Why Does Our Perception Of Gender Change The Tone In Which We Read Someone's Work?

This Is not a Love triangle Just a bent line I'm not connecting

A small zen garden Sits on the therapist's desk To calm both of us

Even when you cannot taste Your favorite kind of tea It is still a soothing friend Tending to you in sickness Wrapping you up in its arms

They say no man is an island So I am no man I am merely made of sand In an unknown ocean I am just a bit of land

Anyone can visit me As long as they don't stay Or they would be deserted too So after a couple of days I would have them washed away

On my island there would be a tree My only bit of company I am happy to be alone With the salty breeze Over the island that is me

The winter cardinals Have finished their work Of raising wobbly chicks Into fierce and steady Juveniles, ready to Graze the sky with the Tips of their wings And soar off gracefully Away on their own breeze A fresh, solo journey

The parents are not Left behind, they are Quietly content, free To fly wherever they please The male a radiant scarlet And she such prominent earth Tones, the blazing yellow Of their beaks like Flames flying by on the Biting morning winds

The serene songbirds Mated for life, they fly Side by side, sharing One current of frigid air Wings spread out together As they glide in sync With nothing more to be Done, they settle in their Empty nest and sleep freely And warmly with each other

I would live here in my mind if I could If the earthly world did not always snatch me away With its incessant needing and needing Earth, why are you so attached to me?

I am in my mind today, like most days Don't say it is not a place because you can't walk there When your thoughts wander Is it through a desert? A forest? Do you swim?

Everything that has died is alive here Here is my dead friend that I used to kiss, looking well Here is the art I gave up on in frustration Here are the words you said to me in anger The dreams we dreamed together, still breathing

I walk up creaking steps from my stomach to my head The body is such a desperate thing sometimes Always needing validation and hand holding So I would live up here tucked away in the ethereal

You were high up in the trees Looking far out to the seas And I'd climb up there with you If I only had the ability to So tell me what it's like up there? The sky wind blowing in your hair The rain as it starts to wet your face A rainbow with no resting place You take the branches two by two Climbing down looks so easy for you You told me you had fun in the clouds That I make you smile on the ground We live just down that winding road Where we live a life that's slow I watch you live out all your dreams And you are happy with me it seems

I will live alone Detached But I will be no spinster Perhaps instead A weaver Of loose threads That flow to me Over salty waves, making Their landing In the sands of a Beach I will never visit So the seagulls Will carry your damaged Pieces of fabric Home to me

We are so entwined I don't know which love is yours Or which kiss is mine

I search for meaning In places where there are Many conflicting meanings, Where there are too many words And all the words are in Different languages.

Still I try to define Emotions that are multiple Emotions, that are vast And endless, that expand And shrink, and exist In a world outside myself.

I traverse dreams That I create in my mind, Where people relate to me In ways they do not actually Relate to me, where we Are all who we need To be to each other, Where we are vague and I am Lost in the details.