Trust exercise

Experience minds, not just their vessels.

Let them help you peel away your layers

while you do the same for them.

The walls of your fortress will crumble, but that’s okay.

Share the past; stinging words, flashbacks. All.

Allow the memories to be, allow them to mature

and disperse into momentary fizzles.

Know that time eases, but is no ointment.

Keep a jar handy to soothe the welts if

and when they rise.

And communicate. Any way you choose.

Being voiceless does not make you mindless.

Understanding is sourced from so much more

than words.

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Sparklers

The sparks skip from your hands to mine,

Silver tears form in the corners.

I cannot laugh, it isn’t that kind of euphoria.

I am myself, yet most of my puzzle

Matches the gaps in yours. My thoughts

Come from your mouth

And your thoughts appear as vivid pictures

In my mind.

Shall we ramble as we ramble?

Meltdown

It’s like someone’s hooked me up

to a drip filled with every uneasy, frustrating moment I’ve ever had

and let it seep into my body all at once.

I’m pacing around in the calcifying walls of my mind

while my body tunes itself out

to my directions. It’s laughable

the lack of control I can exert.

I’m a parasite to myself

within myself

of myself

and even as I clutch at you,

screaming unwillingly in your face,

all you do is ask me to meet your gaze.

 

Deal?

I never want you       to be anything less

than yourself around me       let yourself out fully, don’t       hold back

no matter what       tell me anything

bounce ideas off me like I’m a squash court

same with emotions: let them       out

laugh, cry, be low, be high

show me the darkness       show me the light

anything that’s on your mind, anything at all

I will always be a net to hold the rawest parts of you

Turning the handle

You say I swept out the cobwebs from your mind,

chased away the critters nesting

in the corners, darkening them

until the room became a prison, insular

and draining.

But you were the one who kept the door open

when it threatened to close

just so I could take shelter from the storm

chasing me.

A funny thing, hindsight.

I didn’t know you’d be there for me.

I didn’t know that you’d see the things every one else missed,

help me without thinking,

come to stand beside me when I needed to stay grounded.

 

I didn’t know how much you would help me.

I didn’t know how much I would help you.

 

I didn’t know I’d bring you back to yourself.

I didn’t know I was the only one you’d share your deepest thoughts with,

be the inspiration for the words coming from your heart,

be trusted with your past, present and future.

 

I didn’t know any of this.

But if I could tell my past self it would happen,

I wouldn’t.

I’d stay quiet, and let her experience it all fresh,

gently strolling

hand in hand with you

on this adventure that’s still going.

 

Dominoes

We come to it again,

this meeting of stories about futures we’ll never know

because the future we’re making

is far better than those.

But we’re curious, even though

such hypotheses may make us sad,

could we, if we needed, have stayed silent

and not gone mad?

 

If we’d gone through life

as best friends forever,

would you have told me if you’d fallen?

Fallen in the way that you fell for me in this present,

undeniably, inescapably, euphorically

in love.

 

Would I ever have brought myself to tell you?

I might have thought it would ruin our friendship –

that’s what all the other accounts say.

But to deny my feelings is to deny myself of their worth, of yours.

 

I don’t think silence would have sat well with me.

I don’t think she would have done for you, either.

Our entire premise

is that our hearts and wounds are open

for the other to fully see.

Thrum

My heart is racing,

it’s whirring,

a whirligig of flesh mechanics

all turning a deaf ear

to my will.

The sensible noggin

commanding my body to see reason

searching through every cause

and evening the pH.

It doesn’t work.

Oxygen helps, it’s true. So does quiet.

The dark.

But it’s your eyes

seeking, calm

that settle it.

 

Fastened

It’s never too much for you to hear my thoughts.

Never too much to meet me in the gaps of the day,

even though you are pulled around on puppet strings

and often made to dance through the night;

kept away from the family loop no matter how hard you try

to seek a way back in.

I, in turn, will always listen to even the darkest parts of your mind,

caring not what hour it is, even if the witches are out.

What matters to me is you know

I’m not going anywhere,

my feet are sewn to the same path as yours

by my own hand,

a stitch that can never be cut.

Masked Musketeer

The mask you always wore

now hangs up on the wall, collecting

dust in the gaps of its fine sequins and folds of silken cloth,

its paint chipped and framework cracked.

It’s an antique, a reminder of what was before

you allowed your real face to be seen.

 

Emotion now plays in your eyes and the swell of your cheeks,

tears long held back allowed to escape, caught and crystalised

to look within them and see the cause unclouded.

The uncertainty of allowing yourself to be loved,

to have someone willing to see all of you

and not give a damn about anyone else’s opinion of you,

for you are you and that is who they wish to spend time with.

 

The mask need never be worn again.