YOU'RE THE SPACE BETWEEN LIGHTNING AND THUNDER

the thorns never grew

finally,

beauty without pain

when we are nothing other

than who we are

in a moment of wrong

in a time of right

yours

and mine

till i love you in daylight

and a dream

is a streak of dust

on your fingertip

the window made real

the sunlight streams in

and at last

the daylight upon us

is witness

to your lips on mine

together hearts

wait for the kind of rain

sent for safekeeping

when darkness is

just night

and the stars shine through the stillness

the world is so full

of sad stories

that we try to write our way

to happy endings

because too many

lives concluded before

they found theirs

with as much truth

as the stars hear

each night

they stay,

the ones

who always believed

in the brilliance

of your own blossoms

you're really lovely

and i so hope i can return

the sweetness

you give to me

you remind me of

the honeysuckle

from our garden

i would sip from

as a child

and just as they were

my first taste

of honey from flowers

still you are

my very first taste

of true happiness

and i am less likely to escape

their tugging of my strings

their right to take my own right

then die because of these

feelings of worthlessness

they evoke in me

but i must loosen their ties

and their attempt

to make me into nothing

for nothing is created in their eyes

and not my own vision

of truth and justice to be

the ocean this world swims within

and not histories lies

told by men and women

who think they have won

something intangible

that thing that makes a heart beat

of which we do not know

i do not know why i feel this way

but so much hurt has held me down

that in some crumbled way

i do not belong to the people i have known

and i have felt petals

yet not the flower

i have known the kind of heartlessness

that aches to be forgotten

i will tell you what i wish for

on candles and feathers and dandelion fairies

it's so simple it really is

an end to life as i know now

and a beginning -

to run free through a field without shadows