We Prosper.

When we prosper, we prosper from here to somewhere
else,
without a shadow of closure, a ring of doubt.
It surrounds us, envelopes us in wisdom we cannot
quite catch-the wisdom of wanting something that is beyond
your reach,
the wisdom that comes with the knowledge of it.

We await each day, thinking as it comes,
questioning the realm of this or that, trying to figure out
who we were before.
Even if I had told you before, you would not have listened,
you would have thought it was not a good idea.

I told you it would end up like this, you ignoring me
my entire life, me trying to find my way through the void,
the darkness, the endlessness of a dark room.

I am not Sylvia Plath. I am not a sick fiend, nor a liar,
just a woman who is trying to be who I am.
It is hard. The walking is hard, the fighting is hard,
harder than you can imagine, especially when no one knows
it’s you, when everyone fears you are missing.

I am not missing. I am at home, watching the days go by,
looking at the world outside a window that does not
belong to me. It belongs to a book. A strand of knowledge.
And your reflection.

In the Winter.

Like open doorways, I mix and mingle, I drive soiled tears
Through linen sheets. Peace is not with me; a heart is not open,
I quietly rekindle my tears, the heartache beats steady.
I wish I could bring myself out of this stupor, but nothing
Will relinquish this pain that is held on me, when my heart beats
Steadily, the thrum thrum of my heart. Who am I.
Shadows are thrown on open doorways; daylight moves in through
The open window, where a flower has fallen on a cold moaning
Of wind. This life is not forbidden, this love is not forbidden,
Nor is my heart, it beats like shadows and rivers,
Words are tossed into open wounds.
Clouds move and shift;
Secrets plummet into the world like warbled voices,
Caught in an updraft of makeshift promise. I do not know how
To say this, do not know how to speak the words that claw
Inside my chest, to say the things that must be spoken.
There is only the window, and the flower on the sill-
The darkness that thrums, and a cold winter chill.