love hangover elixir

for when you live alone, and he leaves, and you're not sure when he's coming back. 

1. go to his website. listen to this poem podcast. remember, you live forever in him.
2. write a list of all the things you love about love.
3. ...like the way it can come into you slower than you've known.
4. the way it makes you want more.
5. the way life hurts without it.
6. the way this pain reminds you always about it.
7. the way it hogs all the attention.
8. the way, after all these years hungry to devour it, you still haven't gotten that great at growing it.
9. watch garden state.
10. smoke some pot.
11. clean the house.
12. remember the ocean is out there. go.
13. write words in the quiet.
14. take baths in the quiet.
15. do headstands in the quiet.
16. quit facebook for a while.
17. go back to bikram.
18. read cards like the good old days.
19. burn some old scrolls in a lil ritual.
20. make dinner plans with friends.
21. buy a wetsuit.
22. swim in the ocean.
23. listen to jolie holland and radiohead and lionel richie.
24. call jen & jodi.
25. take a solo road trip to someplace with trees and flowers.
26. meet another lover at a poly event or through friends.
27. have chris come stay for a while.
28. read each other emotional things.
29. make love.
30. remember something you've deeply forgotten.
31. write a lil song about it.
32. dream of merging hearts with someone.
33. allow it.

34. bonus! invite the people from the plant nursery to dinner.

i take back the invitation for you to be close to me

"I take back the invitation
for you to come close to me," 

I declared to the wind four times, 

like the elders taught me. 

I am holding the line,
holding out,
holding space.

Soft strength.
Halos of boundaries.
Eyes on the prize before it arrives.

It's a sweaty faith.
The kind that'll save me
years of pretending
I'm okay with settling.
I'm okay with the illusion
of quick fix confusions.

Nah.
That ain't for me.
I don't want the love drugs.
The heated spike.
The cold come down.

I want the hugs that stay in the hard places.
The hand to the heart embracing the scars.
The love alchemy.
That's me.
That's my kinda we.

I take back the invitation
for you to come close to me.
Cuz baby, we do love differently.

precious & alive

a brown blanket of leaves covered the forest floor, and i trekked in my white cowgirl boots over the thorns, up and down the valleys, until i arrived at a strange effigy some other forest dweller built--a tomb of sorts, pointing up toward the heavens.

i was in limbo between a cancer diagnosis and a surgery. my vulva felt like bricks of density and a thousand cutting knives all at once. they say melanoma is painless, but when it comes from trauma, the phantom hurt can kill you.

"lay down," the cool ground whispered. "empty out." and the deep freeze of my body met the endless allowing of Earth, and the blue baby sky watched as i prayed for the ache to melt into golden-brown honey.

"use me. use me however you want. just take this pain so i can actually serve."

and the surgeon's name was dr. grace. and his silver hair and his khaki skin, blue eyes and affirming hand, moved like angel medicine cutting me out, sewing me up.

and the therapist's name was brigit. and her hands were like shapeshifting Earth, pressing into my feral elements, my endless emergencies, my emerging self-security, my vulnerable timidity.

and the lover's name was whisky, until it was music, until it was words. and he never asked anything of me, other than honesty.

and eventually, a small seed of life inside my body began to emerge like on the first day of spring after a winter full of snowfall wet the ground. like a tiny flame of desire, the smallest fire of want.

and i pressed my hands into someone else's body, someone less like me, more like Earth, and i felt the places where i couldn't even feel hurt, couldn't feel anything at all. and i felt small. so very small. and precious, and honest, and alive.

heaving.

i've got this shell.
it's made up of words.
i wear them on the outer layer of me...
it's a sexy filigree
but it's not naked.

i've got a couple men who are trying to undress me.
i wish i could let them--
get so naked i'd wanna dance,
or cry.

i don't know why
but my heart has stopped feeling.

goddess, if you're listening,
bring the lust back,
bring it heaving.

have me weeping
and trusting
all in one.

make it fun
and sweet
and nourishing.

make me feel strong
and held
and soul family.

make me family.
but happy.
and incredibly sexy.