Around what do we circumnavigate?
Colors, seasons, passions, family
Or perhaps a cornucopia of
Screens
The flow of validation
Where we document the
Colors, seasons, passions, family
Assuring ourselves
They happened
They matter
And why should we feel shame
For wanting to remember
And wanting to be seen.
We must turn away from the closest star
To see a universe brimming with them
We breathe the night
To break from consciousness
To process verisimilitudes of existence
To enter non existing worlds
We hide in shadows cast by knowing
But we can never hide from what's in our heads
We run and lose and get lost, but
The embrace of moon, the reflection of sol
Even when we cannot see it
Leads us back
Here
Now.
Each night when I go to sleep
I wake up a different person
Older, yes
Another unevident line in the
Corrugated line up of evidence
A new context of experiences
Different dreams
Than the night before
A fine balance faltered
Stability alchemized to risk
Hope cultivated, marinated
In the circumstance of moments
Folded to fit into my pocket
If I have room amongst
The other trinkets I cling to
Like unfloating life boats
Because stuff always sinks
And birds cannot fly
With backpacks
Clipped to their wings.
The distance we travel A vortex of miles
Scandalizing our senses Stirring the nectars of inspiration
Breaking and mending Bending and molding our panoramas
Into unfamiliar impulses The creation of anomalous realities
With edges smudged away Into gradients of whimsy.
Searching We wake up Searching We reach for our devices Searching We scroll We click We process Picking and choosing Information A haphazard conglomeration of Cultivated lives Authenticity A bendable fading truth Real life It's somewhere out there Not in here.
This is where we landOn the edge of today The cusp of Tomorrow Where hope crashes Against now And thoughts manifest In real time Along the map Of desire Latitudes of beginnings Longitudes of endings No finish line Only circles No score Only love When your feet ache Sit on the earth Let her hold you When you're hungry Eat Then eat again When you're sad Look up Drink something Sparkly When you're tired Sleep Say no Say yes Say Whatever You Damn Well Please; You are alive You can Dance Kiss Throw your arms Around the nearest Beating heart You won't live forever So live Now.
I see so much wrongWith us Does this make me A bad person? Why do I think We are supposed to be Good? What is good? What are we but Crazy Beautiful Infallible Endearing Predictable Operating to uphold Nonsensical beliefs Dismissing signs as Happy happenstances Forgetting the Light-filled person We were born to be Calcified by layers Of lies While the cure Lives within The tender truth Contained in the Seat of the soul Would we rather be Uncomfortable or Unhappy? Are we living Or are we Dying?
Let's be romanticLet's stay in bed all day And count countless Stars at night Let's see how much Of my skin Can touch Your skin Let's talk about All of the ways We are different We can tell New secrets And old stories In new ways We can draw Constellations By connecting The freckles Maps of future Lifetimes We can imagine All of the different Ways we will meet And fall in love Whether or not We will ascend Or go extinct We will talk about Everything Anything Except for one thing: What happens If we fall out of It.
I don't pretendTo know Why my body Just broke out In chills
I don't pretend To hate myself Or love myself Or know myself And what I want
I don't pretend To be anything Less than perfect For I was born This way
I don't pretend The deluge of This human experience Does not break My heart daily
I don't pretend Mistakes don't happen Or light doesn't die Or envy doesn't Warp my thoughts
I don't pretend My thoughts Don't matter My addictions Don't count
I don't pretend I'm naturally Thin and I don't need Recognition for These years of work
I don't pretend My heart doesn't Hurt And I don't pretend To know why.
I want you to do what inspires youWhether it's "bad" like taking off your clothes Committing to wanderlust and only wanderlust Looking beautiful above feeling beautiful Numbing and filling and failing Or it's "good" like fighting for social justice Making babies and raising them closely Teaching yoga or meditation or The Truth Reading and writing and ruining and creating.
I want you to be who you are Wild hair pale skin smooth hair dark skin Sex lover sex avoider sex hater Careerist artist feminist philanthropist Competitive anxious selfish judgmental Gifted deep spiritual devoted Depressed happy introverted extroverted High low stubborn stuck Changeable mutable unpredictable
I want you to cast away shame I want you to love yourself I want you to have unshakable faith I want you to do what you want I want you to stop listening to them I want you to know your purpose I want you to enjoy yourself I want you to be more you As you are now, you are perfect.
