Emotions run deep

like wild fire through her veins

a phoenix reborn

Fearless

I used to think I was too much
my heart
too big
too filled, wanting
or at times too small

and then I realised

it isn't easy to love a woman like me
someone who feels so deeply, so intense
it must be frightening

to love me is to be brave
and not everyone
is strong

(Poem from My Beautiful Scars)

My Beautiful Scars

It's not that I have physical scars
my scars are emotional
because every experience
has left me feeling raw
   empty
    open

I imagine the chasm within me
filling up
making me complete
I want to hold that feeling
so that no one can take it away
from me again

these scars are reminders
of what it means
they're there to show me
what happens when
I let the bad stuff in

but now I'm wiser and I know
how to wear them proudly
they've made me who I am
a strong and self assured woman
who takes shit from no one
and when I look at them
these scars
I know who I am
I am whole
I am complete

(Poem from 'My Beautiful Scars')

Kite season

I'm reading Sylvia Plath

by the pool, Balinese style

a dark edge we both yearn for

flushed and warm

flushed and warm

the sun, faded

rippled orange light

dulled from volcano

it smells like bushfires

from across the yard

a barong statue stares at me

tipping and leaning towards

the grotesque

its bulbous eyes confront

my insides

a kite blows mid air

its flaming tail

a majestic garuda

trailing across

the smoke filled sky

Wind chimes (Bali)

The clang of wooden chimes

a figure eight

plump and insisting

as a woman’s body

Siem Reap bookseller

If anyone should
have been unhappy
it was you
but instead
you approached me
beaming, carrying a box
of books over your shoulders
your story and photograph
pasted to the front
of your box
a faded photocopy
of you as a young man
with your missing arms
lost to a land mine

Ode to woman

And this, I want you to
remember

you, dark creature are one

who bleeds with the moon

a cosmic creation borne from

the rib of man

and you are magnificent

with your rolling thighs

and hips that move

like the ocean

a mouth that speaks too

loudly

shameless but tender

wanton and generous

a divine fruit, no less

yearning, full of want

a love they would die for