patience.

why

do we stall

?

I’m not ready

for

freedom.

and they’re counting on that.

Remember, Lovely.

Remember, lovely,

that no one can pick your battles for you.

It will be your feet that fit perfectly into the prints you leave behind.

They needn’t be alone, but be proud they are your own.

No one knows the weight they bore like you do.

Lovely, no knows your strength better, either.

 

Remember, lovely,

to take the ashes of old stories that no longer do you any good,

mix them with water and sweat and tears, and make paint.

May you find that burnt grey is not such a terrible color after all.

The color of our ghosts, yes, but it swirls our dreams also.

Lovely, it reminds us there’s so much yet to find beyond our cloudy present.

 

Remember, lovely,

not to let hauntings dictate your steps.

Shake them like dust from settled sheets that have hidden your furniture for years

Make them dance in light peering through open windows.

Let your skin feel the sun.

Lovely, remember what warmth feels like.

 

Remember, lovely,

when you lunge for the “success” so many loudly claim,

to please question what you’ve been told you want.

Light your world with actual inklings, echoes, and aspirations of your heart

Don’t be afraid of cheesy wishes.

Lovely, wish them with great noise, or wish them in soft whispers, but wish them always.

 

Lovely, you ask questions that have been the white noise in my ears for so long…

Lovely, I don’t know if I write these words for you or for me any more,

but I know we can each carry them.

That is what seems to matter.

“What’s the greatest lesson a woman should learn? That since day one, she’s already had everything she needs within herself. It’s the world that convinced her she did not.”

-Rupi Kaur

Just Ask

Ask me what freedom looks like.
I’ll tell you in a decade.
When I’ve grown up
Grown independent
Hold my own, fully on my own, I’ve made it clear of this place and these people.

Ask me what freedom looks like.
I’ll tell you in five years.
When I’ve moved on
Moved to a new city
Hopped countries, changed neighborhoods, cut my ties to construct new communities.

Ask me what freedom looks like.
I’ll tell you in the new year.
When I’m employed
Working passionately
Found a place to intersect the labor that’s been drilled into my skull with the soul I’ve been suppressing.

Ask me what freedom looks like.
I’ll tell you in the summer.
When I’m rootless
Couch to couch
Plane to bus to train to museum to dancefloor, always a few steps ahead of the fears I know I’ll outrun.

Ask me what freedom looks like.
I’ll tell you in the morning.
When I’ve felt the California sun again
Stepped outside
Reminded myself depression never stays but never goes either.

Ask me what freedom looks like.
I’ll tell you in a moment.
Whenever the blood limping between my heart and mind refuses to let me convince myself I would want to live any other way
Whenever my cynicism and bitterness and anger and frustration is drowned in human moments of compassion and vulnerability
Whenever my disheartened habits are disrupted by memories of our capacity for love.

Ask me what freedom looks like.
I really don’t know what I’ll say.

 

Clarity in Creation

Watching the sun set over the ocean…can be an anxiety-inducing experience.

It’s not supposed to be, or at least that’s what I’m told

by people who should know

they seem to know a lot about my experience from what they think they can see.

I guess it’s easy to convince me I’m wrong with this pressing uncertainty of what my eyes tell me.

When their views are coming from every angle, refracting light as it vanishes over the horizon,

I can look for other people who made something different along the beach.

Even in the mistrust of my mind, if I can capture my own view

I can create my own understanding, defy theirs…

But art even blurs the “me versus them” like dyes and powders hunting for the proper hue

What good are yellows, blues, greens of the globe if my eyes are fogged over by my fear of coming night?

Paint splashes shadows of doubt with vibrant life, strength perhaps lost but waking as our memories guide our brushes

My mind reminds me to question the cruelty of this world… and that same world replies by telling me I’m sick.

Get better.

I must find someone to fix me.

In creative work, I can wash their vision of failure with new color, title it “Success” on some days, and other days simply “Survival.”

Do not mistake my sensitivity for fragility.

After feelings of fear comes another sensation

It’s anger, but not the type I’ve been taught.

It’s a spike, yet numbing

thoughts blank, yet tumbling

Nerves on fire to flee a body I longer seem to control,

but I remain trained to this spot.

In these moments of vicious cycling, all I need is some way to disrupt,

But what strength remains in these muscles? Can’t even pull air into my lungs…

Then it’s back. Power to alter the normal flow of motion

Thumping to echo my heart’s insistent beating of blood through my veins

Rhythms to make me move and question my desire to be sane.

Eyes– sealed shut, fearful of what the darkness might contain–

suddenly open to catch my own motions, as finally feet find space they’d lacked

“…and it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back, so…”

now what?

when devils don’t come with fire and brimstone but illusions of comfort that they might let us alone.

To shake their floors it takes more than just my weight, but that won’t stop me from getting myself off the ground.

Yes, we move across the same topography, but as long as your shoes are on, don’t dare tell me what the sand feels like beneath my bare feet.

Even in my attempts at defiance, I still sometimes appear to be some version of myself I don’t recognize.

Amidst these fissures in my reality,

my own truth as I so certainly once knew it to be,

I can form the words to allow me to occupy the in between,

poetry to say things that have many meanings when I really don’t know what I mean.

When institutions show me just how crazy I am, this art can validate my existence beyond any dream.

Why settle for pacification when we can have creation?

I’m longing to scream “I want it back,” but I haven’t flexed my vocal chords in so long.

Precious, drawn out music notes reconcile frailty with endurance

and it feels better to sing than scream,

Remind the other, you have no idea what I’m capable of,

No clue how much I’ve grown.

As I slowly learn not rely upon their imposed narrative,

I will find new stories or better yet conduct my own.

Though the sun slips away, the sky is doused with night

and I know my vision’s slowly fading

Stars peek out, my sight can sharpen, I adjust to dimming light

for I know beautiful things are waiting.

Hands

Your hands through my hair, those “sexy” moments on film where she’s pushed up against a wall, this all fits.
My hands just need to learn to let go.
Step, step, those aren’t warning signs, they’re just nerves.
Your hands were so confident.
Spent so long with figurative hands ’round my throat I guess it’s not surprising I let your literal ones stay there.
Blood almost liquor, if only it were still surging towards my brain…but it probably would have been the same.
My hands still scramble letters for words to define what your hands did,
cuz I really don’t know.

I stopped trying to clear up memories, let them fog over instead.
I can see new ones, even through misty eyes.
His hands know exactly when I need them to pull me in.
Mine shake too much.
His hands fall on the back of my chair,
I still know they’re solid without touch.
My hands traced his sharp jaw, pulled his soft face to mine
Not for a kiss, but for a moment;
And I wanted to give him
So much more than you ever took from me.

 

Art Vendor

Yesterday’s knots, cracks diving in between

Young hands of an old soul line the grains of a wooden panel with moments of vivid life.

Paint leaks in like the water did.

There, black ink pools, reveals the silhouette of trombone with its player.

Here, shadows of this world obscure the emotion on painter’s face.

Slight smile plucked at lips’ corners as a street name pours from brush tip,

Famous street of a city he loves.

Foreign hands touch, but do not feel the piece.

They see a reclaimed board of a tilted house, but cannot know even a fraction of the stormy home.