A collection of poems for the wild ones, who were born full of longing. For those made of tornado and moon dust. For the ones who want, and dream and reach and dance.
no, I’m not easy.
don’t come to me for simple.
you want that you’d best look
somewhere else, dear
i’ve got currents
beneath my surface
that will feel like ruthless riptides
if you come too close without
being ready to ride my waves
i don’t do surface well
and I’ll probably expect more
of you than you’ll ever dream
of expecting of yourself
but that’s only because I see what
lies beneath your surface
and I refuse to settle for less than your all
yes, I have feelings
and no, I’m not afraid of them
not even the shadowy ones
that you’d rather ignore
i gather them in
welcome them home
give them space to breathe
and light them on glorious fire
just to see
what might be illuminated
while they burn.
you wanna go deep?
come here baby
i’ll take you down
hold your hands as the air bubbles to the surface
and sunlight fades away
we’ll swim in the underworld
make friends with the merfolk and selkies
dance with ghosts of our former selves
and learn that yes
it is possible to burn underwater
and your lungs will ache and your heart will pound
but you’ll see things
you never dreamed
floating on the surface
and when it gets too much
i’ll let you go
watch you rise
witness you learning
to save yourself.
and then i’ll fly you high
soar you miles above your limited notions
of self and life
until you are so full of your own beauty
that you have nothing to do but
fall.
and when you do
i’ll be soft for you
stay in bed all day on Tuesday soft,
trace your skin like a roadmap soft
hold your truth between my lips soft
and I’ll be hard
push you past your comfort zone, hard
open us up to pain, hard
bring it home together hard
risk? bring it on.
safety? nurture it fiercely
grief? cradle it gently
contradiction? claim every last one as precious and yours.
love? hell yes. every day. over and over and over again.
despite the risk.
despite the current.
despite the too much, the depth, the pull from below the surface
despite the lure of the easy
because we are all feeling and physicality and razor sharp mind
we are heart and blood and life-giving paradox
we are mothers and lovers and warriors
we are everything and nothing and everything again.
but easy?
no – you’d best look someplace else for that.
____________________________________________
Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for a Circle of Women Fine Art Print – just leave a comment telling me about your circle of women and how they have changed you. Details here.
Okay, so I’m a day late. But this one is worth it. Buddy Wakefield is a master.
http://youtu.be/iM4F8zY-wuo
There is a point when tears don’t work
to wash things away anymore.
Grabbing for breath has now broken my fingers.
I miss You so much some days
that I beg for the airplane to crash
with just enough time in the freefall
for scribbling “I Love You” across my chest.
That way – when they find my burning breast plate –
they will tell You how the very last thing I did with my life
was call out Your name.
“For any woman who’s ever been told she’s too much: You, who broke out of the mold before they even cracked it off you. You, who came out inventing your own how-to-scale-a-wall with only vowels. You, who fireflash in the eye of so many midnights, so many men who want to taste your hem, who dream of being desired by an Uncommon Woman, if only because their dressers are empty of anything but brand name cologne and predictable portrait. Let them call you different. Let them bait the minnows of you heart. Show them your heart is a school of fish, a solar system of all moons. When asked, say, “My heart is always causing the mating season.” When they call you full of yourself”, say, “Yes.” Breathe in their scorn and breathe out Atlantis.”
“Love isn’t always magic.
But if I offered my life to the magician, if I told her to cut me in half so tonight
I could come to you whole and
ask for you back would you listen?
For this dark alley love song,
for the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies.
I wrote too many poems in a language
I did not yet know how to speak,
but I know now it doesn’t matter how well
I say grace if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat,
So this is my wheat field.
You can have every acre, love.”
“I loved you the same way that I learned how to ride a bike: Scared… but reckless with no training wheels or elbow pads so my scars can tell the story of how I fell for you. You see, I’m not really a love poet. But if I was I’d write about how I see your face in every cloud and your reflection in every window, you see I’ve written like a million poems hoping that somehow maybe someway you’ll jump out of the page and be closer to me because if you were here, right now, I would massage your back until your skin sings songs that your lips don’t even know the words to.”
