healing

Once I was sick
My skin was grey
And I didn't know my own name
I lived in a sick house
And my sickly sister came to nurse me
She brought me
With her last strength
Across the sea
Where I
Weak as I was
Rescued a very sick friend

My revelations are these

Actually
No one is well

And

God has a strange way of healing

beauty is the idol of my family

Yesterday I met an ugly man

But he was beautiful 

To me

And it pains me to think

That all of my loved ones

Swooped in

Like vultures 

To tell me

To dig the line deeper

In the sand

Between us

Voices in my head

Now heavy

As if with bodies

Whispering judgements

I cannot bear to hear

please

I understand

That you will make your first impression

And so will I

Just let it be in pencil

bloom

And sometimes I think
My life must be very beautiful
For there is always some small vine
Poking
Pushing
Insisting
To bloom

kitty & walter (the painted veil)

The light
The twisting of features
The change
I see
When a human learns
She's a lover
When a sleeper learns
To wake
When the wicked learns
To forgive

Forgive twice

See
There was something there
Beyond the darkness
And now
It illuminates her face
Growing
From the painful birth
Of vulnerability
Finally...

Love

for akash, the bangladeshi rose peddler

I don't want to know what you've seen
Shit
If it was only Italian after Italian
Fumbling out of Italian cars
Same faces, different partners
Outside street-spilling bars
Broken hearts and wine bottles
Crushed like blood under the stars...

If it was only this, as you told me,
You could fill a book
But I've seen your hungry mouth rejected
That youthful face turned one-hundred and one
No more roses they cried
But you were never undone
And each time you saw me, Bella! an extra rose
No use refusing, you always won

And I remember a blurry photo
That you showed me on your phone
Of a daughter you'd yet to hold
Born a thousand miles back home
And I remember you hopping trains
With no ticket in hand
And I remember
I suppose
It was something powerful to give
I suppose
Well...weren't we both alone
And far from family
And tired of Italy
Of surviving?
I remember your approval
When I told you I was leaving
"Fai bene!"
I don't know how
You had any light left to give
How
How
HOW thick is your skin?