Insider’s Look examines the inspiration for poems written in my Bleed with Me series. I wrote these poems during a period of transformation. It was the first phase of breaking free from the chains that bound me – career, a marriage that was no longer a partnership, a loose definition of my role as a mother, and a past that still haunted me.
Lonesome Soldier
whispering thistles
mark his path
stones roll over
under wrath
silent march
with dawns unchanged
see me now
drift out of range
to be the dew
beneath those feet
oh, that he
would trample me
grinding earth
into my soul
pained awake
and I am whole
yet I rest
in steel’s embrace
he travels on
the world his grace
I find a deep sense of attraction to those who are unapologetically free. Not simply those who follow their desires, as I often find them pompous and cowardly. I’m speaking of those who tell the whole truth, who make no bones about what they want, and understand that it will be unlikable or unpopular to some, or maybe even most. I am drawn to those who have a deep sense of who they are, and who understand that compromising, twisting, or hiding that isn’t love.
I find that when we and those we love follow our deepest truths, it often means that our time together is fleeting. I think I’ve come to expect it, and am surprised when strong, capable, independent people give it all up for love. Part of me wants that kind of passion, yet at the same time, I find that I respect them, and myself less when I feel one or both of us have sacrificed too much.
This poem is about love that gives honor to our deepest, innate truths. A love that allows us to be completely vulnerable, and to accept that both must continue along their paths. I was lucky to have this type of love once; it felt like coming home, being washed clean. It was freedom, followed by excruciating agony.
For me, to love means to invite an inevitable departure. There is nothing more beautiful to me than a confident, free individual who refuses to be owned.
Quinn Steele 