click play button to hear this poem:

as I begin to read your poems
their power enters my body.
Your faithful, deep feeling words
slip through my unsuspecting skin.
I feel them enter my bruisey heart
as air enters my lungs.
there is an affinity.

I dive into the pool.
it takes me a dreamworld moment to orient my self there.
Underwater, time and the senses seem to unfold
I emerge splashing, back into the surface world.
Breathe.

and I understand your first lesson:
though I want to expand my vision and aspire
to carry myself and you
to the farthest horizons.
I miss the point.

I read your poems. I listen.
I feel your pain.
aloneness.
and I know that they are my own
and I understand that your voice speaks
not only to me,
but to anyone
who cares
to listen

So I begin to write in the first person
to listen to the voices in my heart
and know that this
is where transformation
begins.