Among my dark tresses
Magic is sprouting
So many threads of silver tinsel
Adorning my head like glittering filaments
Filling my hair with starlight
-gws
Tinsel
Category: Woman
Your Move
I see you watching
The sway of my hips
The set of my lips
The unapologetic way I take up space
You're wondering about me
Imagining my mysteries
Gauging if you are worthy
To kneel in worship before
My dark goddess displayed
Exhalant in my glory
I will take no audience
With ordinary souls
They do not ignite curiosity in me
I like those who recognize
Their audacity in approaching me
Because my eyes show
I give no fucks
I do not play
If I let you in
Doesn't mean you get to stay
I have danced with devils
And cast them all out
Barely a glance spared them
I see you watching me
What's your move
-gws
How to Woo a Poet
Crave deep and honest conversation
Sit with her
Like a blind man tracing her face
Run your curiosities
With careful deliberateness
Across her mind
And allow her to do the same
Lean into the exchange
And let the world fall away
Spend the night in philosophical repose
So you may greet the dawn
With your souls on fire
Make evenings like this a ritual
This will light a fire in her blood
This is how to woo a poet
-gws
Ritual of Returning and Release
I sit in my silver armor upon my golden throne
Light streams in through my temple's high windows
Painting the floor below my dais in deep lavender beams
The temple is quiet and familiar and mine
The doors to the chamber open and he enters
Shadows trailing from his shoulders
Like a cloak woven from smoke
He strides forward
Until he is stopped by the barrier of lavender light
We lock eyes with each other
He kneels upon the stones
A gesture of only minor supplication
For his eyes never leave mine
I close my eyes and breathe
I feel the gauntlets release from my wrists
The greaves from my legs
The chest plate and chain mail
The weight of them suddenly gone
I open my eyes and watch as the armor becomes dark smoke
Passing through the boundary
Returning to him
I do not need protection any longer
The silver collar releases from my throat
Then the silver circlet from my brow
And last the silver band upon my finger
The weight of him removed from me
Cleansed and returned to his keeping
My eyes return to his
Now he breathes deeply and black smoke flows from him
As it passes through the lavender boundary
The smoke becomes like liquid gold
A delicate gold filigree pendent alights above my heart
Glowing with a quietly fierce fire
I can feel a gentle thrum as it syncs with my pulse
Upon my head appears a grand and golden fiery crown
Radiating strength and power
Pulsing with each breath
Now restored, these symbols of my power blaze to life
Burning away every shadow in the temple
Returning the quiet fire to my eyes
His shadows retreat as does his gaze
He bows his head once
This ritual of returning and release ended
I watch as he rises, turns, and retreats
He disappears back through the temple's doors
They close silently behind him
Tethered together no longer
I sit in my power
Whole again and free
-gws
She is a Poet
She is a poet
An enigmatic storyteller
A word-painter who colors outside the lines
Who sometimes rhymes
Language her artistic medium
Manifesting nouns and verbs
Seeking nuanced shades in adjectives and adverbs
Crafting simile and metaphor
Manipulating personification and hyperbole
Until a shape evolves
This scaffolding for allegory to be called a poem
A golem built from meticulously chosen words
Watercolor emotions
Empathetic evocations
The work imbued with the DNA of her life experience
Powered by hope for her audience to feel at a visceral level
A fraction of the tsunami that lives in her
-gws
Making Friends
She dressed for the night
Draped in shadows and silver
Making friends with the darkness
-gws
Getting Over You (and Other Divine Interventions)
The Universe intervened
In our amber-trapped lives
Cleaving us asunder
Now that your umbra is clearing
I begin to see the Universe has
Gifted me infinite sunrises
Bursting with innumerable possibilities
After half my life with you
Standing you up
Holding you up
I find myself suddenly free
Of the responsibility of you
I delight in the joy of doing anything
Without your judgment
I relax remembering that there are no
Relentless expectations to navigate
I revel in a full night's uninterrupted sleep
I relinquish more and more tension from my body
As each day passes without you
A single divine gift containing
All the possibilities I can dream of
I will not get over you in a day
You have left me a moonscape
Desolate and damaged
I will redeem and reclaim myself
Both shadow and light
Ever shifting and changing
Just like the magnificent moon
-gws
Liminal State
I exist in a liminal state
A being
And not a being
Grief ebbs and flows in king tides
Emptying me
Submerging me
Stealing away my breath
With its pressure changes
Feelings grow in question marks
Within my hollow chest
Proliferating like fungus in the fall
Inside of my being that is not a being
Emptiness overflowing with nothingness
Destruction and restoration
Warring to fill the immeasurable void
Shaped like my cremated heart
Pulsing with unfathomable aching
Testing the tolerances of
My being that is not a being
It is surreal to be and not be
To experience the reality of the question
Posed by Master Shakespeare
In rhyme and sonnet so long ago
To understand that one can be both
A being and not a being
-gws
Redemption
Sometimes
The simple act of cleaning a toilet
Can feel like redemption
-gws
If Not Me
I may appear whole
What you cannot see
Are the burns on my feet
From walking miles through fire
The stars in my eyes
From taking too many hits
The lacerations on my skin
From navigating uncountable shards of glass
The weariness deep in my bones
From rising everyday to overcome
Some challenge or trial
Again
And again
I have dodged and weaved
Punched and parried my way
Through days I never could have predicted
I have shown up when all I desired
Was to lay down and give up
Because if not me, then who
Mothers have to dig deep
We have to find that reservoir of power labeled
Do it for the children
So I push
So I push
So I push
Through the deepest, coldest waters
The fiercest, raging fires
The longest, darkest nights because
If not me, then who
For them
-gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 