Because there should be a hole in the world...

9/30/08
you write like....
like what?
like everything I've ever wanted to be true,
except there's nothing beautiful
about this anger I've got,
nothing about the emptiness in my arms
and eyes
and heart right now
that feels powerful
nothing hopeful about any of it
that will say anything about your words
that you probably don't already know
nothing clever or clear--
only a small step away from despair.
A counterbalance away from connection

11/4/08
and now...
now is a moment
I feared would never come for this country,
a night of impossible joy,
holding so tightly
to each other,
as if the whole world existed in that moment
with a woman I hardly know,
whose eyes said everything.
and we fling ourselves back into that crowd
of hope and tears
and relief of fear from the last eight years.

11/6/08
I am rooted to this chair,
I am holding my heart and my hands
and my eyes open
And in these moments,
I am irrevocably changed
by your bravery.
By your strength.

Hope is a thing with feathers

The struggle to survive becomes the struggle to hope,
against all odds,
hope for the world to turn on the head of a man
and revitalize itself.
oh but it is so much easier to drink the poison
and be done with it,
to divide ourselves molecule by molecule into what we cannot do
and numbly grab for the lesser evil,
it is so much easier and leads to death with not a kiss.

No one can find the rewind button, girl, so just cradle your head in your hands

her neck opens
on a hinge
and a blue butterfly
breaks free from its prison
of skin and muscle,
sinew, and bone
Her possibility flees towards the outside world
to lead us all
to that secret place called wanting.
A guiltless wanting
to know all of life,
to swallow it up
and let it hold me
open inside,
so the rest of me will breathe.

I dreamed of Africa
and woke up crying,
my ears held fast
by unspeakable tragedy
and privilege
both unearned, un-asked for.
Orleanna Wharton
walks forward
out of the jungle
and the world shifts.
One more scar for survival,
one more footprint,
one more "truth"...................................................continued.