here, now

let me tell you, i do not know how this all turns out. how the bills get paid and we find peace. i do not know that everyone, or even i will find peace, but i trust i will receive that which is mine. just as i believe in abundance for you. everything you need, and then some. that is my wish.

there have been so many times of late, i've stood beside you, wordless. unable to speak. lost in your eyes again. damn me. damning me. i don't try to go there, do that. but it happens, i admit it. you know when i've swirled away, and sometimes stop and smile. asking me if i'm lost, calling it to my attention. taking a long drag on your cigarette, and stepping away from me. always away. but i stay anchored, to wall, or ground, and wait. you will circle back. you always do. or i always do. something magnetic happening there, i don't claim to understand.

and today, when i kissed your hand, it was because your hands were feigning anger, and i wanted them to love, to be loved. my raisin rage lipstick smearing the length of your beautiful hand.

i'm working.

so am i.

and we retreated to our separate corners and then i left. before saying goodbye because i'm never going to fight for your attention, never going to demand what you don't freely give (that's a lie, and you know it). but what i take, i will return, polished, i hope.

and i promised not to take advantage of you, but i fail there, regularly. and now, here, i'm tired, wiped out. confessing my sins again.

but there is still so much to say, and i plodding on, stammering out the lines, hope somehow it comes. someday it comes, and in something i recognize and jot down.

you tell me i need more than poetry, but this is the problem, i am poetry. it is how my mind works. it is who i am. i cannot separate it out any longer. i do not speak of it as something apart, it is who i am. what i am.

and when words fail me at long last, i hope to have written them all, all i was supposed to write. and that you, dark muse, have let me capture you a few more times.

stand still.