ode to the early responders

Disastrous scene
No apparent survivors
Barely a shred of hope
For the early responder
Pulling aside wreckage
Piece by piece
Methodically
Focusing fully
On embracing
Every single fragment
The flaws, the fears
With fascination

You know who you are

Holding onto me with love
Seeing who I am with who I was
Encouraging who I will become
Out of nowhere, in the midst of my wilderness
You entered
And did not run
To the nearest exit
You stayed for more
Weaving your presence
Into my existence
Proving that I did not die

Inside

As the warmth of you
Your simplicity of life
Your complexity
Your self
Awakens the phoenix
From the ashes
Taking flight
With the power of light
Combined with a consuming fire
Kindled by compassion

An everblooming beauty

Whence you came I cannot tell
You seemed to slip between the pages
Of this book of mine that I have written
Upon my heart and soul
Your influence is the embossed ink
Upon these pages
As you press yourself against this shell of life
Lifting me to sense more
Than I am ready for

Today

For being a pile of shards wrapped within a bedraggled rag
On an odyssey that spans an eternal path of perpetual zigzag
The emotions run so high and angle in at unimaginable depth
Creating an insatiable taste within my mouth for what I lack
And I am forced to accept that I am still laying on the tracks
Bleeding out, untouchable, a temptation not tempting enough
For the first responders to ignore a potential double agent attack
And now love looks more like war than it ever has before—so black

Choking on possibility

The air
The sky
Your face
Your look
A word
A kiss
That

Now

I search the horizon
For you every day
Watching for the moment
When the smoke clears
And we can breathe
A deeper breath than ever before

Across this insuperable canyon

You step off the ledge
To find me
Steadily
Moving forward
Toward me

Imperceptible

To the human eye
This looks more like madness
This mess of a dream
Takes no shape

Like a mist

In the early morning after rain
Cools the desert floor
So parched

Dried

My tears forever in the moments
When you respond to who I am

Anticipating what I have to give

Tomorrow

related links:

in the middle forever

view from a train wreck

sunlight and supernovas