a warrior's heart

(as an artist i always put myself out there...in the images and words i create...they sometimes take me off a cliff or simply set me high on a mountain...they can out me as a lover of women or show the deep rooted spiritual love i have for all...i let people into my inner world in a way that to me is vulnerable but not dangerous...you are not close though you receive many of my closest thoughts...yet in life i have become more cautious and stopped risking so much upon the Altar of Love...

so i struggle with feelings and yet wade in all the same...hoping to learn to swim finally...tired of drowning...i think i am close to learning so much about love and being open to it...learning a healthier approach...how can an artist not love...it is the blood of art...it keeps the creative force alive...it is who i am...i dont know how to stay in my shell for long and play it safe...i need to write and paint and put myself out there into it all...into the messy parts of life...into the painful places...and into the passionate ones as well...especially the passionate ones...

i write these next lines with such a kind heart towards my struggles to open up...to the opening of a new way of navigating myself...i have come to an ending of the long war within me...i am now ready to surrender to my tender years...with less heartache and more peace...and as the old temple i built has fallen into ruins...i will build a new temple to love and make my home there...in peace...with passion...full of happiness...

so here is my love poem to myself...perhaps it will touch the tender place in you...for so many of us wander the battlefield when all we had to do was walk away from the war we waged against our own happiness...)


its in the slide of your hand...in the arch of your back...in the sigh of your hips...

its in the words you have swallowed...yet they rise up again...the oh god i love her thundering under your skin...

its all in the curve of your ear where a tongue could dance...

its in the pounding your heart takes fighting your own fears...

its in the tight muscles of    i    want    her    lips    right    there...its in the panting of your fingers as you imagine her...right...there...

its in the slam of these words...in the barbed wire of these lines...

its in the wrecking ball hitting your wall of resistance...its in the crash of all your defenses...

its in the flash flood of your tears...its in the narrowing of this year...

its in the stillness of your nest...

its in the secret held too close it might be crushed to death...

its in the wishful stars that fill your eyes...it is in the fall of the armor now too heavy to bear...

its in the end to the war inside of you...


the battles are done...your feelings escape...your body sighs as you surrender to Love...the only way a warrior knows how...with courage...