“But I know she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for. Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. ”
{My rocking new friend Jill blew me away with a hard cover printed copy of this book for Christmas. I will treasure it always}
During the hungriest periods of my life, it has been poetry that fed me. First as a reader, consuming poem after poem like a starving woman.Rumi, Hafiz, Erica Jong, Adrienne Rich, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde. They were friends and teachers and guides. I learned about love and sex and feminism and mysticism and how the language of poetry transcends language and centuries and gender.
Then I got over that small voice inside that kept saying “you can’t write poetry” and I started writing poetry. The words that flowed healed parts of my heart, allowed me to claim my truth, and answered questions I didn’t know I was asking.
It wasn’t until I discovered Slam Poetry/Spoken Word that I found my home. I thought I knew all there was to know of poetry until the night my dear one played me Daughter by Alix Olson. The hairs on my arms stood up and I felt my throat get tight and my eyes were wide and I thought, “What the HELL is this?” and then, “I must have more”.
Performance poetry is like sex and hot showers and spooning in the dark. It’s the fierce love of a mother and the broken heart that refuses to heal. It’s the kindest thing I’ve ever done and the meanest thought that’s ever crossed my mind. It’s my darkness and my light and my very humanity expanding before my eyes and ears. It’s Andrea Gibson and Buddy Wakefield and Sarah Kay and Rudy Francisco and Big Poppa E. It’s feminism and the queer community and social commentary and politics and a spotlight on racism. It’s hard core fucking and the most innocent love and it’s the agony of being left behind. And it all plays out in the voices and faces of real people – not just names on a page but real, breathing people who give themselves so fully that you can’t help but be moved.
I’m going to start sharing some of my favorites with you on Sunday each week, because this is far too good to keep to myself.
{Phoenix Peeps: We have our own amazing spoken word night Homebase Poetry Open Mic – 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month at the Wyndham downtown. I’ll see you there.}
“This is for the hard men, the hard men who want to love but know that it won’t come. For the ones who are forgotten, the ones the amendments do not stand up for. For the ones who are told to speak only when you are spoken to and then are never spoken to. Speak every time you stand so you do not forget yourself. Do not let a moment go by that doesn’t remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day and that there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean. Do not settle for letting these waves settle and the dust to collect in your veins”
For you, and for the lifetimes you’ve lived in one short year:
For the endings, and the beginnings and all the spaces in between.
For last year’s words and this years voice and for everything that must remain unsaid.
For boldly speaking your truth and for all that you still hold inside.
For falling over and over and rising again and again.
For life lessons that left you in stunned disbelief and the gentle eyes of an unexpected teacher who lifted you up and carried you from the void.
For living the questions and for discovering the answers.
For losing your way and finding your tribe.
For being willing to break in order to become.
For lust and for trust and for the long twisty journey in between the two.
For head up and eyes wide open and for moments of faith when there is no light to be found.
For quiet resolve and for wailing confusion.
For eyes locked across a room for the first time and for the way your hands find each other in the middle of the night after years of sharing the same bed.
For the courage to strike off on your own and for the comfort of knowing you can always come back home.
For taking up arms against fears and demons and those intent on harm, and for laying down your weapons and walking away in peace.
For claiming what is rightfully yours and for releasing what can no longer be.
For loving what you don’t understand and questioning what you thought you knew for sure.
For letting go and holding on tight.
For losing it all in order to gain what matters.
For standing tall and learning your truth and for forgetting it all in order to start all over again.
For blind faith in something you cannot see, touch or feel and for knowing that all of life is at your fingertips.
For the beauty in contradiction, the bitterness in the compromise and the brilliance of the mystery.
For dancing with ache and longing, and for making peace with what you have.
For grasping tight and for releasing to the wind.
