“Not it!” I say
Not I
Not me
Not this time or any will it be
I cannot take your heart from you
I know not what to do with it
I will not take your heart from you
Please do not make a gift of it
I cannot be the one you seek
There is no love in me to reap
So I will go and let you keep
The heart you meant for me
-gws
My significant other
Is more other than significant now
I wish I felt better about this fact
I do not miss the now of him
I’m still in love with the then of him
When love knocks you can never know
The beauty or horror in its entourage
You believe love can conquer all
And learn that love is often not enough
My significant other left
A significant mark on me
That is hardly insignificant
-gws
Listening to a physicist waxing poetic
In a live stream about theoretical physics, quantum mechanics,
Philosophy, US politics, Mandela Effects, and more
As he stands in front of the Large Hadron Collider
While I drink a perfect cup of coffee and start my Tuesday
My soul and my brain are extraordinarily happy
-gws
The enduring redwood is dead
Meant to withstand
Storm and fire and drought
Heartwood rotted from within
Disease and neglect
Claimed their prize
A reminder that
Sometimes good things die
-gws
And so comes the end of the heaviest chapter
The plot twisted dramatically
In the hands of an unreliable narrator
Linear time fractured
Slowed
Ran backward
Perspectives shifted
Creating more confusion than clarity
Muted colors of nostalgia dull recollections
Emotional sharpness blunted
The hollow ache of a long goodbye
Completed with the deliberate placement
Of an arch-ending period.
The next act begins with a page turn
“THE NEXT CHAPTER” written atop it
-gws
Ev’ry Mother’s Day
A simple pastel bouquet
Carnations in bloom
To honor your roll in life
As mother and grandmother
-gws
I realize that this year’s Christmas
Will be my first in decades without you
That shatters me like a dropped ornament
I wanted us to be a Hallmark holiday romantic comedy
But we were, instead, a Nancy McKeon movie of the week
This year is heavy with disappointment
Like that of not finding that hoped for gift beneath the tree
Or the disillusionment of learning Santa
Is just your parents’ amateur slight of hand
Or that moment in Love Actually when Emma Thompson
Opens her gift to discover it's a Joni Mitchell CD
Instead of the expensive necklace that Alan Rickman
Bought for his sexy secretary instead of his loving wife
You keep trying to gift me expired I love yous
I let them fall to the ground like dry pine needles
Christmas lights wear glimmering halos
From the tears that well when the Carpenters croon
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
I will not hang your stocking
Or buy you a well-considered gift
I will, however, cast a Christmas wish
For you to dream of better days
As you nestle in an unfamiliar bed
That old St. Nick blesses you
With a better life ahead
-gws
You have said a lifetime's worth of, "I love you" in the last ten months
I remember that you rarely said it in the twenty-three years
When I needed to hear it like my blood needed oxygen
What am I to do with your, "I love you" now
Now that I cannot love you anymore
Oh! My heart still loves you
Still wrings drops of hope from itself
Hope hanging heavy from tear tracts
To be wiped bitterly away
Because there is no hope left
Hope is just a tether
Preventing me from moving on
From acknowledging the truth that
The third body is dead and has been for a long time
Love's hope nearly destroyed me
Consumed me
My heart will not let me pry this foolish hope from her hands
So instead, I have to lock it away
In the dark, cold, empty cavity that is my chest
Heart unable to comprehend that I do this for our own good
It screams and howls in the echoing silence
"One last chance!"
"One more time!"
"Maybe this time! Maybe! Just maybe!"
"I love you" manifests no magic here
"I love you" will not call forth a miracle for us
I still love you,
Too
But I HAVE to love me,
MORE
-gws
Women!
Do not center your lives around men
Pleasing
Appeasing
We are not the prey for their predator
Though some argue nature made it so
We are Medusa's progeny
Serving oleander sweet tea
And Aqua Tofana cocktails
We carry the legacies of Lilith
Hecate and the Morrigan
Skywoman and Diana of the Hunt
In our bones
We are born with cunning woven into our shadows
Placed there by the midwives and wise-women
Kitchen witches and herbalists
Shaman and priestesses
Who came before us
We have our own form of politics
Whispered around washing wells and sewing circles
Book clubs and coffee tables
We don our poison rings and hat pins
Let them think our docility safe
While we keenly observe and note and remember
It is time to end the war waged upon our bodies
The raping of our spirit
The subjugation of our gender
We are the gateway of life
We break ourselves open through blood and pain
To do the Goddess's work of creation
Too long have we allowed the world to think us
Weak
Helpless
Foolish
Simple
Incapable
We must remind the world of our strength
Boudicca was beaten and her daughters raped
And in her rage she waged war against Rome
Joan d'Arc stood against the English and the Church
A God-touched, heretic, peasant child whose heart would not burn
Harriet Tubman survived the travesties of slavery
Another God-touched woman who delivered 70 other souls to freedom
And we know there are so many more like them
Though we may not find our names etched in history
We are no less powerful than those who are
Our lives are OUR CHOICE
We are not chattel nor trophies
We are creation gifted autonomy
It is our divine right to wield our lives as we see fit
Let them vilify us as
Succubi
Mad women
Uppity bitches
And cunts
We know we are
Goddesses
Priestesses
Witches
And warriors
We are exhausted
We are fed up
We are wrathful
The Divine Feminine rises
The world is set ablaze around us
But we are not tied to the pyre
We choose to look the world dead in the eye
And dance while it burns
-gws
I plunge my hands
Into the dark soil
To harvest the fruits
Of gratitude into the light
It is practical work
Grounding work
Spiritual work
To nourish my soul
Drawing upon the root work
Already deeply planted
I turn my face to the sun
-gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 