I am

I am...
A woman
with a full heart, hidden
Somewhere in an empty room...
with eyes not quite of autumn's gold, and yet
Neither all of summer's green.

I wonder...
If love is a tale made for children -
A granting of sweet dreams in their innocence -
A honey-coating to help their throats
choke down the bitter draught...

I hear...
A voice that whispers warnings, half-formed,
Bodiless as hope, until I swear I cannot draw
another breath unless this spectre be unmasked,
His lies mangled beneath my righteous tread...

I see...
A woman, proud, uncompromising,
Diaphanous as air - less, even, than the tears
that fall in desolation about her weary feet,
Salt poison pooled upon the withered ground...

I want...
A measure of quietude, a certain silence,
The echo of alone which heals me of dreaming,
The nothing that stills the wanting,
The numb, the cold that laughs at pain..
I am
a woman,
hidden...

I pretend...
That I can live forever - that time
has no puissance but that which I afford him -
and so, I can wait, I can be happy tomorrow,
Sleep is for the dead; but its ghosts haunt my waking...

I feel...
Too much - too deeply to be directionless,
Too real for imagining, and yet the familiar eyes
hold nothing of recognition - only my reflection -
a meeting of shadows in sunlit grass...

I touch...
The downy wings of hope, in wonder,
In reverence, in need, in hunger,
Alas, it burns my fingers as a flame,
A sacrilege, self defined...

I worry...
That I am alone, that in my longing,
I have forsaken all - but oh, what reward,
What smile devine should light the path to freedom -
And how can I but heed the siren's call?

I cry...
For having too much for fear of bursting,
and then, when by the pouring of my soul,
I lie, a vessel emptied, I cry again
For what was had, and lost;
I am
A woman
empty...

I understand...
That life is what you make it,
that sometimes, the coat of many colours
that marks your triumphs brightly, blends only
to loneliest of grey...

I say...
That we are made by life, shaped,
Broken perhaps - unmade and voided -
But always, the core of us remains, waiting
with only faith, with trust, to be reborn...

I dream...
Of bluest waters, reaching
with unnatural hands toward the faded sky,
Of dolphins that wander in seas without limits,
Carrying me water-breathing past corals and clouds...

I try...
To lead by example, knowing
That merely the telling holds no power;
A gift of giving is merely a day, while
A gift of knowing spans forever...

I hope...
That my darkness holds you gently,
That pain is halved by sharing, that feeling
wields nothing past the words it summons,
except that it touch you with only healing...
I am
A woman
Only.