For the knowing and the unknowing and that sliver of space where both coexist.
For the buckets of salty tears and the kindness that dried them all.
For pleasure and for pain and for the ability to hold both in one body.
For simple pleasures and crazy imaginings.
For the releasing the wild spirit within and for holding yourself in quiet dignity.
For blazing seduction, for the wild rhythm of bodies and lips and teeth and skin and for tender reverence and holding hands and spooning in the dark.
For the ease found in comfort zones and for the fierce reality of smashing down walls.
For angry battles, and grudges held and for the sweet bliss of forgiveness.
For the desolation of the desert, for the pounding of the surf and for the forever green of the forest.
For boundaries crossed and limits held firm.
For the dishes and the laundry and the dust bunnies. For keeping up with the Joneses and for leaving the mess to go out and play instead.
For building a house of cards and for burning it all to the ground.
For painstaking attention and determination and for wasting hours on beautifully impossible daydreams.
For red wine and dark chocolate and hot sex and all the earthly pleasures that ground you here.
For celebration and for mourning and for surrounding both in the ritual of spirit.
For believing and for questioning and for the unsteady ground that bridges the two.
For holding your breath till your lungs burn and for the sweet relief of the exhale.
For head-spinning kisses and mind-numbing loneliness.
For thinking you might never get what you want and for knowing you’ll always have what you need and for the bittersweet edge that this acceptance brings.
For companionship and for solitude and for the spaces you can have both at once.
For solo living room dance parties and for singing in the shower.
For hula hoops and crayons and roller skates. For growing older in body and staying young in spirit.
For the times you thought you couldn’t go on, and the moment you realized that nothing could stop you.
For knowing that you are divinity personified, beautiful beyond comprehension and powerful beyond measure.
For all of this I honor you, the year you have lived and the one you are about to begin.
{Because there are times that the very force of your reality – the relentless pace, the depths of what has been won and lost and seen and done and of all that relies on you, the pressing weight that you feel when you first wake up in the morning and the inescapable pressure to stay or to go or to know exactly the right thing – will make you feel both under intense observation and yet entirely and completely transparent to the point of invisibility. Because there have been those times in my life and I know that there have been those times in yours. Because of that, I remind you now. You are still here. I see you. I hold you. There is a safe space for you here. }
You are still here
and I will remind
you of this
now
and again
and always
as long as you need
to remember.
you are still here.
you are still here
because of the echoing of heart
pounding blood
through veins made thin
by the force of want
and hurt
and need.
you are still here
because of breath
and lungs forced open
by icy cold
and air rattling
through chest
gasping from
the effort of moving
through this life.
you are still here
because of muscle
and sinew and bone
because of running for miles
because of wet clothes
and hot showers
and weary body holding safe
your gentle spirit.
you are still here
because of truth
flickering beyond the curtains
long drawn over your eyes.
because of secrets kept and pain witnessed
and stories nestled deep.
you are still here
because of encroaching
darkness
and the exhaustion
as deep and brittle
and ancient as bones
returned to earth.
You are still here
because of letting the pieces fall
and gathering them up again
because of the collapse to the earth
and the return to your center.
because of the silence inside of the primal and keening
moan that begins in the pit of your stomach
and fills the universe with it’s lack of sound.
because of the endless need
and the eventual satisfaction.
and yes, you are still here
because of shame
because of the parts that are
broken and patched
and the deep ache
that drives you to your knees.
because even these things
require presence.
yes, you are still here
because the pain reminds you
that you are
but this is not the sum of all
that I will help you remember.
you are still here
because of childish laughter
and pillow fights during snow storms
and fortune cookie wisdom
and the flutter of eyelashes against cheek.
you are still here
because of kisses
with strangers on street corners
and windblown hair
and the perfect
chocolate croissant
not yet tasted.
you are still here
because of skyscrapers
and down duvets
and pounding surf
and burning fevers
and books with delicate pages
that smell like a reminder of faith.
