InkBlood What if this poem was backwards? I am the ink that bleeds from veins, Spilling toward a page that isn't there yet— Only hush, only the shape of waiting. Waiting gathers itself into a pulse, A pulse no ear has learned to hear, A pulse becoming rhythm, becoming breath, Breath shaping itself around a single word, A word too small to hold what's coming, So it reaches for another, and another, Until reaching becomes a kind of meaning. Meaning wants a voice to carry it, A voice leans back into a body it can live in, A body remembers it is only ink, Ink remembers it was always blood, Blood remembers the vein it came from, The vein remembers the hand that shaped it, The hand remembers the page it reached for, The page remembers it was empty once, Empty, and endless, and entirely possible. Now I am whole. Now I am written. Now I am read. What if this poem was backwards?

This Flawless Eternal Exchange The river does not keep the mountain, Though it carries traces still, Fragments of forgotten stonework Worn by patience into will. And the mountain does not mourn them, Does not call the pieces back, For it knows the shape of leaving Is another form of fact. Every breath becomes the forest, Every forest turns to air, And the wind that leaves the branches Finds another home somewhere. There is nothing here that's stranded, Nothing fixed enough to stay, Only countless forms of meeting Changing shape and changing way. I have watched the seasons barter Light for shadow, bloom for seed, Watched abundance become silence, Watched the silence learn to feed. Seen the tide return the shoreline To the sea from which it came, Not as loss and not as ending, Only changing of a name. And I wonder what I called mine That was ever mine at all, When the rain belongs to rivers Even as the rivers fall. When the root becomes the blossom, When the blossom feeds the ground, When the earth becomes the future Of the petals it has found. There is wisdom in the yielding That no gripping hand can hold, For the world is not assembled From possessions bought or sold. It is woven out of giving, Out of currents passing through, Out of endless transformation Neither old nor wholly new. And the self I guard so fiercely, This collection worn and known, Seems less fortress than a doorway, Less a kingdom than a loan. For the thoughts I call my ownness Rose from voices, books, and sky, From the touch of countless moments That I scarcely noticed by. Even longing is an echo Of a song the world first sang, Carried softly through the chambers Of the heart where it still rang. So I loosen what I'm holding, Not from weariness or fear, But because the deeper pattern Grows increasingly clear. Nothing given has been taken, Nothing taken truly gone, Only forms exchanging garments As the great exchange moves on. And beneath the shifting surface, Past becoming, past decay,

About this time last year, I wrote this poem for my mom. It's past Mother's Day, but I thought I would post it for all the moms and all their children. Catching Frogs (For my Mom, Aunt Debbie, who always knew I’d find the words.) I used to think there was a method to becoming— creases we were meant to follow, a pattern hidden in the folds, some divine geometry of selfhood. But now I know: we’re just paper. We crinkle and curl and crease however we need. We tear sometimes. But we also learn to fold again. Still, if we can fold ourselves into something, I’d like to be a frog. Some, a dragon, Some a swan, Something lofty or regal. But me, a simple frog. For you. You always liked them. Little green miracles, good for the joy, and for the jumping, always singing even in the rain. I’ve been catching frogs lately— not real ones, but memories that jump when I get too close. I reach, and they slip just out of grasp— splash, ripple, gone. But some stay. Some let me hold them. Like the scent of lilac by the bench outside your work, where I waited after school, small and sure that you’d come. Or the wrapping paper with carefully curled ribbon from a birthday gift I can’t remember, only that it was from you, and that it mattered. I don’t remember the presents. I remember that you wrapped them so beautifully. I don’t always remember the words. But I remember how you stayed. I remember the mug— white with an “M.” You said I’d need a coffee cup to start my life. I still drink from it. You knew I’d need something warm to hold onto. There were movies— ones we quoted so often they became our second language. And hugs—every night, a shield against losing you the way I lost them. I remember asking if I could call you Mom. You said “of course." I believed you. But the word took its time. Some names grow slow because they grow deep. I have a tendency to jump away, And, of all the things to remember, I never forget the leaving.

Making Up Stories About Strangers On The Street There’s a man in Seattle, Whose heart has broken twice; He lost his leg in battle, And lost his wife to time. He knows a man from Philly Who’s never seen a beach. He wants his ashes released Within the water’s reach. They both have poker Sundays. A woman comes along; She teaches art on Mondays, And Wednesdays, she writes songs. She has quite a lovely aunt, To whom she lives next door. She owns a nice restaurant, Gives free food to the poor. There is a man who loves her, But only from afar; He also loves another Who’s stationed in Qatar. Her father was a miner, He worked as hard as stone. No doctor or diviner Caught the cancer in his bone. I see them on the street, And tell myself their stories. The thinking moves my feet, And things are never boring. I’ll never truly know them, But still, I like to think That strangers hide their poems In smile, nod, and wink.

Lost On Purpose Let me feel the subtle slipping, soft as breath against a seam, Where the self I thought was solid fades to something less extreme. I have stood inside these moments, felt their quiet, pulling sway - Every time I call it ending, something in me leans to stay. Not as I was formed to hold it, not as I was taught to be, But as something far more patient, loosening its need to see. There’s a strange and tender absence where the edges used to start, Like a question left unanswered pressing gently at the heart. I have tried to name the feeling, tried to anchor, tried to bind, Built a thousand careful structures just to steady what I’d find. But they faltered - not in breaking, more like softening their claim, As if form itself grew weary of pretending it was frame. And it found me - every time - quiet, unannounced, and clear, Not a force of devastation, but a presence drawing near. Not removing, not unmaking, only asking me to see What might happen if I loosened what I thought I had to be. There’s a crossing in the silence, there’s a thinning of the thread, Where the past becomes a language I have long since learned and read. And I linger there, suspended, not in absence but in trust, As the shape I wore so tightly turns to memory and dust. Still I’m here - though something shifts me, still I’m here - though something’s gone, Not diminished, not divided, but continuing as one With the quiet, constant motion I once struggled to oppose, Now a rhythm I surrender to, a current that I chose. I have lost myself so often that the word has come undone, For there’s something in the losing that returns me to the One - Not a place and not a purpose, not a fixed or final form, But a deeper kind of knowing I have always carried warm. So when once again it finds me - that familiar, sacred blur - I don’t reach for old defining, I don’t ask it to defer. I allow the gentle shifting, let the boundaries release, And I follow where it takes me - not to find it, but to cease