I have been singing for as long as I can remember. Sang my first solo on stage at the age of 5 and continued through all of school into adulthood. There have been gaps in my singing career here and there, but like most muscles, I’ve been able to get on the imaginary bike and train myself to do it again. This past June, I was back on stage singing more than I had in six years and had a great time. Two months ago, something happened to my voice. I recall it happening after Labor Day weekend and I assumed it was allergies as I spent a wonderful weekend in the country at the home of friends who have a cat. I started noticing my voice going in and out and I went to the doctor who said I just have post nasal drip.

Stirring

Stirring up feelings, awakening
Rising up to you.
Hear my heart call you.
Hear my heart pound for you.
I almost can’t breathe,
Then I do and I smell the ocean.

The salt, the sand, the life, the death…all of it.
All combine in the taste of your shoulder.

Your smooth brown skin tastes of the ocean too.
It smells of the life there.
It is in you because you are full of this life, woman.

You Heighten my senses.
And Leave me here.
Breathless.

What is it I am supposed to …
I forgot about what “supposed to” means.

Supposed…
Like supine.
There is an assumption in both.
If I am here and laying supine, arms open, eyes open.you assume I am open to you.
“Supposed” to be open.
But I was not ready for this heart to hurt.
I was supine and ready for joy not pain.

I draw back in agony…
You leave me here
Breathless.

There’s a photograph of us in a box in my closet.
I get it out every so often.
I’m glad someone took a picture I can freeze that moment in time and hold on to that feeling.
I can feel your cheek against mine in the sunshine.
You smell divine. You are nestled up on my shoulder, safe.
We are both laughing and happy.

What neither of us could recognize in that moment is that our lives had changed forever.
You came and made me grow up…then gave me the ability to love enough for the rest of my life. You needed me in a way that mattered more than I knew.
We both grew as fast as we could.
We still are. And here we are miles apart and I want to celebrate that moment and all the moments from then until now that you have been in my life.
You have been a gift to me beyond measure.

no one has found me because I have put up the power shield.

The shield of mentor
The shield of old timer.
The shield of weight.
The shield of really bad clothes
The shield of too smart know it all.

I have been so lonely.
I have been so alone.
I draw the curtain of the shield aside a little little bit
and see all of my people out there.

I begin to let myself out.
They are there
Breathe.
Breathe them into me
They are my pieces of God.
Each one, as they look out from their power shield draperies.

She’s a crazy drunk.

No, I really mean it.

There are people who are drunk and it makes them crazy
Then there are those who are crazy and then they drink, to cope.
Like that one, that keeps cleaning the walls with her ping pong ball.
They kind of shuffle along. They don’t rush anywhere even to the liquor store.
She’s there, sober now, locked up and crazy as a betsy bug.
Unable to be treated at all until later. Later when all the drugs and alcohol have worn off.
When she’s there with only her own personal dragons surrounding her.
With the knowledge that she should be different knowing this is all she has ever been.
Nothing has ever made it all right, really. The best she has ever gotten is a little abatement on the battle.

Lessons in Volleyball.

To hold a ball of Light in your hand you have to open your fingers wide.

To hold the love of God in your life you have to open your heart wide.

To hold the love of Man in your life you have to open your Life wide.

I got in the shower and let God wash your voice for me.
So you can find it in the rubble that your life has left you for today.
So you can use it with a power that is yours to have.
Speak away the stones in your path.
Speak away the failings of the past.
Talk in the wind and you can be heard far away.
God will speak your truth if you ask Him.

So you can come to me with a pure voice that is your own.

That’s what I want to tell you that I did.
What I say is “you ok? Honey?”

Whose voice needs this washing?
I will choose to have my own clean pure voice today too.
What I will say today is.

Let me be a child of a living God.

What a place to be.
Let me speak with his voice whenever I can.
Let me live my own truth with this voice.
Let me sing to you of love.

There is a space coming to you.
There is a time coming to you.
There is a small minute in this universe that is yours.

If I can be a shelter ok
If I can be a friend, better.
If you can heal up, good.
That’s a concern. I don’t want to be another one.
I want to have a minute to heal too.
I want to take a breathe.

Taking a step. For a little minute in this universe.
I fell inadequate to the task.
I almost always do.

That’s because me myself and I are inadequate to the task.
We don’t run my life or anyone else’s.
We don’t even keep the house standing.
We can’t even stay sober.

They come, these people…these pieces of God on Earth.
They come and hold me up.
Help me step
Help me stand and look at the world.

Closer

I turn my back to you, so we can sleep.
You remember sleep.
I think I remember sleep.
We are not supposed to be here like this.
We are supposed to sleep apart.
I promised, yet I invited myself into this bed.

So I turn my back on you.
Separate, apart, keeping my promise.
My heart knows things my mind is oblivious to.
I know that your heart beats. I can hear it.
It lulls me. It comforts me. It’s there two feet away, close enough, but apart.

I turn my back, so I will stop looking at you, stop feeling you there.
Good Lord I need to sleep.
I turned my back and I nudge myself so close to the edge that the mattress cords have to hold me onto the bed.

I don’t have the need of your body today.
I have the need of your heart.