To Love Me Properly

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To love me properly

Be vulnerable
Come honest

Practice deep curiosity
Not just about me
About EVERYTHING!

Be emotionally intelligent
Especially about yourself

Dream
Imagine

Never forget how to look at me
Like I'm the North Star

Want me to write books of poetry about
How you and me equals us

Dance with me to the rhythm of our heartbeats

Enjoy staying up into the quiet hours
Discussing obscure and wonderful things

Willingly and gently hold space for me
Be okay with being, and being with quiet company

Give and receive love in spontaneous small gestures

Own your imperfections gracefully
Own your mistakes openly

Love me fiercely and without chains

Hunt for magic in the world
Create magic in its absence

Play for the sake of it

Respect me in thought, word, and deed
Honor me by dancing in the light of all my
Shining diamond facets
I'll do the same for you

Desire to embrace a prismatic life

Whatever is left undefined here
Treat as an opportunity to dive deeper
Learn more
Know me better
I am bottomless
An endless landscape to explore

Be willing to be broken open
I want to run my mind over every square inch of your soul
Commit to memory the scars life has left on your heart
So that I may know how to navigate your rough waters

I want to listen to the meanderings of your inner child

I want to know you in 360 degrees
And three dimensions

Be brave enough to shine light into your shadows
Unashamed because you understand
How important healing oneself is

Be secure in my transparency

Be like stained glass
Brilliantly and complexly designed
Beautiful and translucent

Know that love is a lifetime conversation
A dance that never ends
Shifting and changing
Gracefully synchronized

The prerequisites for loving me properly
May sound unachievable
But to the right person
It will sound like a revelation

-gws


Healing

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I have no interest in dating or lovers
I think that part of me might be dead
At least I cannot feel anything where that want should be
It is a dead zone in my chest
A hollow place
A salted field that cannot grow life

I have too much healing to do
So much work to do
I need to learn how to TRUST myself again
How to LOVE myself again
How to BE myself again

Now is the time for quiet
The time to feel complicated feelings
Listen to the whispers of a broken heart
A disillusioned spirit
The time to grieve shattered dreams
Relinquished hopes
And lost futures

When the processing is complete
The healing well advanced
The distrust subsided
We'll see where I am
What I want
What I need
Who I am

-gws



Chiaroscuro

I have befriended darkness
I have plunged my fingers into the deep blackness
Smelled its rich sent
Felt its chill
I have stared into its oblivion
Wondering what is on the other side
And I've felt it watching me back
Equally curious
It whispers of base things
Lust
Craving
Need
Reckless abandon
Danger
Ecstasy
Seduction
Indulgence
Pleasure
Pain
I have felt it caress my skin
Shadow spooning the light
Defining my edges
I am incomplete without it
Its contrast necessary
Reminding that there is no light
Without darkness to define it

-gws

Storyteller Heart

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With awkward ineloquent rhymes
I started breathing life into words I tattooed
Onto untold reams of pressed dead trees
When I was still learning how to tell my story
I held too much inside
I needed a pressure valve
An escape hatch for my muted voice
That had so much to say
But hid from the light of day
To hold space for my soul which felt so keenly
I juggled words in my mind
Like a magician rolls coins across his knuckles
A dance of language
Choreographed to the rhythm of heartbeats
Raw and unrefined
But as necessary as air
I worried about those early musings
Sure they were self-indulgent nonsense
Important to no one but me
But that was the point
The words were important to no one but me
The way they should be
If others understood them
If others were moved by them
Then I was doing something extra that was right
I gave my voice the space to tell my story
Released my experience as art
Defined by my own rules
A baby poet learning how to
Let her storyteller heart fly

-gws


A Love Song for Myself

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I will write a love song for myself
A song of hope
A song so free
A song of everything I want to be

I will write a love song for myself
A ballad of returning
A ballad of ascension
A ballad celebrating my redemption

I will write a love song for myself
A tune for forging forward paths
A tune for changing ways
A tune for the coming better days

I will write a love song for myself
A triumphant magnum opus
A symphony of surrender and release
A life-renewing masterpiece

-gws