Acceptance and negligence are opposing behaviors; may we always have more of the former and none of the latter.
let us be by George Ellington
It is the shrillest voice that cries me
descend unto these depths,
my ancient love so high.
Only you could tempt the gravest
follies of me braving galaxies
to set foot once more on earth.
You have taught me so endearing much
about the beauty of the here and now
when my soul grieves at me.
I have so egregiously despised this me
being but this and now and dull
and longing ever to be more.
Yet somehow you feeling perceived
a me worth knowing beyond
my ever above crying soul.
I still cannot say that I understand why,
but trusting in the fullness of you,
I am ready to say yes, let us be.
Very much alive by Candice Louisa Daquin
My mother haunts me from the periphery of each day
though thankfully she is far from dead
in fact, luminescent and bright like an opal ring
inhabiting living more than I have ever mastered
her premature ghost has inched around my life
like frosting on a stale cake
a ghost I created out of need and longing
losing before you have lost
missing before you have the words
my mother who is distance and fog
perhaps why, when I squint now
I don’t see far, never far enough
she has always been just out of reach
and I, always aching, for her regard
sometimes it is not trauma or car wrecks
causing us to hemorrhage
but the standing absence of people who are
very much alive