secrets-and-salutations

[secrets-and-salutations]

– Mira Bellwether, Fucking Trans Women, Issue #0, 2010

[secrets-and-salutations]

The clouds rolling in over the hill pick out rows of conifers in comforting streaks of grey. The uppermost pines barely visible against the ghostly tender envelope of cloud. The whims of the weather concealing all in their path, the hill will be just as cold and lonely tonight as it was a thousand years ago… I wish I were there.

The trees are gone now and the night will be cruel. I am reluctant to turn for home.

– Ellie R

"I think I was trying to talk about how weird it is that natures is so comforting and attractive and yet so brutal"

[secrets-and-salutations]

Longing makes the heart grow braver

I promised you my heart this morning

and it feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest

not actually, since you are lying on it

but no longer that self doubt or distrust

and though the seasons may change

as may our world, our thoughts

I feel a naïve sense of safety

like I were just a kid, walking this world with you

[secrets-and-salutations]

I am filthy

I am disgusting

Everything around me is filthy

I live in it

I breathe it

Me and the filth we coexist

We tiptoe around each other in a delicate dance

It follows me like a shadow

And it comforts me like a vice

Me and the filth we coexist

I cannot separate it from myself

It was built from me

It has my eyes and my temper

And it consumes and spreads and

Piles up all around me until I am

Drowning in it

The filth cannot control itself

It cannot help the way it was made

It only does what it knows to do

I built it in my image

It’s my shame to face

[secrets-and-salutations]

[secrets-and-salutations]

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,

if you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife.

– Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

[secrets-and-salutations]

Without you it feels the world is spinning

Either if I'm drunk or high or trying to sleep

And while with you here it doesn't stop spinning

I feel safe

Letting my world spin into you.

[secrets-and-salutations]

Coarse the rush-mat roof

Sheltering the harvest-hut

Of the autumn rice-field

And my sleeves are growing wet

With the moisture dripping through

– The Hundred Poems [By the Hundred Poets] as Told by the Nurse: Tenchi Tenno

[secrets-and-salutations]

Love Song at the End of the World:

I am out in the world Finding some faith And were I older I'd have the space But the churches, the abbeys Hold no home for me So I leave them in the ruins Of their own immortality I am out in the world Searching for peace And it's nowhere I can see And nowhere we could reach So we give up and give in So quickly it hurts Between that and the other I choose that over a hearse I am out in the world Looking for fear And how I wish I couldn't find it here Nothing could be worse As what was left behind And nothing is left Where I would seek it to find I am out in the world Looking for love And though I pray each night It will never be enough Too much hate polluting Yet no fear to be found If Earth is our ship We've run her a-ground I am out, under stars Finding a sort of sign There is no will but yours And no hope but mine And soon they say the sun will fall Into a fiery sea But at least until then, We hold hands Bound under no name but 'You and me'.

[secrets-and-salutations]

I sleep every night with music playing

Not too loud, but loud enough to drown the noise,

The noise of a poisoned world

To drown my mind,

From the poisons I feed myself

I want to fall asleep

With you tucked in my arms

So I can sleep peacefully, without music

And wake at an early hour

To see your face painted with the colours of a stupidly early morning

[secrets-and-salutations]

You have my body and my soul

And probably my heart too

But I can't admit that for then I have nothing left,

No more defenses.

And what if I'm wrong? If I promise you my whole heart,

Believing it to be there

But yet some part of it remains tethered to the fear of the past.

I would not forgive myself,

And neither should you.

[secrets-and-salutations]

macbeth is my favourite shakespeare play by far does it show

so soft it hurts

[secrets-and-salutations]

I'll be up with the blackbirds Earlier each morning Competing with the noise of the world Hoping you'll hear my heart beating So I don't have to say it aloud