The Poetry Marathon

Unwind the chords that have bound you
My love
String them from your mouth
And tie them to your heart
To hear the sound resonate

The sound
Of your soul breaking free
The crash, swish, and clatter

Ringing against your ribs
Tearing from your lips
Howling into the world

The liberation of a voice
Finding itself in pain
Echoing in beauty

Feeling the muse
Her fingers light as they strum
The reverberating thrum
The ever-present rhythm
The lingering hum

They trusted you first
Five-year-old hands too small

They handed me to you
You reached out, accepting the call

A pact made before we had language
A journey started before we could adventure
A love before understanding
A best friend before and for life

Before I could speak
You were my voice

Before I knew
You could tell

Before I could fall
You held my hand

Before I could swim
You taught me to float

Time flew
We grew

You into your role
Me into mine

Sisters in body and soul
A bond that defies rhyme

Wide and wild
Untamable and unfathomable

Waves crashing
Riptides pulling

When you enter me
I enter you

Taking you in
And being taken with you

As you sink into my depths
I sink into yours

Swirling around you
My presence taking oxygen’s place
My absence the effervescence that rises to the surface

I dance in your hair delighted
Twisting through it
Like kelp, it moves with me

I ease into your chest
When you breath it is only me
I lay my body over and around yours
There are no hard places here

I hold you and am held within you
I flow into your shape
Softly contained and containing

A word too many
A thought too loud
A sigh too heavy
An ask too much

A compliment overstated
A conversation repeated
A person contained

The expectation of who you are
A jacket too tight
The seams are splitting

A sky too limiting
The mantel is cracking

So the Earth opens up
Rending apart to break the mold
Allowing you to spill out
My Dear, a molten explosion
Into the universe, you go

Where it is big enough

Where it won’t try to contain you excess

Where there is room enough

Where you can splash out, pool and streak
Across infinity in watercolors made of creation

This dwelling that I exist in

The windows are bright and framed with dark fluttering curtains

The shutters open and close
Sending a message via visual telegraph
Only dreaming through filtered sun rays

The walls are curved and strong
A temple with art etched in

The paint is older than before
I get lost in the shapes made by the cracks and scars

The library is filled with magic and stories
Thought and presence
A strong sweeping resonance

The steps lead inward, upward, and outward
Going where they will and willing where they will go

This dwelling is where I live
I live where this dwelling is

My heart’s core…
I’ve wondered at her before
Is she just the base composite of
Oxygen and carbon
Hydrogen and nitrogen
Calcium and phosphorus
I have played with new mixtures and reagents
Adding them gradually to change my essential nature
The Daedalus of my being’s own labyrinth
And the Pandora at its center
The creator and the created

I am the feather strokes of sage
Brushing against my palm
The desert sand shifting underfoot

I am the inhale that breaths the world
The intoxicating aroma of memory
Past and present alive in the same moment

I am the pressure that becomes a whisper
That becomes a cry, pealing across the sky
Filling the world with a cacophony of sound

I am the face that flickers
From my feet to the clouds
Scans mountain ranges and sapling forests
Soaks in the splashes of wild-flowers
Color in a sepia landscape

I am the parched lips parted
When the swirling cumulous let go the first drops of rains
I am the moisture sliding down my own throat, refreshed

I am beyond these things as I am them
I am inspiration like electricity flashing

Lightening the darkness and then gone
Flickers remaining to dance

along your skin

across your retinas

around your taste buds

about your nostrils

against your eardrums