From Me To You - 24" x 48", Acrylic on Fir, $3,700

Two Poems of understanding follow, about the relationships we choose in life

to the relations we are given. 

From Me To You

The want the need all disappears

And looking back from these empty spheres

Seems to be the tale of one of deference

The sameness not real upon first glance

Nothing true in that cadence

We were never close to that binding

Loose leaf came unglued

And I remain stupid

Lives kept far from shoulders reach

Think we could never pump that reality

Through veins remains this disconnect

Of what’s truly bleeding in this internet

My nervous tongue left blathering

Meeting up against yours

Trying to speak not hearing

My wordless speak lost on yesterday’s dream

And you

You think from two ends that creep seamlessly

From sun up to sun down

In shadows and light that tear at each one

The smile not the same when

The heart went missing

And it was lost into

Binge me

Drink me on a weekend

And then drink no more

Have

Then out the flame to yesterday’s score

That rose then flickered to nuit noir

On tomorrow’s floor

Stopped by words that could not be poured

Into poems that were never more

All the pairs pared down to one

All the ways but never done and only one

But always one

Alone and each tethered to the nether

Not you nor me

The isolates of no one

Clasping in clouds from distant fires

Watched by watchers that could not stay long

Seeing the carnage that all went wrong

Skin to heart

See then catch eyes that match

And then find a smile upon first contact

But

Smell the flavour of the skin

A flower on hot winds

The heat on fields of golden flowers

Smell its sweat through sheaths that willow

And stem it together in hair that billow

Beat slow and quick quick

Slow and quick quick

The pumping deep of heartbeat

The dance of words

The click of tongues

Our mothers taught us first this one

Her smell up close into our lungs

In her love, her oils and water hugs

That finds your heart lost at first

In her love beating slow slow to quick quicks

That now get lost in the glow of pictured smiles

Hunched over unmoving

Hearing the breath of a stone quartz tongue

Staring eyes unmoving liquid crystal diodes

Close whispered secrets can’t be written

And trust is gone separated by wires

Like wind on the field just waving goodbye

The circle of love

Has shapeshifted into the square

And the square told the light it was only a pixel.

Introspection of From Me To You

And then I understood what I saw

In that space

Between me to you …

Was what locked you out

And kept you in

What shut you down

Starts you up in oblivion

Who loved you in reverse

From the beginning

And pulled you apart

Builds you back again

Draws you in

Warms your veins

Chills your brain

And makes you lose yourself in that stain

Drawn to those who loved us

In a memory

That said we weren’t good enough

Unless we were the same

Unless we were tame

Unless we lost their stain

The very one they ingrained

This love was the pain we grew on

We learned to be loved in their pain

In our parents first stain

Where your blood was not good enough

Unless it flowed their right way

And then because

It was too much the same

We were somehow thrown away

That somehow it caught your attention

To try and be what was said to be

And slowly the space got smaller

From me to you

Slowly the words got taller

From me to you

Slowly my skin got thinner

From me to you

And I understood

How close we needed to be

To come through the fire

Where we create the bond

From me to you

That bond that knows

Where love was when we were young

How we tried to please those we loved

How we were told

We just weren’t good enough

As they were never good enough

And so we learned that

Love never ever meets what it came for

That tries but always fails

When it seeks that ice that melts you

And you shapeshift to fit inside it

Until you realize what made you

Will break you

And you step outside that Creation

Outside of that fire that burns you

Outside of that skin that outgrew you

You step outside and breath again

Your freedom

From the pain that grew to love you

And all those words that meant

To keep you smaller

That voice that meant to keep you in

Now frees you

And you’re not sure where freedom flows

You only know it has spoken to your soul

And you’re not sure where to go

Your voice stolen from way down low

Your heart lost in its own shadow

Has locked your mind out

And has kept you held in an undertow

But it’s only as you keep seeing

That the one from the past

Frees your mind into understanding

That they were all

Every grand one of them

Only human.

LauraLee K. Harris