Magic

I have always sought out magic in places.
A garden in my neighborhood,
Decorated with crystal balls
Wind chimes
And gnomes.
A small cave
Made of boulders
And moss
And grass
In a midwestern park.
An abandoned tabernacle
In a camp ground.
Fairy circles
In apartment complexes
And
Islands in lakes.
I have always sought out magic in words.
Putting together the perfect sentence, paragraph, story, poem,
Full of adjectives and Similes and metaphors.
The placement of punctuation,
And the voice the reader hears in their head.
To present a vision that manifests in their minds
And stays with them.
I have always sought out magic in people.
The way their heads tilt
When in full blown conversation,
The fire in their eyes
The stolen glances across coffee shops.
The cigarette that hangs from a mouth but never gets smoke in the eyes.
The gestures,
Weaving in and out between spoken words
To paint pictures out of thin air.
I know magic in places. In people. In words.
I'll tell you a secret, though.
The most magical place
In the world is in your heart.
The most magical words are simply, I love you,
And the most magical person,
Is you.

Oceans.

I'm sorry I loved you
The way I did.
See,
You seek to blame yourself for not loving me
The way I loved you.
Truth is,
It never phased me.
I knew you didn't have the capability
The culpability,
To love
How I do.
I told you
As much
On that long drive
To a city built
Into a cliff side
But you
Couldn't understand
Because you were drowning
In your
Own ocean.
That same ocean
Is how I love you.
And I refuse to let you
Be pulled out into a riptide
Or let
Any hurricane blow though
What I feel.
What I felt.
Because you
Were the moon
That influenced
My waves
To crash into shore.
Until you were eclipsed
By the sun
That was the center
Of your disaster.
But the ocean
Never forgets
Her moon.
Her stars.
Her beaches.
Her reefs.
Just as I will never forget you.

Brunch

I slid out of bed in the early morning,
From under twisted sheets
And twisted actions.
And I made him breakfast.
I never liked pancakes but I made them for him.
Sometimes, you give up a little when you love someone
Pancakes were minor tribute
To how I had been feeling.

He always came in the night
In shadow
With rain.
Like something out of
A dreamscape,
Or maybe a nightmare.
I held him
Close
Told him
I loved him
Without ever saying the words,
But with screaming sighs and
Crying climaxes.
And with breakfast
In the early mornings.

I knew there were other women.
I knew there were other angels
Other princesses
Other little darlings.
But I knew I'd be there
When they couldn't.
When they wouldn't.
When they ceased to be useful.

For as much as he loved me,
He still couldn't love me the way
I loved him.
Often I would stand on the sidelines.
Waiting for night.
Waiting for breakfast.
Waiting for him to find the little pieces of himself that he kept buried
After he burned the treasure map.

I remember when the nights came without him.
I wept
Knowing I didn't save him.
Knowing I failed
Knowing I could never trust him
Maybe even love him
The same again.

I knew these things.
But I always remembered
Breakfast.

Babylon

I am a body of water.
I am wet
And wild and free.
You
Are a desert wanderer
You are dry and parched and cracked
Aching
To drink your fill.
I can feel your heartbeat
Next to my shoreline.
You are the conqueror
You will burn cities
And collect your gold
And I am a whore of Babylon
Hell bound
A seducer of kings.
I will be your greatest regret.
You can only hold so much water
Between cupped palms before it escapes.
You can only carry so much gold before it catches the eye of a thief.
You can only burn so many cities
Before the destruction
Haunts you in your sleep.
You can run,
But lust, like water will always find you.
Will always be in you.
I may be a sinner
But if seduction is my death bringer
Can you imagine the stories the devil and I will share?
Lust always burns
So if my soul be damned
At least I am used to the flames
You...
Conquerer.
Desert Wanderer,
Warrior.
You may not understand the burn
You
Understand thirst.
Cup your hands,
Traveler.
And drink.

Moirai

My cards always pull the tower.
A card that symbolizes change. Liberation. Danger.
I don't consult the cards often anymore
Because the only constant in my life
Is change.
I am of the water
Astrologically.
An arachnid
That sheds its exoskeleton five to six times
Before it reaches adulthood.
A clawed
And aculeus armed
Insect
That will violently sting itself to death
Rather than drown.
I was born in the year named Ox.
Under the element of Wood.
Restless and straightforward,
Steadfast yet unpredictable.
These horoscopes I put down years ago,
A personality mechanism
Designed to fit me neatly into a box
Which I have no intention of staying in.
Some days I wake up
And I am a stranger in my own body.
My consciousness seemingly ripped away from the fabric
Of time.
No king's horses
Or king's men
To put me back together again.
So I have become a seamstress.
Constantly making alterations,
Steadfastly adapting to
The changes I don't have control over.
And ripping out the seams
When those particular stitches
Are no longer needed.
I am Clotho.
A daughter of Necessity.
Spinning the thread of my life.
A symbol of both life and death
A fate.
A goddess.

Woman

The last time I was here
In the vast red mountains,
I buried a song for you.
Let the red dirt
Sift through my cold knuckled
Fingers.
Dyed my hands
The color of life,
Though I was
In mourning.
Visiting this place,
Being here
Among the juniper
And the
Angel's trumpet
Breathing in the
Sage scented air
I am home.
I watched the clouds
Roll off the mountains
Like a funeral procession,
A death and dream fog.
I am a woman of secrets.
I am a woman
Who's scarlet knowledge
Will go to the grave with her.
This lake is placid
And though the reflections in it often mirror things of such beauty
Things of awe,
They are meant to keep you content
While something far more sinister,
Far more brilliant,
Far more seductive,
Lurks under the surface.
Like the symphony
I buried for you
In the red dirt
That stained my hands,
And named me woman.