To Love

Love will become
If you let it
Tired
Alone-on-a-shelf-feeling
Wondering if it’s worth the fight

If you so choose

With spine strait and strong
Trumpeting, “Gonna Fly Now”
Renewed
If you let it
Love will remain

Original Thought Credit: Theme from Rocky, “Gonna Fly Now”

All is All

I thank you
That you
Who saw me as I am
Refused to let me be

All I could be
Is all you saw

I thank you
That you
Rejected me
As such

This helped me see
You



Unrecognized

Is my voice ever forever becoming quieter

A year ago, you’d be deeply troubled to hear it by now

Smaller, slighter, and far less full

More less of what you loved

Were I today

Speaking on the news

Inquiring in the produce department

Or campaigning next door

Don’t worry

Your ears would only find faint resemblance to some old someone

You’d not think to ask, “But who?”

Original Person

We, born strong, a known miracle, believed in our birthright

Demanded what we’d earned

Respect of our hearts

When wolves came around

We’d thought them our friend — having been made from the same dust and all

When their howling happened, tables turned, teeth exposed

We’d respond not in-kind, but with kindness

Hoping hindsight would cause us to laugh

How many more times is unclear

How long before hope would recede, who can know?

And so, we ate the Apple

Believed the serpent, absorbed the poison

Until at some future point, we’d bleed out and walk whole

In the afterlife

We ask, all the more demanding and kind

Please beware our now sharp teeth

Love, Lisa

If the Earth did turn, that the Sun seemed to rise this morn’
Just as sure as I wrote these words
You are not alone now

If you awoke, however dehydrated and aching
Let these words quench your need
I love you, turn with me, rise with me, thirst and ache no more. I love you

Snowing Now

How would one say this most tenderly
Having taken a chance, a first step
Towards a clean slate

Brushed clean the old optimist’s talk of hoping to give one’s whole heart
For one’s whole life

An offer of a lifetime
Open hands held
Shaking for oh, so, long
Waiting crazy patient

Retracted now, reality calls

How should I say this most tenderly, liar

Enjoy the ride South
As you watch me
Enjoy the ride