Month: December 2025

A phrase past hung upon shoulders of others, as if trying to match pictures to frame – yet not quite felt the same as only once before, and this time irrefutable.

She sat there, eyes downcast, afraid to look at him directly for fear that she might see confirmation that it was all just a game, afterall – a ruse to call her out from hiding and make fun of her heart’s yearning vulnerability.

Hands clasping her fingers tightly on top of her lap as they ached to reach out to touch his face and extend arms to hold him, her eyes burned with tears as they rebelled at her refusal to at last gaze into his own.

—-

(Title of multiple meanings)

I remember being at my grandparent’s home
Always a place of safety away from main society

Yet planted in the very heart of prime social elitism
Only just one door away by grandpa playing piano

And when I returned as a teen after he had passed
The place felt the same but much more empty

I could have stayed there forever and would have
Had my grandmother left the house in will to me

But my uncle and his family eventually took over
All properties and moved her with them for caretaking

I got a small funding to begin my own life later
Her parting gift used to spread wings for flying

She couldn’t pretend anymore
Thus missed opening presents

But she would have pretended
Had she’d known they wanted

But she hadn’t
So she didn’t

Then later
Found out

She felt trapped as if it was
How she had always feared

When you tell the truth and they
Told you this would drive away

Everyone and everything wanted
Going off into opposite directions

Only this time it wasn’t the same
Even though some ways lagged

Because her family responded
And he somewhere considered

She wasn’t afraid of him
Or how he’d affected her

In fact, she craved his calm to
Extreme storms hidden within

But had difficulty experiencing
Her prior sealed doors spilling

Whooshing open like a huricane
Engulfing her in their maelstrom

Of past relationships’ once sparks
Fizzling out flat instead of arching

Into rainbows bridging across time
Which filled her senses with dread

As if her heart’s losses had been
Kept under sealed tomb coffins

With corpses reanimating in
Frightening sudden intensity

This is how much his energy
Catalyzed hers to awakening

She couldn’t mask anymore
With those latches splaying

Because he already knew about
Burdens she had been carrying

And she couldn’t see clearly
How to well-begin initiation

That would prevent and protect
Their connection from same end

That must be it – she was haunted
And needed a Spell of Banishment

She needed to be able to trust that
He and she belonged to each other

But when she’d voiced needs in past
Others blamed and then condemned

And she did not know how to begin
Without he & she speaking directly

And since when allowed to dive in
To the core of desire unabashedly?

She wanted him with such passion that
Her body froze as her voice went mute