i keep time

a silver clock keeps time in the kitchen.

i can’t see it from my present position on the dark brown corduroy couch that envelops me like liquid chocolate. my toes are wedged between the cushions - we are entangled during these early morning hours as lovers, heavy and warm.

my eyes are closed. i can hear my heartbeat. it keeps time with the kitchen clock. for a moment i imagine its ticking is the sound of my inner cadence. this mass of flesh inside my chest is counting the hours from the moment this body formed underneath my mothers swollen skin to the moment it will find its rest in the dark brown earth earth that will envelop me like liquid chocolate , earth that will lay me down as a lover, heavy and warm .

“there is a time for everything” someone once wrote.

but is time so imposing? is time an outside force demanding and exacting? time does not exist in the kitchen clock. time lives in me. a scientist keeps time with rulers and numbers, but i keep time with moments and feelings. time is a romantic. time finds its home in me, in you. we share time. in heat and wet; in breathlessness; in darkness; in clutching hands and curling toes we find each other. in those moments, i find my rhythm in you. in those moments, the kitchen clock disappears time gasps for breath. i ask her to wait. i promise her she will return soon enough she doesn’t mind. she is a voyeur. she is a changeling. time can be stilled by a kiss, prolonged by an illness, ignored in sleep. time is malleable. like candle wax it melts and reshapes itself inside of us. i keep you inside of me - in hidden corners, in the secret chambers of my heart , my heart that keeps time.

boxes

We live and die in boxes.

Boxes define, describe, delineate, divide.

If it’s big it’s better. If it’s small it’s expensive. ”Is it sealed in glass? Then it must be admirable, desirable, untouchable.” she says. ”Is it sealed in metal? Then it is impregnable, important, mine.” he says. Sealed is safe. Or do we fool ourselves into security? If it’s in a box it’s named, tagged, owned, understood, controlled. I am in a box. In hair and nail and bone and skin and blood. My mind is in a box - an environment of the brain, of the culture, of the religion, of the science, of the world. Boxes bar and bind and breed. But boxes also bring freedom.

The box of my body allows me to write and move and breathe and laugh and touch and feel. I experience life in this box. I will experience death in this box, soon enough. The box of words allows me to think and speak and sing and compose. The box of religion introduces me to the notion of god. The box of family introduces me to love - for better and for worse. The box of society allows me to survive - even if just barely. There is no innate morality within or without a box. A box is amoral. A box is only a box. I decide what to put into it. I give the box power - i take its power away. I have it taken from me - i have it given to me. Boxes are here to be emptied and filled. To be opened and closed. To be bent and taped and built. To be smashed and folded and thrown away. We are all boxes. We all live in boxes.

We all long to live in a world with no boxes, but isn’t the world itself a box? A box of air and water and earth? A box of gravity and molecule and energy? Of H20 and C02 and acid rain and burning trees. Of thinning sky and cracking earth, of waterfalls and whirlpools.

Encircling. Encapsulating. Enfolding. Engulfing. Enclosing me, you, and all of our boxes.

And isn’t the universe an infinite box - with open lid and unfastened bottom? And isn’t God the eternal box - the mystery, the hope, the unknowable known collector of it all? It’s all in God’s box named,tagged, owned, understood, controlled. Like a children’s toy of endless boxes. Designed to give life and take it away in boxes, in a box, in the box that holds it all. We live and die in boxes. Boxes hold, hide, have this and that and me and you.

We are all in boxes.
We are all boxes.
We all think in boxes.
We all live in boxes.
We all die in boxes.

fire

I’m attracted to fire. The spark intrigues me. The heat swelters. I draw my skin close, hoping to warm the coldness inside - the electricity caused by friction tantalizes, titillates, exacerbates, as my need for the flames engulf me. The nearness singes. I am burned. I move in. She excites my mind and arouses my senses. I am heightened. I am wakened from a long slumber. She is the metaphorical muse of my soul - a mirror through which i see myself. I am taller, stronger and more beautiful than I was before. Her eyes are aflame. the colors dance from blue to white and blaze a path into my heart - under my flesh - I sweat her out of my being. I feel the fire. It rushes through my veins. I shudder. I breathe. I am stilled, but my heart still races. My mind wanders she continues to dance in the fire. I am utterly consumed.

sanctuary

“May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.”

The words clung to me.

They are taken from an old Celtic prayer for belonging .

Belonging.

Is this concept even intelligible to me? Is belonging something that can truly be offered, accepted and obtained? The word itself is haunted with memories of half-truths and good intentions. And I pray for it, nonetheless.

From what source does this desire for belonging spring? The boundaries of our skin separate us one from another, but we long to be connected in our deepest places. Is a good prayer one that requires miraculous intervention, or one that can be realized, actualized by ourselves and those around us? How do we clear the cobwebbed thoughts and creaking memories from the sanctuary of our souls? What light can penetrate the ghostly apparitions of the past, the forgotten dreams, the cold reality of the darkness, the unknowing, the haunting...

transcending skin

My tea cools beside me as i stare at the computer screen, uncertain what my heart and mind are compelling my fingers to reveal. I feel the familiar desire to write. Dare I fool myself into believing it’s the soft rainfall outside my bedroom window, or the fresh scent of this foreign soil when i know the urge springs from a deeper well: the faceless longing, the soulful search for freedom, the spiritual
quest to find my true name ...


It feels like years since this person inside of me has expressed herself. Like the muscles of an untrained athlete, my soul aches and burns.” Is this really necessary?!” my inner-self screams. I sense the futility. Can i break through the alliteration that labels me poet, the pithy sayings that call me sage, the quips of knowledge that tell me i’m a teacher - those paltry plaques that assign to me the title “someone”, when i’m really searching for the nobody - the person who
transcends this skin ...