Semantic satiation

They say if you repeat a word
up to three times a second
for 15 seconds

that's enough for
the word to
lose its meaning.

You thought
it was too soon for me to feel anything,
you never truly believed it.

I add my love
to one hopeless sentence,

make it my last.

I find it hard these days
 to place it
in context.

September

September keeps stealing
the people I love away from me.

There has been too much heat
and too little shade these days.

You find neighbors in their porches
talking politics and having lemonade.

We now plant people like trees.
They grow arms as long as branches

which still fail to touch the clouds
but make great hangers for hopes.

Bring the canary back into the house by nightfall.

- says your last note

forgiving the creature for it cannot sing.
This is the lesson you leave us.

Close to heart

My grandmother had a strategy
to remember anything -
she stashed things in her bra:

her ID card,
money,
shopping lists,

general notes,
bus tickets,
handkerchiefs,

a black and white photo of grandpa
in his wedding suit,
'what a rare man he was'. 

As I look for a safe place
to keep my favorite thought of you,
she comes back to my mind

gathering blackberries in the yard,
lost in conversations with the memory
of the man she loved always close to heart.

This will destroy you (but will also set your soul free)

I discover a fearless heart
when I repeat my love
for a man who denied me
three times.

The hours you spent
accounting my masks,
observing my stumbles

to prove me imperfect -

have you assumed 

they would make me weak?

I'm the weakest a human being can be,

I love. You don't know what it is.

Or maybe you do.
You block the bridge I've built to you
knowing I always cross it alone.
Maybe, you've already gotten yourself

a weakness.
This will destroy you,
my dear one.
(But will also set your soul free.)

Underworld

Dear G,

you go unspeakable
and I cannot guess
what runs in your chest,

if it is the city sewage
or a river of hot lava.
Will you take me on a tour?

Have I not said it
a thousand times
that I am not afraid of

your underworld?