Finally the fog

Muscles buzz secrets
Deep into her sorrow bones
Fog curls around her

Bloody feet, dragging
Her body is long and strong
Like an Amazon

Her hair is matted
With sweat?  Blood?  Irrelevant
She's no ornament

Warrior, survivor
Mother, wife, creator
She exhales.  Deeply

A breath of living
Full of tiny hope raindrops
A sigh as large as

Thunder while she drags
her iron Sword beside her
Carving small cold canyons

Into the lush land
Made fertile with her salty
tears, bits of her flesh, the seed

Waiting for the kiss
Of sunlight to awaken
With living writhing desire

The parts which, even
Now lay dormant, curled, ready
To send down the roots

So below, above
Seeing strength from inside
looks a lot like love

The fog begins to clear
There's more than one way
to fight...

The same as you

Who are you?
It's hard to say, for sure...
I know I am

A searcher
Looking for, if not the right path,
A lovely one

A teacher
Pulling laughing hearts under my wings
To fill with courage and curiosity

A mother
Fumbling along with hugs
Hiccups and band-aid kisses
Wondering when the squabbling stops

An American white woman
Attempting to amplify the voices
Of my black, brown, poor(er), differently able,
gender nonconforming, rainbow of sexual
identity brothers and sisters

Who are you?
It's hard to say for sure...

I do, however, know a thing or two...

I am the breeze
I am the dust that blows within it
I am your tears and mine melted, melded
I am the muscles fibers fusing
                                                 As you pump your legs pushing yourself always forward
I am the dreams, both realized and broken
I am the caterpillar AND the butterfly
I am the soil, seed, and pine tree
I am the breeze and the dust that blows within it

I am love
             

Interwoven

When I breathe in

I breathe in you

Particles and pieces of

Dust wrapped in energy

Set fire with passion

Untouched

When I breathe out

I breathe out fear

Releasing the rage of rapes

And brain cells gone rogue,

Turning into an internal zombie

Devouring

When I breathe in

I breathe in you

Stardust recalled shadows and

Silent echoes

Of unseen heartbeats

Silenced

When I breathe out

I breathe out hope

Ribbons of heart screams

Woven tightly

Into decorative ropes

Binding

Me to you 

Us to 

Every other

Us

That ever was

Breathe in

Breathe out

Breathe in

Breathe out

We not only belong to each other

We ARE each other

At least that

We are gathering
    for no solutions
beyond the hearing,
sparkling beauty between each shared
story.

The slightly louder
exhalation
that signals
speech crawling slowly
up the larynx

We gather
At least that

I have invisible
detailed white wings
and I wrap them
around the circle
of us

Without solutions...
At least that.

Words whispered
or clearly articulated
eyes down cast
Stories that hid, crumpled in
chests brought forth
and flattened out
with trembling fingers

We hear you
At least that

I open my heart
and pull the blackness
out of you,
pull as hard as I can
and center it into
my wide open
Till the tears grow heavy
and finally dance for you

In shared unsure motion toward each other

At least that.