you are still here
because of the collision
of souls
and the way toothpaste makes
your mouth feel alive
and pennies tucked in pockets
on the luckiest of days
and the way your soul pounds
when the beat finds your hips.
you are still here
because of anticipation
and longing
and trust and truth
and mystery
because of what burns deep within you
and what you sense just beyond the veil
you are still here
you are always here
you will always be here
and one day you will know all this
and more
but until then
just remember that
I am here
move me
make me
feel
push me past
my resistance
info that wide open space
give me something
beyond
the ordinary
beyond what you give
to the rest of the world
show me your naked soul
and I will gasp at your beauty
show me your unveiled eyes
and I will weep at your truth
show me your heart
cracked and broken
and I will hold it
with more tenderness
than you could ever possibly
imagine
and if you trust me
if you give me time
I will show you how
those very cracks
make you whole
I crave a depth
uncommon
I crave a meaning
deeper than
surface
I crave a glimpse
of spirit
divine
and I crave a touch
so primal and
earthly that it brings me
to my knees.
you bring me
to my knees.
I want transcendence
I want to be shattered
I want to gasp at the
brilliance of
ordinary moments
and extraordinary times
and these are the most
ordinary
extraordinary times
so shatter me
I want to know the secrets
your bones hold
I want to see drums of passion
beat
behind your fluttering
eyelids
I want to know what moves
you
Where your center lies
and just how far I can go before
I reach the edge
of you.
I want to feel
everything
push myself to feel
more
push myself past the
pain
lean hard against discomfort
fight numbness
and complacency and
comfort
in search of
more
in search of this
in search of that blinding
searing
goddess power
to touch the
muse
to
break the spell
to move the world
coaxing
tempting
in a seductress
voice dripping sweet
with honey
and sharp with desire
there is a
tug
and my words
they have been gathering
in the dusky light
and they have been swirling
liquid whirlpools
forming and reforming
and coming part and undone
-so much of creation is coming
undone.-
and I am coming undone
my muse
demands
I come undone
and words are
tripping out of me
spilling out of me
pouring out of
me
like they have been too long on
lockdown
too long rising behind a patched up seawall
of too much comfort
too much complacency
too much
not enough
And then
with a rough nudge
into more than
enough
I burst forth
with the power of
creation
too fast to be contained
too much passion
for control
But I will control
I will subdue
because when my muse
is awake
she bequeaths me that
sacred power
she requires that I hold
that power
she knows I have
that power
My muse she is impatient
she requires
complete
possession
a lusty dominatrix
with a dagger gaze
and requirements sharp
as nails
she has plans
for me
she whispers
I must comply
she directs
her bidding
is my purpose
her needs
my foundation
her satisfaction
my only pleasure
when my muse is
awake
my energy builds
knows no
limits
my mind is
blazing
trails
cutting swaths
through thick undergrowth
clearing away the dead
the unnecessary
the unwanted
I am relentless in my
quest
for the totality of experience
and vicious in my requirement
for all
or nothing
and I am free.
I claim freedom in the
captivity
of creation
the fierce
consuming
need to do her
bidding
and I will do her bidding
sleep is nothing
my body is nothing
my brain is nothing
I am nothing in the wake of this
consumed by this
phoenix fire
burning down
red-orange-white
and I am born
again
under her spell
burning from inside out
and outside in
fanning flames to keep
this fire going
my fingers cannot move fast enough
my breath cannot come hard enough
my heart cannot pound hard enough
I cannot create fast enough to
appease her
and I must appease her
she is mistress
and captor
and she could go away
at any time
so I must woo her
and please her
and go down on my knees for her
because I need her
I need her
my muse is awake
now
and so I am a prophet
seeing truth
seeing life
down to the bones and ash
down to the death and destruction
if you are not ready to be seen
do not come to me now
because I will lay you bare
I will crack you open
I will slip inside your soul
and take what I need
to
create
I welcome
the violence of
this knowing
because my muse
is not turned on
by safety
she is hot for risk
and the place outside
of comfort zones
and the sliver
of space between
pleasure and pain
my muse,
she wants a fucking
orgy
of creation
she wants me to sweat
she makes her home there
stirs up unrest there
waits to grow there.
