For You, Buddha

And it was then
when my words
dripped
from your lips
like rain falls
on the surface of the river
the body where it began

It was most surely then
when I smelled
the poetry
on your skin
through the forest
and over the mountain
so many miles away

I do know it was then
that I breathed
knowing that you too breathed
and I burned brighter
just knowing that you
were out there
looking for a reason

Bone Love

Your love is my joy and my sorrow.
It is your profession of love,
unsubstantiated
that creates this fear in me.
It is not you I doubt,
but your constancy.
I am assured that you
are firm in your belief,
in your opinion,
of your love.
It is the endurance,
the reality of that love
that leaves me cold,
questioning.
A love unsaid is dead.
The love we force upon ourselves
and the love to which we cling
feel the same.
Both have bones of desperation.

Fight Fair

I am a detester of whispers.
Hater of hushed laughter-
the slivers of spite that wedge themselves-
into eardrums and tear ducts,
beneath nail beds and
rupturing the smallest of the heart's blood vessels.

Shout out your discontent.
Clarify your contentions against me.
Use facts and speak plain,
that I may refute your nonsense
and retain my pride.
Spare me all your veiled contempt,
I refuse to be shrouded thus
and spoken of in third person.