Your love is enough {poem}

I love you,
fiercely--
in the way that
is protective
of your fragile
heart and wanting you
to see in you what I do.

I love you
as you are,
and want to nurture
your journey,
want to allow you to
see me so that you
might take what you need

and give so
sweetly back
all that you have
been yearning to give
to someone who
will love you
as I do.

But my love is not enough.

It is not enough to
release you
from your fears,
to pay off the
debts of your past,
piece by bitter piece.

It is not enough
that we are brought together,
time and again,
that three words
linger between us:
I miss you--
when we don't ever need to.

It is not enough

that without even
a sigh of movement

you can imagine
the curls falling off my

shoulders,
see my chin tilt towards yours

and hear
in the back of your neck

the breath that falls
from my body

when I get this close to only you.

My fingers have
traced along
your back so
often that
you could recall the lines
with your mind
and remember me there,
like you remember
that look in my eyes:
the joy of loving you.

When will you
look back with trust,
allow your heart to be
unnerved by this
unplanned,
immediate,
love?

When will you see
yourself
reflected in me--
instead of fighting
what you find
laugh in exquisite
surrender
to the mirrors we are,

to the lessons
we are sharing
and the potency of
our honesty?

Every repeat of us
a chance to steep
more richly in
trust--
redefine your
experience with love.

We are each others
lessons
as much as each others
lovers.
Dance with me
through our regressions
and growth.
You need not wonder
at this love,
just choose it.

Trust in my
choosing you.

Let me love you darling,
and see that you are enough.

As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/let-love-be-enough-poem/

Connected in love {poem}

There is no denying our connection--
you cannot tell me that
the number of times we have
come back together
does not amount to everything.

That thoughts of me do not
intoxicate you,
not only for want of my body
entwined with yours
but for the pull towards
my being.

Magnetic.

Our bodies know--
they know what our minds
and hearts are so hesitant
to embrace:

we were brought together.

Divine connection.
Seredipity.

Call it what you will
but it is not some man
made application.
You are not paired at
random with me.
It is not chance;
dare I say (though I can see you smirk)
that we were written in the stars?

Why else would two humans
come to a willingness
to release hope
and realize instead
their propensity to
to create a trust so solid
that the promise of forever
is not necessary
in their sweet exchange.

We are not here to
offer guarantees,
but commit to choosing love over fear.
To take this connection
and ride it through the
ebbing waves of our mind's
need to know, and our heart's
desire to let things be.

We are not meant
to understand love.
We are meant to embrace it--
as you would me
as I stand with you at the edge of your
logic, my eyes
holding your heart
so that you know,
now,
as you have every time before,
that we are love.



As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/we-are-love-poem/

In the morning light {poem}

You and I,

drawn together again

as no amount of silence

can quiet the allure

of your soul to mine.

No amount of distance 

can lessen the 

magnetic adhesion

that leaves us a tangled mess

of familiar grips:

Our bodies entwined, 

legs and arms, each finger--

anything to hold me closer--

and thoughts stumbling,

knotting themselves with feelings

so that both are left strangled--helpless.

No words, no logic

stand a chance

in what our bodies seem all the wise to--

and our hearts?

They sigh in sweet relief that

there is another to hold them.

Yet they are gripped too,

for every time you are in my 

bed brings with it all the times before.

This is not some one night stand

but a collection of collisions.

Our story into the immediacy

of this intoxicating moment:

no room for what is next.

I know your scent,

your kiss, what makes you ache

just as intimately 

as I knew that I would find myself

lost in them again tonight.

I knew you would be here,

willed it really,

because as clear as I can be on us,

there is no place I would rather get lost in

than the workings of your soul.

There is no body I would rather

wake up next to

and wonder if every truth clouded

by sensation under the moon

would be clear in the morning light. 

There is no one I would rather 

make coffee for, drinking over 

distracted conversation

recreating the distance, convincing ourselves

that maybe we are not ever meant to know

or make rules about love.

But at least we loved

as if in the grace of the morning light

we could lose each other--

and find that we didn't. 

As published on Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/the-morning-after-poem-2/

You can have all of me {poem}

Here I am.

You can have all of me.

You can have my body to explore,
each curve and contour welcomes you,
my chin tilts towards you
and I'm given over before your lips even meet mine.


You can have my mind,
ask me to think a little more deeply,
ask me to define what I know
and challenge me to know more.
My thoughts are a reflection of my heart

and you can have that too.
Be gentle with it,
you've broken it before and it is hesitant in your hands
yet more comfortable there than anywhere.
It trusts you and it wants you to accept it.
Take it and every truth it contains,
the most potent offering of myself.