she hold me there
and holds me there
and holds me there
until she is done.
fuck comfort zones
my muse says
Do you want to be
comfortable
or do you want to
create?
yes
there have been plenty of days {there will always be plenty of days}
where I am the forgettable
wallflower
turning myself almost
inside out
to keep you from seeing
please don’t look
but when I move into this space
this one
right here right here
with hips swaying
and head held high
mouth in sassy
smirk till lips part
almost ready to
speak
you lean forward
yes. you do.
you lean forward,
transfixed by the moment
before the moment
the potential tucked
inside my breath
just waiting for
my exhale to
lay claim to
something extraordinary
and
in that moment
i own you
yes I do.
it is not pretty face
or strong body or
divine catwalk style {though those may be lovely to some}
it is not sway of hips
or curve of lips
or anything superficial
that captivate right now
because baby,
floating on the surface is
far too easy to
to rely on
and this isn’t about easy
nothing so peripheral could hold
such power.
not really.
it seems silly
to think there were days
when I believed {and still, I sometimes believe}
that I could measure
the value of
my existence
in a reflective
piece of glass
look at me look at me
my eyes would plead am I good enough?
see me please
prove to me that I
exist
am not invisible
show me I do not blend
chameleon into
this beige life
and in my desperation
I became smaller
and you looked away
of course you looked away
but that was then
before the knowing
knowing that
it is not profession
or skill
not intellect
or accolades
not even talent or passion or drive
no, it is nothing
that comes from
my looking
or my doing
I can’t write it with slick words
or capture it in bright pixels
I can’t paint a pretty face
or saunter in stilettos and
expect to hold your attention
no, this is not about easy
but it sure isn’t hard.
the secret to this
particular
spellbinding
is my
being.
it is my being that
holds sway
keeps captive
your attention
and desire
you want
the very act of being fully
to be content with
no elemental
half-life
but with expectation
of every breath flooding
every last atom
in this universe
into pulsing awareness
I am an
enchantress
when fully engaged
in being
vibrational frequency
shimmers liquid
across depth and breadth
and I am on fire
from the inside out
and then you are lit from the outside, in.
and when I am no longer
content
with the effort of
not contracting
but instead choose to
expand
I expand
and I fill this space
refuse to be contained
by labels
or expectations
or boxes designed to keep me small
hell no. not now.
now is my time
this is my space
and you can’t take your eyes of off me.
I’m not growing up here
I’m growing out
out
in all directions
possessing this space
every last inch,
every last fiber
every last sound
and all of you.
yes, this is poem is about
being
this life is about
being
and right now
i am all about being
but
this is not just about me
did you think that it was?
no, I own this particular swagger
only because I know that
this spark
is in every last one of us
and we can all strut
and smirk
and own the room
just by being
I know the fire that burns
in your gut
and I know your fears
of being seen
and of being invisible
and I know the tears that crack you
wide open
and the chasms that threaten
to swallow you whole
and I know your heart sometimes pounds so
hard that you’d swear
it could be heard around the world
if only people would wake up
and listen
and I know you are so ready
to expand
ready to
embrace
your particular
way of being
So no, this could never be just about
me
because
quite frankly
you
are so damn amazing that
{this one is for my witches. women of fire and ice. of spells and incantations. of fragile baddassery. of power and beauty. you know who you are. this one is for all of you. for at one point or another, I think you all will be the grace that saves me}
bow down and worship.
my soul
demands honoring.
bow down
and worship.
