Do not call me unattached because I have learned not to beg at every closing door. This heart has not become clean. It has become weathered. There are names I no longer say out loud that still change the temperature of my body. There are hands I have released that still arrive in dreams as if the soul keeps its own appointment book. I know how to pray without building a prison around the Beloved. I know how to open and still let the river move on. This did not come from holiness. It came from loss. From repetition. From standing in the aftermath with my nervous system on fire like a city skyline bright with lightning I have mistaken longing for prophecy. I have called absence care. I have watched my body reach for what my spirit had already surrendered. So no, I am not untouched. I am touched everywhere. By grief. By beauty. By the unbearable intimacy of being human with no guarantee that love will stay where I place it. Still, I refuse the immaculate heart. Let me be marked. Let tenderness leave evidence. Let love ruin the small false self that thought safety meant never opening again. At three in the morning when memory walks through me wearing someone else’s voice, I do not call it weakness. I call it proof. Something entered. Something mattered. Something sacred found a door in me and left it open. ~MIRA #brave #canadian #poet

#griefjourney

 Do you ever hear God? I mean truly hear the voice of silence louder than the ruckus across the street. Like thunder Like proof Like God is simply sitting next to you? Do you ever hear God whispering more loudly than the storm? Sometimes the depth of love inside your own heart shining, breaking opening, folding, smashing, like a lake against the rocks under the full moon torrents days before the rain? Do you ever hear God say your name? Not the one you were born with, nor the one your parents claimed. The other one. The secret one. The name only your Soul remembers when the world stops. Please tell me when you notice magic rising suddenly to kiss you for no reason except that you are here. I used to hear God. I used to feel warmth gather around me like I was the most cherished daughter, swimming in clear water, certain of the song singing to the wind. I used to know the words by heart. When magpies landed at my door, I knew they were for me. A certain melody mystical messengers made for me from my Beloved. I knew the veil was thin enough to let the dead kiss me sometimes. I knew the world was speaking in riddles and rhymes I could understand. Some call darkness failure demanding light when I am also mud, blood, hunger, river, ash, and a new moon sky. I have listened too long to people who fight over God as if God is a house only they can afford. And when I ask them about God, they laugh like I have said something only children do. When I ask them about God, they turn away afraid of demons, while I burst into a million pieces of light, realizing I’d been listening to God all along. ~ MIRA

I am ready to loosen my grip on the illusions I carried though these arms grew strong dragging every fear that named itself love Still something ancient calls me to make room for the tools a crone requires She asks me to set down that carbon-copy collection of who I was supposed to marry refuse the costumes I was taught to tally seductress saviour silenced witness whore the scorned woman still sharpening her sword against herself But these hands now forged through fire and blood hold a softer thing a soul stitched from silk and mud called from dark rooms where grief learned how to sing Still the maiden asks why this path chose her  the mother bleeds without a child to name the longing woman still trembles at the rescuers song But no one is coming now and strangely that truth has become holy because the story keeps unfolding beyond romance beyond survival into something vast enough to hold all of me Last night I dreamt in full colour birds everywhere winged messengers crossing impossible skies gone were the men who betrayed me gone were the women who vanished when I needed them most I stood alone among rot ruin and medicine Then the great white bird came massive silent radiant it stepped toward me without fear as if it already knew me You are free it said without speaking You are clean You are ready And then the bird bowed slowly deliberately to me My body filled with tears old instinct reached outward searching for someone to witness this holiness but something wiser returned me to the feathers to the moment I fell to my knees not in shame in recognition And the great bird still bowing gave its final breath as though surrender itself had come to feed me and suddenly I understood some things must die so the soul can start kneeling before its own Mastery -MIRA