My Self.
You can have my spirit.
You can lace your prayers with it
and marvel at how ours have been meant to meet.
Exquisite, isn't it?
That something you cannot touch can be
have gripped you in this way--
questioning letting go.

You can have all of me,
body, mind, heart, soul.
Not to possess but to collect
in harmony with your own being,
so that the two might sweetly rearrange
as one. Fed and provoked,
trusted and content.

Take me as I am and come as you are.
Every parcel of you is worth receiving,
and I will love all of it.



As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/take-my-love-poem/

My love is safe with you {poem}

I thought that I was safe.

Thought with the mastery of
which I had protected my heart,
shielded it from love,
that you would always be
at a distance--

Close enough to feel
your vibrancy collide with mine,
far enough out of reach
to lose myself in it.

How is it now,
that I can feel so lost in
knowing myself,
while you understand
the most potent pieces of my identity.

You see the patterns,
and you feel the fear
while I still try to deny it.
While I fight off relying on it.
Isn't this love dying yet?

How can we continue to
steep more richly,
I thought each tear would dilute
my love,
instead the salted water
leaves me buoyant
in this elixir of us.

I am not safe with you.
Because however fast
and far that I run,
looking back I see you haven't followed
but met me there.
Waiting patiently,
with so much space for me,
this race is ending.

And all of what once
made me afraid,
has transformed into
the sweetest safety.





As published on Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/safe-in-your-love-poem/

You saw me {poem}

It is unnerving
to be seen
when you fought so hard
to convince
of another identity.

One far less honest,
encumbered by fear,
prepared for abandonment.

One that did
whatever it took
not to be questioned,
or challenged.

One whose walls were
so immediate
I hardly participated
in the building.

But there you were
with your questions
and challenges--your
patience.

Your knowing.
What do you see?
Perhaps you could tell
me because I have been hidden
so masterfully from myself
that the only knowing
I have comes
from my trusting in you.

Some lose themselves in love,
I found myself in your offering of it.
Humbled by acceptance,
embraced by your desire
not to love me,
but for me to.

You reflected my fears
and offered glimpses of truth
each time we danced between forever
and not.
Each time you touched me just
lightly enough to make known you were here.

Each time you didn't touch me at all--
in your spaciousness I was safe to be.
To collect and remember,
choose again, and always love.



As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/you-reminded-me-to-love-poem/

I choose love. {poem}

I can do forever.
I can choose you night after night
and each day when we wake together.

I can say yes every time
I look into your eyes
wordlessly assuring your heart.

I can trust in what
I know to be the sweetest details of you
and relish in what I get to see unfold in time.

I can evolve with you.
I can learn with you.

Or I can be nothing with you at all.
I can let you leave now
and be at once destroyed and set free.

I can be alone.
I can embed our friendship in my soul
and cherish your past presence.

I can smile at our memories,
I can release with each salty tear
an expectation I barely realized I had.

I can be entirely yours,
I can be completely not.
But I cannot flit between both.

I cannot dance with together and apart,
I cannot sustain my pulse with hope,
beating with a never resting numbness.

I cannot be at your mercy,
I cannot mirror your impulses,
be pushed only to watch you pull away. Again.

I am here if you are here,
I am gone if you are gone.
Let us love each other enough to choose.

I love you enough to choose.
I love you enough to leave.
And oh do I love myself enough to not have to guess.


As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/love-enough-to-choose-poem/

Love Isn't Easy...

I have heard far too often lately that love shouldn't be this hard--that when it is "right" it just falls into place. Not only is this so far from true, it is the very illusion that is responsible for the dissolution of many loves.

Love takes an immense amount of work. Not only do we need to build it brick by brick, but we need to form each one of those bricks with our bare hands and even more naked hearts. We need to construct them out of so many things that are not readily available to our guarded, expectant, disillusioned selves: trust, honesty, forgiveness, patience, perspective, a willingness to see and be seen, commitment, integrity. And we have to actively participate in the construction, not just hope that it happens as we go about living our lives.

I believe we came up with that idea--that love should be easy-- by how rapturous the initial falling can be. When our energy collides heart, soul, head on with another's, and the vibration propels us into a state we are sure is love. We get lost in the ecstasy, the potential, and allow ourselves the sweet buoyancy of drifting together. Until the sailing is not so smooth, and the collisions come instead as arguments, as unravellings, as revealings of true sides and questioning what it is you thought you once had. Because surely it shouldn't be this hard...

You know what they say about Rome? Same goes for love.