no, I’m not talking to you
or you
or anyone else
just me
only me {always me}
she does not ask
for it outright
just whispers
her reminders
with slow, seductive insistence
when I let too long pass
without reverence
remember
she says remember me
remember my divinity
my inherent dignity
remember my grace,
and my power
remember my boldly wanton
deliciously wicked core
know me
she reminds
know me
know this voice that chants incantations
with ancient witches
know this body that dances
naked around flames
know these eyes that glitter with hard truths
and this skin that quivers with soft touch
bow down
and worship.
my soul has birthed
a warrior that creates and consumes
an earthbound goddess that invokes Kali
and Durga
in one sweetly
divine
hotly inspired
breath.
my soul
she catches fire
and burns to light the universe
burns to light the way
burns to bring it all down
my soul
she is sex in the heat of afternoon
mothering in the deep of night
the ice of intellect
and the fire of passion
she is all I give to you
and everything I keep
for myself {especially everything I keep for myself}
how often i
forget
how often we
all
forget
to pay silent reverence
to practice
inward devotion
to remember
to remember
my soul
your soul
the collective consciousness of
all the worlds
soul
she allows herself to
come apart
that we may stay together
she is torn down
that we may
rebuild
she is exquisitely tender
and impossibly strong
and walks tall in light
and crawls low through the dark
she is a seductive dominatrix
and the gentlest lover
she is contradiction inherent and she knows
the source of all things
she holds power
inside of fragility
and evolution
in her consistency
she can slice life with a sharp blade
and serpentine twist strands together
you must coo to her
like a child
and woo her
like a mistress
stroke her magnificent
ego
you must you must
bow down
and worship.
and then
oh and only then
you can open your brilliant soul
to the world
because
{and I know this is true} {you know that it’s true}
you’ve got to let yourself
feel
to write poetry
and you’ve got to bleed
in order to bring life
and you’ve got to open
if you want to expand
and you have to honor the divine
inside
to be worthy of worship
{and oh sweet, beautiful woman,
you are worthy of worship}
you have to lay claim
to it all
in order to move
the world.
and we all need to move this world.
so honor it all
let the devotion inspire
a life poem
let your body move
to dance her to sleep
let your voice sing
to coax her to awareness
{this life right now, it leaves me little time to do more than scrawl illegible lines in my journal, or fragments of thoughts on grocery receipts. there are words branding the deepest reaches of my soul – but this is a time for diving, not for surfacing. and so, i find myself reaching to the past. to stories already released and truths already recorded. and I absorb them anew, and remember things I’ve already learned }
breath. life. hope 12.23.07
there is much to
learn
and so far to go
and so I am steping
boldly
into this new life
boldy, yes
but not without fear
and certianly not
without grief
and there is pain
yes, there is pain
and there are days
when I am consumed by loss
and I want to pull the covers
of life
around my head
and sit in darkness
with my demons
instead of trying to escape
the knowledge
of what precious life
I have relenquished
to the wild ether
but there is hope
there must always be
hope
and there are days
when I spiral on hope
spiral to infinity and back again
with my breath
or her touch
or your words
or the sound of the raindrops hitting my window
as if life just goes on
or because life just goes on
And so I take a breath
and I breathe again
and again and again
filling my lungs and heart and soul
with hope
because my life depends on it
because the center
of life,
mine and yours,
is always breath
and each day I choose
to unwrap my battered
heart
one more time
and one more time again
and to hold it out
palms upturned
and I make a fragile offering
of my heart to the world.
