this bliss

flows up and over my banks
spills so easily from me
like water from
an underground spring
rising up rich, thick
cool and heavy

pure
fresh

sleeping
it brims up over my edges
and sloshes
with every tilt and turn
and sigh
my dreams are silver liquid ribbons
of rivers through cooling blue deserts

I walk weighted
watery steps
solid and flowing
constantly in flood

like a secret
even I don’t know
so close and immediate
and still
so removed
detached

in love with everything I see
with everyone I meet
fall in love all over again every time I see you
recognize everyone I come into contact with
swim in them
taste their colors
let their theirness swirl
over my soul’s tongue like sweet
clear amber wine
taste their core
feel our likeness
smile at our dislikeness
pronounce us lovers
kin

just sampling
not taking
not drawing
just tasting

and it delivers me up to myself every time
offered from the palm of the Beloved
returning onto myself
my back arched against
the ecstasy at your taste
your colors
the delicacy
the simple intricacy that is you

I want to peel us all
down to that energetic skin
I want to talk out loud
about what’s Real
and in warm tickly whispers
against your sandpaper neck

it shouts from you
drowning me
in your waves

what are we afraid of?

I play the game too
don’t alarm anyone
I pretend to pretend like everyone else

could you forgive me
if I let you see me
if I quit pretending?

could you be so kind so generous
as to step out of the play?
exit stage right perhaps
and meet me in the wings?

for We

vulnerable
naked
raw even perhaps
so unaccustomed are we to being this naked

but not that human “unapologetic” thing either
because even that is pretending

just there

just

Here

and then see the Divine in both of us?
see that that IS the Divine?

could you allow it?

be able to stand the brutal gentleness
of it
the power and simplicity?

could you forgive yourself then
take that sip of grace
from the sacred Vessel
if you let yourself be Seen?

could you forgive me
if revealed to you your own shame
labeled it for you
told you its source
where it lives in you?

would you even claim it
or would you continue to pretend
even then?

and if you claim it
could you still allow
yourself to be loved?

don’t you see that to offer ourselves up naked
is the most sacred gift there is?
it is not embarrassing or shameful or weak or stupid
it is our natural
Real state

and to receive that gift
that offering
no matter its contents
with anything less than love
and gentle acceptance
with shoes off and heart
cracked open
in that sacred place
would be a most horrible sacrilege
and would only make the receiver less

and not you?

I am weary of this human play
this skin suit
mask
pretending
weary of trying not to alarm anyone

I want to throw this weariness
on that flame I see burning
so bright in you
and let it char and purify me back to myself

I already see you
without that mask
and love you
not in spite of that
but because of

and what I want more than anything
is for you to come to me

my door open
swinging easily
softly
in the dark warm breeze

me barefoot inside
leaning into the night sky
kneeling my forehead onto the Breast of the Divine One

having been absorbed back into the Bigness

and hand me the key to your door
as you walk over my threshold

 

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Apprentice Editor: Guenevere Neufeld / Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Flickr / Hartwig HKD