I was so happy that day
in the light grey dress, a beautiful mess,
my eyes open wide, having fully accepted
what the sand dollar had to say that day
earlier in the summer when I let the waves
crash over me. So soon came the fall. 

Still, I was surrendered to
all I knew lay ahead, determined to
hold my head high and do my best
to keep doing my best to respond succinctly
in only honor and expansion no matter your choice
to stuff me in smaller and smaller boxes
or cut me off and shut me out, using
whatever reasoning you bandied about.

Waiting for the meeting, the last thought
I had before I stood up to take
a quick bathroom break was of how
he had cleansed me and prepared a table
and all would be as it was meant to be
and you and I held within his love no matter.
But then, when the front desk attendant
alerted me to the blood all over me,
I suddenly understood his meaning.

I tried to reason with him, then pleaded
that he might spare me this humiliation
and all those he showed me in succession—
scenes, if I am honest, that then I did not
believe, could not conceive, to be possible,
though all has, of course, come to pass.
Then he touched me and I felt his grace
pass through me as another wave, the power
gone from me. And I stumbled, then ran
to find new clothes somehow, somewhere,
and go backwards, let this cup pass from me.

Everything was out of sequence as it was
not my time to bleed and I had only just at last
overcome my need for any certain outcome.
Like fishing wire spooling off the reel there
I was reeling back in time and then jerked back,
arriving in clothes that didn't fit to the meeting,
late again, one marked for execution sooner
than expected, never imagining it was
my very Innocence that would be lost
along with the grey dress that day
along with the hope that you might
simply ask if I was OK.

Never again daring to be happy, I was content
with pure truth I had long known in my heart
and the way I knew we would both play our part
but in time see it all in a different light, radiant.
Still, I faded, swallowed whole by gushing gash
in my soul and the dawning dimming dwindling
reality that there would be no instant cure
because I had to walk this road alone
though ever with both you and him
im spirit and in truth. 

I was a bleeding woman
so happy that day in the light grey dress,
a beautiful mess no one could see.