When I first saw you

When I first saw you

I think I understood

You had the power to unravel me

And when I allowed my body to open to yours

Dizziness came with the fall

As you picked me up

And promised to keep me forever

Safe from harm

But instead our relationship

Took me towards the edge of a precipice

I could not negotiate

And my vertigo

Made you realise

I was not lion hearted enough

For one such as you

And so you let me fall

After such a long battle to hold on

And then the real unravelling began

As I tried to keep my self afloat

But slowly drowned instead

Captured by a black tide of history repeating

A whirlpool circling in upon itself

Chased toward the edge of extinction

Where I

Came undone

How could words explain the darkest of years

Instead all pain falls into emptiness

Unspoken

But through poetry

Birthed out of the deep black hole

With chaos at the centre

And yet hidden inside

Lived so many mysteries

Waiting to be penetrated

And so the labour began

To understand it all

Until eventually

Light began to dawn again

At the centre

Shedding

You shed these tears

With layers of years

As the pool of sorrow around you grows

There in that ocean where you swim

Flotsam and jetsam

And a million other things

Lap around you

As the water swells and you find yourself

Buffeted about

Tidal pull back to the past

Fills your heart with such unrequited longing

For the arms that never held you

Until the death nell

Refrains of songs

Bring intimations of the past

The big house he built

Looking for security

Chasing god know what dream

That ended in ruin

And as the explosions came

Everything detonated

Leaving only wreckage

And now you are that wreckage

But not only wreckage

As mosaic pieces begin cluster

You sort through all the precious things she left

With a heavy heart

As tears swell

And your head remembers the explosions

Of spring and summer

At times the grief feels too large to contain

But then there is the part of you that sees and knows

It is not the whole of you

She is in the room with you now

Holding all the younger selves

That struggled so hard to grow

And you know as the deep cries rock you

Without a doubt

That you are shedding

But also integrating

What everyone in ignorance

Said you needed to leave behind

Oh God why don’t they know

The past will never fully leave you

Only release its powerful hold

In time and with grieving

As it becomes the very thing

You bend willingly to accept

And surrender to

Because you finally forgive

Knowing the cost

Of holding on too tight

Will only lead in death

 

(Remember that this place into which you are dissolving

is a place of intense creativity. Of creation itself.)

Melissa LaFlamme

Foundation

You are teaching me

To understand

What it means to love wholeheartedly

Its some kind of miracle to me

But also strange

To experience a love that takes care of my fear

This is something I have never known

Is that why now

When ever we talk

It feels like I am coming home?

In your presence there is stability and grace

And I’ve never ever seen you show a nasty face

A stream of positivity

Just radiates from you

Shining light into darker wounded places

Deep inside my soul

Revealing then anew

And there are times tonight

I have just cried

As wounds I learned to hide

Awakened from inside

And as I reveal to you the source of all of this

Reticence

I feel every single wall come down

As my vulnerable side

Reveals itself hiding in the shadows

But there is such strength in this

Revelation

 Calmness and security

Revealing a powerful foundation

To build

Our growing love upon

Be there

Be there for me

Hold my hand

Let me know I have the strength to stand

Even if it means to stand alone

Give me strength

Help me believe in the power

I have to take root

Blossom and flower

Let me believe in the life force in me

And that I have the skills and knowledge inside

Things I no longer need to hide out of fear

Or the risk of disapproval

Remind me that

Although this world is often an unsafe place

One where it hurts to risk

There is a deeper price

For failing to expose my true face

Help me to find my right size and shape

And don’t let me listen to those killing voices inside

That want to cut me down to size

Or tell me I do not belong

Help me to be both vulnerable and strong

Stand beside me dear self

Hold my hand

As I risk my life to live

And take a stand

Making no other demand

Than the right to exist

As the very one I am

Disappear : the unknowable mystery

Sometimes who I am

Disappears beneath a veil of tears

And I don’t know if I am or

Where I am

Only that I am becoming

It seems for past years

My body is not complete

The discrete parts

Disjoint from time to time

And often my cells become sediment

Connections come and go

Returning me to the deepest silence

The darkest void

Unbearable emptiness

Is it place of creation or destruction?

Or?

