You’ve spent a long time now quieting storms
Sacrificing your fists to open-palmed service the sandbag walls you build against your anger
Clinging to roots in the cellar secretly hoping the house will blow down
I am skeptical of your smooth waters.
I would like to bear witness to the weight of your flood.
Forgive me – I’d also like to curl sideways with you on Sunday mornings
Stay in bed for the hell of it
Lie still on the sand and count stars
I would like to sleep in the melodic lull of your heartful conversations I would like to rest and belong in the calm lilting hull of you but too long now
You have been quieting storms
I’ve seen you swallow lightning
watched the shock sting drip down the length of you, cringed at the electric hollow acquiescence of your empty yes
sang along with the full bellied desperation songs you sling to drown out the thunder
sat like a child at the foot of the stories you tell to dispel the tsunami rising that’s flooding your floor
You’ve been looking for love that will wrap around you like safe basement walls
Love like a hatch anchor to shut out the wind rage
Love that will lock up the doors and take you into its mouth whispering
“It’s okay, sugar, all your noise will never find us in here.”
There is more to love than safe haven
Love is the homestead ripped from its hinges, swirling and ready to ride you to Oz
Love wants to open the catastrophe you carry beneath your collarbone
Love wants the riot of your betrayals and the resentment of your scorching rebellion
Love demands you seething, the sweat and swell of you, the charlatan darkness, the powerful shame of your low, your most brutal unlovable natural disaster of a soul
Love seeks the tornado wound of your segregation because
Love wants you reconciled and holy and the morning after rest of your body weary with survival
Love is the nourishing sleep of the truly alive
Love is the fearless open peaceful
Love is the woven only whole
Love is the burden and flood of you
Love is the storm, and only after you’ve freed it,
Love is the rainbow
See, desire is a skeleton I was told to keep in her closet
but you are the crookedest stubborn key
You are the kiss that will wake her
You are Sunday mornings
and the hurricane that rips off the door