and so I stand
as naked as I have ever
been
with my breath
and my heart
and my grief
and my loss
and my fear
and my pain
and my hope
and with myself
with so much less
but possibly so much more
than before
and I remind myself to take
just one step
and to breathe just one breath
I don’t believe in
-forever-
not the version I was sold
perfect and pretty and
tied with a bow
placed (by request)
on a pedestal
to keep itself
safe
My forever is fleeting and
flawed and humble in its
inherent lack of
promise
it’s not easily subdued
nor naive enough
to imagine itself attached to a guarantee
this forever is
raw and rough and vulnerable
as comfortable with endings
as beginnings
and it cries as often as it laughs
because it knows that wisdom is found in
depths as well as heights
and that being utterly broken is necessary
to if one wishes to be built
anew
it claims no rings, or vows or flowery promises
no ties that bind it to
some external validation
it sings it’s own song
and dances when it wants to
because it grew tired of seeking approval
or grasping at eternity
and so my forever let go
of itself
of everything
it was taught
because those truths no longer served
and it opened itself to interpretation
and it got comfortable with uncertainty
and it decided to just chill
so my forever is right now
as long (and as short) as
this moment
and this one
perfectly sweet
painfully broken
stretching out endlessly
yet ending with each exhale
it has no
dictionary definition
no civil responsibility
no nod of approval
and it revels in contradiction
and wants nothing to do with
blind faith
but you’d better believe
that acceptance (while not mandatory)
makes it all flow
so much easier
it just is
what it is
and damn if there’s not
a whole lot of power
in that.
{on my desk sits a black fabric journal. it is a plain, ordinary, nondescript book. from the outside, it looks as if it could not possibly hold anything important. only I know that it holds the most valuable thing I possess. my story.}
5.22.09
I’m in birthday party hell.
I’m standing in the middle of Dave and Busters (which, for those who are not familiar, is like Chuck E Cheese on steroids). The bright flashing lights and the incessant beeping and buzzing have brought me to a level of overstimulation that mimics a really trippy high. All around me I see glass-eyed parents and kids, feeding tokens into games, fixated on collecting long snakes of tickets to trade in for any number of crappy plastic toys or candy. It’s like the very worst of Vegas, ripe for a membership drive for a future meeting of gamblers anonymous.
And in the midst of one of those spectacularly surreal ‘this is my life?’ moments, when Julie is deliberating between multiple versions of Hannah Montana flashlight key chains and Bella tries to stretch her points as far as they can possibly stretch (consumer culture microcosm anyone?) my cell phone buzzes in my pocket. And then buzzes again, and again, and again.
I pull it out and I see four texts from Mani. My first thoughts it that something is wrong, but then I open my phone and all the flashing and buzzing and chaos fades away as I read:
I had the sudden urge to tell you I love you
no matter what and for always
and to take you on a boat,
sailing toward the horizon
until we couldn’t see the shore
and have you look around
at the endless expanse of sparking sea,
and realize that it belonged to you.
every last drop.
and I wanted to let you in on my secret,
because I know we can breathe underwater.
because it is time you realized
that you will never drown.
we don’t drown. we adapt.
we don’t get swept away.
we drift, we ride current, we grow gills, we grow wings.
And in the moment that I absorbed those words I let that exquisite act of kindness wash over me. I let her love and compassion and wisdom soak into me in waves of bliss and I had an experience of momentary but utterly perfect serenity.
It is not just that she wrote those words (for I know her to be a woman who experiences her existence in poem), nor the fact that she would hold flawed, messed up little me with such utter tenderness (for even can occasionally accept that I am worthy of such emotion). No – it was none of those things that evoked such reverence. What matters is that she took those thoughts, those feelings, those words, the cadence of that poem and she sent it spinning out into the universe directly to me and placed it in my heart like the most precious treasure.
And I can’t help but wonder – what if every time I thought of someone with tenderness and compassion or gratitude, I took the next step and gifted them with that in the purest form possible? What if we sent our love spinning out into the universe more often? Once every day. Ten times. Twenty. One hundred. What if we did it and shared it and then others followed suit?
What if we gave it just one day, and every time we thought of someone with love – even if it’s not someone with whom we normally interact – we took the time to let them know? If every time we were inspired by a line on a blog we took a moment to make a few extra mouse clicks and leave a comment? If every time someone opened the door for us we looked them right in the eye, connected ourselves to them through our shared humanity and not only said thank you, but meant it and felt it with every part of our being.