Both?

Here inside my aloneness my soul cries

And I fear the Universe will conspire

To never let us connect

Never know each other’s bodies

And this reminds me of the loneliness

I have always felt

Surrounding me like a curse

Of feeling I never had a home

And most certainly did not belong on this earth

With humans

People come and go

And I contain them

And when they disappear

My cells rearrange to contain myself again

Digesting the feelings left in rearranged tissue

Its a mystery I cannot explain

And many may feel I am mad

Because it makes no sense

And yet

When I cry

And try to comprehend

I feel the self I thought was me

Dissolving

Being absorbed back

Into the unknowable mystery

All I need : A place to be free

You say I am all you need

And oh my heart is troubled

For I know that the depths of my soul

Cannot find completion

Only in another

And it makes me sad

To think I could hurt you

When I say to you

Don’t look to me to heal your wounds

What has become of me?

Is it just

That I have had to travel so very far

Alone

Over the harshest of roads?

And is a part of me closing a door

On the possibility of healing

Through a truly connected love?

Perhaps I will forever

Hold a part of myself back

Because I know what it is to lose

But I also know

That out of loss

And of that absence left

Comes a larger presence at times

For at times

All I need is this

Blank page

Or Computer screen with an open page

A place to pour out my soul

And enter my wild imagining

Found in reverie

And poetry

Discovered in aloneness

But that is only part of me

The part that fears I won’t be free

If you try to possess and capture me

And yet another part of me

Needs and loves you too

So if I say these words

Just stay with me

But please allow my soul

Always

A place to be free

The seed of love

You thought love was the wave

That came crashing around you

A deluge

In which you might find oblivion or drown

But, no Love what remained

After that wave finally washed you

Up upon the shore of broken dreams

Within whose wrecking and breaking

You discovered a force far deeper than desire

Yes Love is the seed that

Is then planted

Growing with a power

That can never be obliterated

Once it has taken root

And begun to sprout and bloom

Within your soul

Second chances

In the silence

I hear you call my name

From so far away

So how can it be

That you are still here with me

In the lacunae spaces that open

After long wind swept walks

Lead me home to silence

Queen of my domain

There is here

Only music, breath of wind and these voices

Carried on the breeze

And my heart beating still

After so much tragedy

Memories come

Lingering with a haunting refrain

Reminding me of

So many mistaken choices that seemed so right

When I was held ransom by pain

But now I see

All the lost opportunities

(When one door closes?)

But if youth is wasted on the young

Then maybe I can dare to reach again

Using all the wisdom

Error brings

Opening my lungs

Breathing a new breath

Aware of second chances

Left within the wide open spaces

Of so many goodbyes

Of so much unlived life

That seemed to pass me by

Now revealed to be a lie

For isn’t it true

I am still alive?

Real love

If your love is real

Purely and simply

I am in heaven

And maybe the purpose of heaven

Is to open our eyes

To the hell we have lived in before

A place created in our minds and hearts

Where fear and past pain

Dominates everything

Eclipsing the view we were born with

Of grace and wide open spaces

Where freedom could dwell

Where as before

We only knew a succession of locked rooms

Or dudgeons containing ghosts

But if then love swept in

Eclipsing everything

Radically changing our perception

How could it not be

That we could find our piece of heaven

A place where hearts connect

And all our worst fears and imaginings are met with love

Dissolved in the light of a love

So freely given

That asks nothing

But to love

Unwelcome : A safe harbour

You learned a long time ago

That this world was not a place that welcomed you

That there was no one there

Holding the door open with a smile

Saying : How nice to see you

Come on in

And rest a while

You learned to keep as quiet as you could

About what you felt and thought

While bursting apart at the seams

Denying the body you lived within

Was a simple human body

Needing so very much more than this

Endless corridors with closing doors

And backs turned

The failure to admit all of this to your mind

Meant that it was your aching body

That kept the silent score

Of what you never

Were allowed to know

With your mind

Until your hunger grew too insistent

And set you on a search to find the one who said

I know you

And love you

And accept you totally

Please come in

You are more than welcome

Here

Please take a seat

For here you will find

Acceptance

A safe harbour

A space to be

Seen and loved and known