of water thawing, motes and torrents carrying you away,
but the silence of neighborhood streets gives pause, still
iced cold, and your keys left solid by the door