Little Voice - For Tony

The harder I have fought

To understand surrender 

The harder it has been to hear

Whatever message it might carry 

It's like getting tired of looking

And looking

And looking

For a place to sleep

What am I supposed to do? 

Take a break and take a nap?

'You don't understand. I just can't'

I tell myself

And tell myself

And tell myself

'But maybe...'

Some little voice 

Some little voice that's new

Came to whisper to me

'Maybe the first part of surrender...

Is to accept that you don't get it?

Perhaps drop your searching hands

Down by your side

Down!

Down by your side

And let your shoulders shrug and rise

Let your lungs collect a sigh

Just let your lips divide 

And sigh' 

And of course it's not that easy

And of course I had to fight

And that little voice was silent

'But maybe that's alright'

After a while

That little voice sighs

'Maybe that's alright too

You don't know what to do

Just yet

I bet 

No one ever knows surrender

When they start on their adventure

To understand the embers

After a fire goes out 

And without 

A doubt

This is where you ought to be

When understanding 

How to let go'

And my heart grows

And my ears hone in

And I start to begin

To listen to him 

This little voice 

'Now take your hands from your side'

The little voice cried

'And feel the air

Up there 

Feel the sky'

I closed my eyes

Doubting the whole time

And dammit I tried

And after a while

I swear I was flying 

And I heard a little voice

Whisper to me

So gently

On just one side

'Now open your eyes

Because you're flying'

'I want to look down

What should I do? 

You're talking to me

Then I'm talking to you

My hands are made for searching

It's just how I'm made

Can I really surrender 

While searching this way?

Can I get through my days

Looking for ways

To control all around me

While accepting my fate

At the same time

Maybe just I'm 

Maybe just I'm 

I'm crazy'

'But maybe'

The little voice kneeled

Down beside me: 

'A deal.

A promise to ponder

Will you let go and wander

If I am here to hold on?

Will you tackle your fear

Let it be made clear

What's meant to be 

If I'm in your ear?'

And it was in that moment

As I recall

That I let myself fall

That I let myself find

What surrender felt like 

Every day, Little Voice

I take these foreign 

Deep breaths of mine

And let them out like a sigh

Knowing that my

Hands in the sky 

Are searching but I'm

Ok with the find

Because that is truly surrender

Thank you, Little Voice

Inside my ear perched

For letting me search 

Asking only that I listen

And helping me hear

You in my ears 

You by my side

You at my back

You all the time

Saying to me

Every time I've got fear

'Don't worry

I've got you 

And keep going 

I'm here'

These Days

Things that matter to me

Change as I get older

Things that make a difference

Are always on the turn

And I find myself enthralled

With this season's changing matters

As I look at the list of what's keeping 

My attention these days

Things like how your skin looks

In the sun light 

And how your skin glows

With the orange of city nights 

Things like how your eyes tear up 

But never turn red 

When you cry

Like you aren't irritated 

By emotions that weigh a lot

Things like how your skin reacts in an instant

To the back and forth pattern of the 

Rotating fan in the room

And goosebumps appear on your shoulders

Left to right

Like the words on a page

Things like the brown in your eyes

Being dark enough to match the darkness in the middle

Things like that

Things like the sound of your laugh when 

I am the one responsible 

For its source

And how honored I feel

And things like the shape of your fingers

And how even the hair on your legs

Makes me hungry for you 

Somehow

These new things

They matter to me

And I sit

Rolling with the motions

Running my hands across you

And my eyes up and down 

Fascinated by how

Fascinated

I am

By you

These days 

Melt

Oh how the whispers of lovers 

spoken at night 

melt in the burning 

heat of the morning sun

Remember how we woke up 

after speaking those soft words 

to a clouded sky? 

Remember that our words remained firm. 

Remember the rain we walked in.

Bless Us Every One

Bless Us Every One

Somewhere a little girl is 

Ending her prayer with 

"Anyway bless everybody"

Because she is out of specifics

But not out of prayer

God give me a little

Of that little girl's prayer

Give us all a little tiny bit

Bless us hard.

As we struggle to see

That the monkey on our back

Deserves love

And armor

Love 

And anger

That our own demons 

Are not our own selves

God made so much clear to us

When it told us that it is ok 

To say

'I don't know'

How else would we get prayers 

For our selves

From little girls we'll never meet

Unless from the lips that whisper

"I don't know God

Just bless us, every one"

You Tell Me

You tell me 

You tell me where to go

From here

Because I've never been there before 

I've never seen life outside of

What I cannot have

You stand there

And turn around

And yell out to me

What you see

So I can know what to look for

What does it look like to live 

Inside of success 

Tell me there is a bench out there

With room for me

Next to you

And I will follow 

Your promises

Until I can take off

This blindfold 

Your Own Eyes

Have you ever seen
With your own eyes
That overwhelming moment
When a person cries
Hard tears
For another group's struggle?
When a Christian bawls over the holocaust
A white person loses their shit
Over lynchings

I saw something like that recently
You can't put that into words, really
The eyes
Its a humanity
All on its own

Crash

I love you mostly 

Because I loved you so fast

And you can see my books of poetry

You can read how quickly I do this

But you can feel when you read them 

And watch them

Turn to silence 

For a while 

That I have felt ashamed each time

Of how

Quickly I have felt that love

Like it's somehow terrible 

Or immature

Or thoughtless of me

To fall in love so fast

But it's not

And what I love most about you 

Is that I loved you quickly

And you saw

How truly wonderful that was

You understood

Instantly 

That it was the only way to live

It has taken years for us to be hurt

Years to built up rocks around our beaches

Years to wear them down

Years to turn them to sand

But the excitement of the ocean

You and I both know

Lies in how quickly

The waters can change

And freely the waves will crash

That's the way to live

That's the way to celebrate each other

So let me start 

From this day 

A list of all the reasons that I love you 

But I will keep pinned

To the top of that list

That you loved me back

And I knew it

By the way 

You looked at me

When you saw 

That I 

Was about to crash 

Into you.