Love is not just a word.
Feelings are not just skin deep.

we can choose
the things we wish to see
but can we choose to feel
the emotions we do not wish to feel?

twist and turn
my heart and mind
but my darling,
 I am no pretzel

Thoughts and words swallow me
But I walk into the Arctic cold anyway
& let the biting frost consume-
Chewing pieces, after pieces of me
Avoiding warmth.

What is heat?
I do not need it-
Softness in warmth is vulnerability.
Warmth makes fragile out of beings
I'd rather break like ice,
shards & sharpness
will guide & guard me

Sweet promises roll off your tongue,

They kiss my fragile frost-covered heart

Here I stand, with nothing in my hands

Afraid to be drown by the darkness & light again

echoes

It puzzles me how the greatest courage comes from the most vulnerable moment,
How you can spend a lifetime with someone, to realize you know nothing about them at all,
That in the moment of pain seared so deeply, you can find numbness

More so,
That in the most fragile moment,
Where you think you have lost everything
& sunk to the very bottom of cynicism....

You realize that you are still capable of loving.
The heart still beats, though out of tune-
You feel it, against the laws of gravity, it keeps you down.

You are still capable of loving...
you are still capable of loving,

& you will keep repeating those words, as if to hold on to it-
so it never flies away.

in echoes.