Category: Love

My Dark Healing Era

Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.com
You finally let your mask slip
And with it crumbled the dam I built for you
Made of guilt and grief and pity
You tore it all down with four texts
Relieved me of the strain of false responsibility
By revealing your true and malignant self
Through the dust and dirt
I finally knew what freedom felt like
As the stones tumbled away and the air cleared
I could finally see you sharply
I knew in that moment I had done the right things
A rumble began to rise
As the rage began to ascend
Suppressed beneath my compassion for you
Barricaded by empathy your didn't deserve

Now the pain and hurt and grief and rage
I held back for this last year
Ices my skin
Darkens my eyes
Eliminates my capacity for compassion
And awakens the tactician's skills
The quiet, calculated, dark, divine feminine
Is finally assuming her throne within me

Welcome to my healing era
No fucks are given here anymore

-gws

Slay

These poems are a journey 
That began in the light of hope and love
Then slowly meandered through increasing darkness 
They dare to expose the skeletons and demons 
Barely hidden behind my front door for too long
The narration begins in the middle 
After darkness had well fallen
And documents my struggle to breathe
My desperate journey to find myself again 

And for those who live with horrors who wear human faces
If I found my way free
I know you can too
Let these poems serve as proof 
That though it is not easy
Freedom can be won
You can take your life back 
Write the story exactly as YOU wish it to be

Sometimes the dragon burns down the world 
As long as you’re standing 
No matter how wounded
You can slay that dragon
You ARE the hero of your story
YOU get to say when the story is over
YOU get to decide how the new book starts
YOU get to do whatever the hell YOU want
Take my story and forge it into your sword of courage 
SLAY

-gws

When Love Returns to Darken Your Doorstep

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com
Oh it's you
I knew you might find me again one day
Minding my business
Unaware and defenseless
I knew you might show up on my doorstep
Inviting the resurrection of my long disused heart
I thought we had an agreement
An understanding, perhaps
You see, I have no desire to let you settle here again
The soil in which I am planted is not good for your roots
You salted it well long ago
Do you really not remember because I still do
And yet here you are
Bags in hand asking if you can stay a while
Looking at me with familiar enticement
Dressed up in pheromones and endorphins
With all the charisma of a red carpet return
I have not forgotten how fickle you are
How you overstayed your welcome
How you left me heartbroken 
I don't trust you
You're too good at feeling good
I forget too easily how you are besties with misery
Stop looking at me with eyes that want to know me
Stop looking at me with eyes that want
Stop attempting to pull me into your gravity
I do not trust I can break free again
I don't want to have to break free again
Don't you understand you are not safe for me
Don't you understand I need to feel safe
I do not trust myself in your presence
I am scared, you see
You see, I am scarred
So very scared
So very scarred
The last time I let you stay
Nearly dismantled me
So no
Do not leave one speck of dirt on my doormat
I beg you to to forget where I live
I do not want your false promises 
I do not want you to be seen by you
Your attention has cost me too much
And I'm still in debt for it

-gws

How Do You Manage Alone

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
I am the fourth daughter to do it alone
Independence and survival are in my DNA
Only child to a single mother
Only granddaughter amongst the cousins
Only kid on my block
I have lived in comfortable aloneness most of my life
Do not believe I do not get lonely
I know how to remedy loneliness
Trusted family
Tribe
Are always a keystroke or "hello" away

I'd prefer to have a partner
To help me raise and support my children
But not at the cost of my independence
My independence is foundational in my peace
If I cannot retain my independent spirit
I cannot sustain my sense of self
I need a partner who walks alongside me
Who understands that I need to run in my wildness
Who does not try to domesticate me
Into something less than myself

Aloneness is not absence or lack
It is the space where I meet myself
It is the door to my Narnia
The place where unfettered dreams thrive
Where words waltz in ballgowns and tails
Where stories bloom from rich soil
Where I sit in conversation with discomfort
Where I sit in conversation with my gods
It is the garden of my delights
And it is as precious to me as air

How do I manage alone you ask
I understand that I'm never really alone
I'm as alone as I choose to be
I'm helped as much as I choose to ask for it
It is not as perfect or simple as these stanzas may imply
But the essence of my truth is here
Simplified
Distilled into a comprehensible version
Of my vast and complex reality
A demonstration of shifting perspective 
Being alone carries so much oppressive connotation
I choose to experience it as a necessary liberation
Allowing me to navigate life by my own north star
Inspiring me to never lose sight of myself again

-gws

Pandora’s Box of Love

Photo by Maria Verkhoturtseva on Pexels.com
Love feels like Pandora's Box of contradicting experiences
Love alights you upon a mountain top of elation
And sequesters you in a dungeon of anxiety
Love can feel like Elysian Fields
And Dante's Inferno
Love can make you feel like an accomplished genius
And the village idiot
Love gives your soul wings
And your body two left feet
Love makes poetry of your dreams
And salad of your words
Love inspires amazing highs
And devastating lows
Love is celebrated when it arrives
And mourned when it departs
Pleasure and pain separated by fate's coin toss
A game of chance we cannot stop playing

-gws

Friendship Garden

I am lucky to have cultivated a lush garden of beautiful, meaningful friendships throughout my life.  I am luckier, still, to be planted in the deep soil of my friends’ gardens where they shower me in love, and light, and their amazing company.  To exist in a well tended garden cultivates a gratitude so profound it can only erupt from me in joyful colors painted with hugs, laughter, and happy tears like sacred rain upon parched earth.

- gws