And how exquisite is Rome? Worth the efforts, I mean, the pizza alone…Seriously though, love that is worked for, that you truly gave yourself to the growth of, is satiating. That initial connection is real. Desire, lust, physical attraction all very, very real. Our bodies know something our minds and hearts have yet to figure out--that there is a reason you're drawn to someone. And that very reason is less connected to how that person feels entwined with you, and more to do with your souls connecting.

I recently learned the difference between a soul mate and a deeper connection (known as your twin flame for the serendipitous and synchronistic coming together with your own). While soul mates compliment each other, twin flames mirror each other. They are the embodiment of each others lessons, and strive to teach, guide, and grow with the other in love. You can have a handful of soul mates in your life that, in the ease of connection from similar likes, dislikes, ways of viewing the world, mannerisms, temperaments, vibrations, it feels like love with them. But I assure you, a soul mate does not mean a love match. Finding someone who challenges you, who makes you work to understand your own love and affection (for yourself and them), who is intentional and observant, inquisitive and blunt, and who might ebb and flow from your life--as twin flames can continue to grow together even apart-- but ultimately stays connected because, hey, there is work still to be done--there you might have love.

Do not shy away from the work. Although we cannot know forever any more than we can predict never in love, we needn't let fear, discomfort, or a lilt in our early stages of bliss to cause us to run. If anything, meet the dis-ease. You will know when there is something to work on or walk away from; you will know the difference between being abused, abandoned, falling for someone emotionally unavailable, and when the discomfort is simply from being seen more intimately than you have been. Meet the discomfort and be in it. You deserve to grow in love--to be brought to your highest self and to bring another to theirs.

Collect your bricks. Enjoy the process, the construction of your exquisite love story.

As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/love-takes-work/ 

I'm loving you now {poem}

You hesitate in fear of tomorrow,looking for flaws in our love,

reasons to shelter your heart
and step away.

Be honest.
Commit.

We cannot know forever
any more than we can know never.

All I have you for is right now,
so take me as I am and let me love you

in the only ways I know how,
and in every way I can be taught.

Tell me about your love,
or—better yet—show me.

Be alive.
Electric.

Reach out and touch me—
our bodies intrinsically connected,

ahead of our minds
which logic their way through love.

Be curious,
Trust.

Ask for what you need to know
and tell me only the richest truths.

Like neat whiskey
let me sip each bit of you,

savouring all I have come to know
and have the urgency to give back.

Be immediate.
Combust.

Make love to me with your mind,
yet understand that my forehead

pressed to yours can say more
than a word—

each embrace another exquisite,
intimate detail.

Be enraptured.
Collide with me.

It does not matter where this goes,
it does not matter for how long.

I am here, my mind
and soul are naked

and as fragile as my heart may seem,
I stand strong to receive you.

If you want to love me fiercely
then take hold of me—

I’m yours.
If you want to linger

in thoughts, then I am here
with my wisdom and dreams.

Take my fingers in yours—
love without a map.

Let us evolve
into anything

unconfined,
mastering nothing.

Right now we have everything,
and to know of tomorrow

won’t change my love for you now.

As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/our-love-is-now-poem/

Together and Apart {poem}

We are not together--
were we ever?
Can you call it together when
our bodies spoke for the entirety of our beings?

I loved the way your capable
arms moved me where you wanted,
tossed me into a pile of sheets,
scooped me from myself
and into the intense illusion of "us."

These arms that my gentle figure
felt so safe in,
yet my heart felt so not.

So afraid to love you fully
for as soon as your hands loosened their grip
you were gone.
Vacant. So obviously lost
in the deception of our devotion.

I loved the language we created with our lips,
my lips at once willingly familiar to yours,
and the wildest of discoveries--
still I have never been kissed like that.

And still I can feel them part from mine
and your heated breathe flood
like steam to my mind
clouding my intuition

so that all I felt was the warm,
syrupy residue of you,
ignoring the detachment so much larger
than your flesh.

Until I couldn't ignore any longer
and neither could you.

Until our hands slipped apart
and we could step back,
clothed again in our fears
and the wicked truth of our far too omnipotent desire.

Until there was enough space to
feel something far more sensual;
we continue to collide outside of our bodies,
inside of our hearts and minds
and my spirit felt as my lips once had.

This is how I want to be with you:
all of me.
Undress the finest details of my truth,
Collect with your own sense of
self mine, and caress my soul
with the same sweetness you would my skin.

My heart is less tender for fear,
My mind more clear,
and my body less an object to lose yourself in,
but a vessel to find more of me.

We are more together here,
apart.
And I love that.





As published by Elephant Journal: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/02/more-together-apart-poem/