It’s always been a lot of Work to be me. To see these trigger warnings constantly flowing, breaking the boundaries of this terrified little girl inside my head who just won’t listen to a word I’ve said. A vigilant visceral victim holding onto each bit of chaos Life handed disabled by trauma bonding to broken men. Forgiving them and taking the blame for how they abused her very being. This morning while storming the terrible castle I built for her, I noticed something new. The view through the other side of these brittle broken hearts we toss between us she and I became clear. I noticed how well I can take on the demons drawn to my lap and pet them and feed them even though they attack and leave me bleeding out on whichever floor they happen to abandon me on. The one I swept each and every day, moping up the footprints of my father muddying the face of my lover, forgetting I was never meant to save any of them. Today I gave back the guilt I swallowed and told that little girl she was done holding on to evil. I got this, I told her and knew it as Truth then felt her finally believe in the proof of my presence. You don’t have to fight for love anymore. Let go of the fever forged in the darkness that left you alone in the sadness as though there was only the choice to be used for your magic until your witchery lay dried up with nothing left for you. Stop hurting yourself for a muse. I found you my dear. 50 years seeking real love, you can return to my arms and step into the freedoms with which you were born. Nothing broken only buried, nothing taken only carried for far too long. Set down the idea that you don’t belong. I am here, my daughter, my best friend my song. Shine even stronger than ever before because somebody out there forgot they were strong. Then open again to the moment you can feel My Soul. Turn away from the lie that you are alone. You are whole. ~Mira

 The shift. The turn. The changing of the guard from red ruminations of regret and denial slowing the world down and turning the veil on holding space for the trauma in its wild unruly ravenous tunnelling through my guts, to a pitch dark room wretched and wrecked each and every time a thought of being loved arrived and then here in this presence I notice a space of fragility open clean pain rearranging the window of a new gratitude which I had bet my life would no longer hold me close. The shift The claiming The very book of naming what is no longer True but held such depth of truth in a love story where even Love could be proud. Reality can not be fought. I tried. Keeping my eyes shut though my mind wakes up and I bargain and plot remembering what was what on the morning my life shattered. Let me go back, I spattered through tears. And then and then poor little Me must be held by my tribe while I cannot feel another feel or take another breath. I believed I would not survive. The shift The glow There is only this unknown. What is here and then here and then here? Now. What will I choose inside and how to create something to weave together these shards of time before the thousand little cuts grow stronger than I? One. Then another. Milliseconds tied and trained after every patch comes untamed to find a quilting of patterns renamed so that I can finally understand why God left me here suffering like the pleas in Gesthimani. My blood wasn’t enough to keep death at bay. Today. And then another and try to love each other. That’s all I’ve discovered so far on this trepidatious path. The he’s journey just blasphemy. The shift The flow. Somehow Ive grown new muscles to carry the gifts of grief across town and into new fields where something magical wishes me to sing again with no promise the opening will keep me from harm but asked me to do it anyway. ~Mira

My left hand clenched in a fist, the grip around my love feverish. This cliff of presence with my experience skillfully jabs into my chest wrestling my heart forced to persist by the hope promised me. Promised. Me. My right hand stretches out as far as it can, waving up and down mocking itself with images of magpies and dreams I can fly. These legs peddle, paddle as waves unpredictably cast shadows changing just as I start to understand. My back arching cat-like against patterns revolving around my memories, while thousands of pure white puzzle pieces taunt my command, beckoning wholeness though I don’t know this design. My eyes, long for a God who refused to show up because the longing only occurs in the assumptions there was an absence. So I can see it when I believe in it but then I’m caught in a storm only salved by the trust I lost a long time ago. The mind. Oh fuck. There’s a terrible cost when the body’s tormented by broken promises while visions of trust get tossed into quicksand. But my feet seem to be getting what it needs from me. One step. Another. Back step then forwards. The cool grass wiggles between tired toes and then this shattering aloneness and practiced panic has something else to show. Walking around the darkest forest, open to the ghosts who wanted to have me, singing through the birds above me, hopes of spring already wondering what the winter will want from me next And though I can’t quite feel it yet, I believe in the coming warmth of summer. Still, these morning musings while the lake quits its freezing, cool breezes take over the fire of this year’s grieving allowing the steamy dreams of peace to touch my face as I continue to pray for grace. ~Mira photo by Darshan Stevens

