You have parted the seas of pain in my life
Been my fortress in the fires of my suffering
Walked with me
Over the waters of my fear
And through every storm
You have been my covering.
How much more can you do
In these Covid times we are in,
As events continue to unfold.
We have seen it before
And we will see it again
Your goodness, Your victory, retold!
In silence, I stand
Nipples bared and bowed
To the bravery of the stolen
Of the forgotten voices
Of the raped
Of the tortured
Of those killed in the name of freedom
I bare my body
I surrender this suit
I plaster truth
I carve it into the bones of me
Until the world hears
En Chile torturan violan y matan.
“In Chile they torture, rape and kill.”
There will be times you are at your lowest points
When anguish engulfs you and there is nowhere left to run
And the words of our loved ones fall flat, hallow
No one can meet you in this darkness
And the support will seem lack lustre
Will seem disingenuous
Will be flawed
And you retreat within, in solitude
Praying away this poison chalice
This cup of suffering
In a manic display
Until your legs give way and succumb
To the gravity of surrender
And then
Beyond the unrest
Beyond the disquiet of your anxiety
The starring of the still small voice
Overtakes you to reveal
“Beyond this pain
Beyond this bitter suffering
And far beyond what your mind can perceive
Lays a promise, a hope,
A purpose for all that be
Rooted in my immeasurable love
And, oh, how I love you,
Cherished one
One day you will see
The glory and the splendour
Of an eternity with me.”
And as these words leave me
Some things do stay
Like the peace that passeth understanding
To guide me on my way.
You were my climate
I would bend & yield to your slightest variation
When you were my sun, I would dress down for you, all skin, melanin, exposure
Blanketed by your warmth
I vacationed in your love
Until the season called for your coldness
I would grimace & endure your presence
Like a sore throat in recovery
The autumns of your indifference
Brought with it a kaleidoscope of mystery
As the leaves fell from our dreams
Unrealised
We marvelled at the unsettling paradox
That the beauty of our ideals may never be fully actualised
But the beauty remains unwavering
All the same
The winter of our love
Brought with it a necessary mourning
As I purged you, heart and soul
Piercing through with icy precision
I allowed it to hurt
I gloried in the courage it took to brave your coldness
To endure
Until the last morsel of this blizzarding love
Melted away
Bringing forth a spring of reflection
Of clarity
As I meditated on all the reasons I had to leave:
That no matter how hard I tried to adapt
To your vicissitudes
Your endless variations
I found myself staring
Perpetually
At this ticket back
To myself
For my heart is a tropical island
Of dreams & beauty & irresistible warmth
Until my rain comes like a hot baptism
Ready to cleanse & make a new
To saver in the promise of a warmer tomorrow
And for now, maybe that’s what I need more
As I vacationed in your temperate maritime climate
It is time for this sojourning soldier to return home
Tonight we dance.
With Electrified bodies
With minds floating far from concerns,
Tonight we riot.
All leather skirts and red lips to the ready
We use our fashion to scream at convention
At the uniform
At the mundane business of the working.
For tonight is Saturday
Every hour of this night is our own.
So let us lavish in laughter, in dancing and gin
As we brace ourselves for the week to begin.
It’s not here
The Fear that plagues you
The Love that binds you
The Desire that drives you
It’s not here
The mechanisms of love
The barriers you place around it
The romantic illusions that pollute it
The myths that mask you from the truth
It’s not here
The saving grace
The divine light
Blazing away sorrows history
From your veins, from your veins
It’s not here
In that powdery embrace
A nose full, a mouth full,
a forbidden pharmacy
It’s not here
In that liquid luck
And all the ways you try to orchestrate your own destruction
It’s not here
It’s not here
It’s not here
Look within.
Here’s to us;
Making it this far,
Another year approaching,
Ready for us to take it in our stride
And as we dust down those resolutions,
Reviewing the messes we’ve made,
The triumphs we’ve tasted,
Taking a shot for every disappointment
And dancing in the embers of the past –
We bound forwards,
Revelling in the victory
Of all we’ve overcome.
Nothing compares to this strength,
The courage it take to evolve
And survive the torture of our cocoons.
For now, we emerge.
Glittering and ready
For all this year, this life
Has in store.
Loving you
With this kaleidoscope view
Of haunting visions
Misleading me & you
But caught up in the passion
Of the red & blues
Entranced by the mystery
And drowning in a history
Of powders, pills & booze
Consciousness – in & out we fly
We swallow up weeks
As we soar through the sky
And in my mind’s eye
I see you
Dancing in transition
Flickering red & blue
A dizzying display
As you multiply from one to two
To an endless supply of you
Of this haze
Filling my days
With dreams & nightmares
That torment when I crave
My next ticket
Soaring up high
Together, you & I
We’ll reinvent the meaning
Of floating
Through this life
Cheers to crashing countlessly
From the great heights we soar
For I remember truly
Loving you was an emotional war
For my unwavering patriotism
I refuse to leave
For as long as my lungs allow me to breathe
And as long as my veins bleed
Blue
I will continue
Continue
Loving you
With this kaleidoscope view
Of haunting visions
Misleading me & you
To a grave uncertain, but coming, but true
Called by the knowing
The inner whisper from
The timeless
To a timezone
Where seconds melt away
And potential burns through
The transition
The disquiet
That follows one passing phase
Into another
With all of life
Brimming and bubbling in the bones of you
Here births the realised dream
The magnetised pull
To the future you
That is already fulfilled
Already the dazzling wonder
You feel so vividly in the distance
One you are with this dream
And all future yous
Living fully
In the present
No substance truly annihilates forsaken pain
No chemical can cure the crash
Crash
Crash
Of a shattering heart
Breaking
On the floor of your chest
The bleeding,
The agony,
It cannot be avoided
Numbed, perhaps
But that is like
Walking bare foot
Over the shards of your own heart
Pretending the wounds aren’t there
Pretending
That the pieces
Of your once whole heart
Aren’t now festering inside of you
Like a malignant lump
No longer beating
But bleeding
Seeping through every crevice of your soul
Until you are utterly consumed
Neglected pain
Cannot be numbed by illegal substances
That promise of temporal joy
Temporal escape
Temporal release
Because as the substance leaves you
And your plane lands
And you feel yourself descending
Down a very deep hole
The pain will greet you there
That misery you left on stand by
On hold
Because life got in the way
But I know, love
This world is still cruel to the kindest of souls
And life doesn’t stop
Life doesn’t give way
Life doesn’t allow you to process this pain away – naturally
So we drink it away,
We smoke it away,
We love it away
But when your plane lands
And you feel yourself descending
Down a very deep hole
The pain will greet you there
Larger than before
So do not expect it to whisper
Do not expect it to meet you conveniently
Expect the room where your pain resides to be empty
Cleared of any redeeming quality
So when the chorus of your pain takes to the mic
Expect its volume, its power to be
Amplified
Welcome to Ruth's Rhapsody 