Don’t you be giving it all away now child.

I’ve done taught you better than that.

As many times as I saw you through the night,

wild-eyed and wanting.  Weary and afraid.

Of being alone.

Someone done thrown you from your sacred.

All intricately woven into the rough-edged lace that is you.

All soft and tattered, weathered and worn.

Yet I smoothed out those bloodlines.

One padded fingertip at a time.

Reviving you from that sick slumber.

Reminding you of your place in the grand order of things.

Marching through the thick night to that unsuspecting taker.

To reclaim crate upon crate of dreams and desire,

Backpacks full of your forgotten fire.

Slowly returning them to you,

One touch at a time.

One midnight lullaby dance between your heart and my fingertips.

So don’t you just be giving all that away now.

Hold fire in your belly.

Carry creation proud in them hips, like it chose the warm home that is you for a reason.

All butter soft and salty, proud in your animal self and won’t be told no different.

Don’t you be giving all that away now child.

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*This poem is available in my book Soft With Me, printed and bound in Western North Carolina thanks to a grant from the N.C. Arts Council.