Remember me, dancing, imagining the way the whole world would love me, silly little periwinkle flowers in my eyes reflected by the wonders of my imagination but so afraid to fly, unprepared, unaware. Remember me, so pretty. Cleaning the burgundy trail made from minutes that defined my understanding of love. Bruises branded on a tiny throat. A little voice choked as my innocence woke while I am only witnessed by my baby brown bear burned with bedtime stories you’re not suppose to tell. Remember me, limping from your room the first time your buggery bloody the back of that crinoline dress daddy picked because he loves me best. Sanity happily snapping at this rainbows end and I learn to imagine. I am Doris Day, Sophia Loren Marilyn Monroe breaking the bow in a new beau as if his love could cure the curdled pages of my happily forever after. Remember me sisters. Broken bones building empty homes eyes closed more afraid to cry than hide. The way of it scraping virgin flesh made whorish by knifepoint with words I used to cut myself. Presence foggy and abandoned in the rain. Remember me brothers. A juggernaut boring through powerless pink pyjamas to drink the drama like a bottomless dirty martini. Like you could save me. I can't even hear the poetry whispering as the deafening dream clouds over as I’m pretending I'm OK every time I take off my clothes. The smell of my self loathing perfumed by breakfast kept secret, separate, festering underneath Disney bedsheets. The idea of me out of focus as I numbly chase the dizzying voices of God. Who was that who witnessed that who said that and then that who is that in my mind? The sacred left it in the chamber like so many bullets. I can’t remember when I began this tragic game of roulette. My most delicious dreams sent to me by angles cooing, “patience, patience you are loved”. And though I hate them, I heard them, and memorize the melody they call to me nightly, “Sing. Sing! Sing to me.” Remember me flying past surviving. I Am victorious. The tests of fire bring whole again my puzzle pieces perfected before I was born and then I am showed a new painting. Colours free all across that once retched sky while I shake them awake with my Grimms lullaby. They want to hide from the dark, want to justify the ugly slugging round my belly but I will show them anyway! I’m protected by those ancient poets placing saffron in the moonlight to make fragrant this fight for truth. I am merely collateral light, in case She is gazing at me looking for proof that love can win. We can stare together at the stars and pray for a prize, a clue, a rescue, for the ancient wounds wound around a girl like me.

When I was a kid, the fat, roly-poly, insecure kid in class who was always picked last, I wanted a dancers body. Sleek, lean, strong, proud. But now I can see those women who fought for their dreams of dance, nurturing their broken toes and battered knees, bounded breasts, made to stay skinny. I hear the ache in their bones, unwound, *what could have been?* bursting at the seams of best intentions. When I was 20 there were these flirty, confident girlies, dancing on stages that terrified me. And speaking their experience so deeply, eloquently, that I longed to know their pain just so maybe I'd weight in the same rank as they. I got sick with envy. Then my 30’s noticed these soul sisters, longing to be misters, who came to feel the world in their fingertips and notice every movement like nobody was watching. Telling the Truth a mortal fear but doing it anyway. They had to. I wanted to be different just like them. They might have understood the crazy that boiled inside me. But now I see the struggle, the beatings the political muddle, their fight in the muggle mortal world rejected where I stand so comfortably cis. When I turned 40 I wanted to find myself in the body of a younger girl. I’d give anything in the world for the skin in their prime. Unencombered by time. So much left ahead. The freedom to redefine again and again. The freedom to change their mind. Change the bed they'd made. But now in my 50's I long for the wisdom of my elders. The freedom of those sisters who show me compassion for my angst in the chaos of a wild woman. They know the shadows that show up in the fires of menopause, understanding the hights of the mystic in the knowing of who they are really are. I think my 60s will show me a path of God so bright it could shine through the dark to all the little girls who don’t know their own beautiful, powerful beating heart . Love Mira