AloneWeeping alone Sleeping alone Surrounded by alone
She did it to herself She made the space herself She carved it out with her fingernails Artificial red
Why? To weep? To smoke? To drink cheap wine & expensive cheese without anyone watching? When she's not alone She craves loneliness Her only constant companion
Blood on a page Words stamped in her brain She wants to matter to no one She wants no one to matter to her
She wears sunglasses and overcoats When she steps outside She prefers rain clouds To open skies
The potent sun that burns Her skin Too gauzy to protect her insides From the Evil
Some try to ignore it Until it strikes In the form of dishonest Devious
Heart-breakers As it always does So long as you are not Alone.
Her smile in a wordWas hopeful Baby fat Still clinging To apple cheeks Eyes bright and curled open Her face a daily masterpiece Only to be washed down the sink Come black skies. It wasn't beauty She sought But transformation A boundless identity Someone not herself. But she made a good living Because she wasn't alone In her need to erase the shadows And the lines Etched by fractured glass Filled with pools of red.
The lies came down in sheetsHeavy like someone walking on the roof But it was only the beating of Rain from low clouds The kind that never really lift She mistook your admiration for love You could only love her from afar You never loved her real self Her fractured self Her selfish self Her self that digs holes to love in Her self that wants to be found Her self that fills in the holes without help You didn't have the patience for Her shameful self Her victim self Her self that rises like cream Her self that doesn't know what she wants Only what she doesn't want.
I have two good legsI hardly notice them I love my husband I always want more from him I adore my kids Sometimes I don't like them They are the only reason I know for sure I matter Sometimes I get sick But I am strong And smart and beautiful And insecure I am wasted space A tangled mess of power Pushing without organization Working without focus Deficient of attention Pulling knots tighter Not looser I am angry And I am grateful Blessings Can be curses Hope can do nothing If we don't lean upon it We are trapped Between narrow perspectives Like a tiny ant Searching for sustenance In the middle of a football field Where all directions look the same And he runs Away from the food Away from the others Because he doesn't know. He doesn't know. I don't know either.
Why don't you go fall fly away Leave me on this island
While I drown beneath today
Information like storm clouds
Churning and burning cold
A ceiling between me and source
A cage thick as an eggshell
But strong as gold
Yearning for tomorrow and youth
At once
A paradox of impossibilities
They comes in flashes, the truth
We chip away at suffering
But all of this feels old--
Could we leave it behind
This yearning for our words to be sold?
Without condemning human kind
To a history that does not bear
The privilege of repeating
Nor believes
That a greater power does, in fact, care.
I open to Acceptance / Being enough / Needing not stuff the spaces between moments with nothing but joy
I open to
Ease / Sitting with pain looking directly at beauty / The glare like summer sun
I open to
Abundance / The evidence of opportunity compelling creation / The responsibility of privilege, the privilege of responsibility
I open to
Expansion / Honing thoughts with presence / Exploring new frontiers in the galaxy of the mind
I open to
Angels / Communing over cups of faith and faerie dust / Commonplace miracles
I open to
Serendipity / Intuition embodied by spacious possibility / Guidance from the nuances of oxygen
I open to
Sunlight / The heat of it piercing pregnant clouds / The completeness of a circle.
It's a creeping painA slow patient pain The layers thicken Before they flake
Her hiding place dissolves The past becomes now Her hands become putty Weakness cradled by pain
She is numb Held hostage by unconsciousness His want replaces love Her love replaces anger
An inebriate coupling A black mark on a porcelain surface Giving in giving up As hope melts to softness
She sleeps in the bosom of regret But upon awakening Her hands are strong again Recovered by night's forgiving embrace.
I am source / streaks of sunlight
Whatever makes our hearts beat / I am it
I exist not within boundaries / but around them
I am not the limits of the body / I am Holy Spirit
I quiver beneath the power that I am / but I do not crumble
I focus I fight I flounder / and I rise.
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I'm still learning who I am
A woman
With boyish handwriting
A voracious appetite
Nothing is ever enough
I want to shake harder
Sleep more but lie supine less
Do more
Be more
Dare I say have more
Know more
Write more
Back when I drank
Drink more.
A woman
Open to womanhood
As a map
To joy.
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