Mani could have had those thoughts tonight in the midst of caring for her girls or studying for her midwifery exam or a million other things that fill her life to overflowing and pushed them away as nothing more than thoughts. But she didn’t, she held on to them and gave them shape and sent them to me on a crazy night in the middle of a crazy week filled with guilt and blame and self-recrimination and bitchy, snappy base level parenting and stress in a ball that pounds in my chest. She gave them to me, and she didn’t just change things for me, she changed things for everyone I will come in contact with tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.
Because if she can hold me in such tenderness and I can allow myself to be held, I feel certain that I can extend that outward in all directions.
And really, that’s all that needs to happen to change the world. `
The creative drive. ‘Tis life force and relentless demon in equal measure. We artistic misfits cram ourselves into a culture is usually centered on new, better, different. What to create that has not yet created? What to do that is better than what has already been done? How to dig deeper, reach farther, deliver more?
Sometimes, though, you hit a wall when nothing new comes. Your wheels are spinning as fast as your head, yet you don’t manage to move an inch. You feel tender and exposed and so utterly, deeply vulnerable and alone.
What is there to do but give yourself permission to halt that eternal struggle forward? Call a creative cease fire. Take a deep breath, center yourself and to look back on what you have done and where you have been. Dive deep inside and recall a time when creativity flowed, when you lived in a place of personal power. The answers to our future – indeed to our present – often lie in the lessons already lived and spaces formerly inhabited.
i have spent
far too long
standing in the shadow
of my own
perception.
loathing
lip curling
at my own
reflection
in the mirror
in the store window
in the eyes of
satisfied
lovers
disgust
unmet expectation
endlessly comparing
and rejecting
myself
and now?
and now.
and now I will
own it.
posess it.
revel in every
soft/curvy
hard/angular
perfect/imperfect
inch of it
of me.
for my daughters
for my daughters daughters
for my lovers
for the kind-eyed stranger
behind the counter
at my neighbourhood
coffee bar.
who serves me
the perfect chocolate pastries.
for myself
i will own it.
before
i gave it away
threw it away
discarded it in the clouds of a million smoky bars
and on the floors
of unfamiliar rooms
next to dirty socks
and forgotten paperbacks.
did not want it
could not hold it
choked on the weight
and taste
of it.
i spit it out
with
revulsion.
and now?
and now.
i will hold it high
and touch it softly
and kiss it gently
and give it away freely
but
only to those who
deserve it.
i will be solid in my space
and soft
in my space
i will move
with intention in this space
and I will walk with purpose through
this space
with purpose and truth and
with
direction
i will dismantle
the walls
and tear down
these artificial
boundaries
designed to
protect
but serving to
distance
and i will crack myself
wide
open
open
open
open to experience
to pain
to love
to hurt
to the brilliance
that could be
my life,
that will be
my
life.
i will own my physicality
and I will own
my fluid
sexuality.
and I will look you in the eyes
with clarity
with no apology
or inhibition
for myself
and i will get right
to the
point
no more time
to waste
and I will dance with
passion
and I will live with
acceptance
and I will embrace with
abandon
and I will love
and I will love.
because
I will own it with my walk
and with my
talk
and with my body
language
and everyone will watch
because,
i will own it.
~~~
I look back now, at the woman who had the audacity to write such a manifesto. And she didn’t just write it and keep it safe on a shelf, where no one would ever know she had the nerve to think such thoughts. No, not that girl, she declared it to the world. I remember her, who she was and the space she lived in.
She was bold, that woman. BOLD in all capital letters, and deliciously fierce with the reality of her existence.
She had to be, to step outside of every expectation and to walk away from both history and future. She didn’t run from the pain, nor was she bowled over by it, not for long. No, not her. She experienced it fully, every last little bit. Pain, Guilt, Esctasy. Confusion. Joy. She sat with her reality and allowed all it to integrate itself into the woman she was on the verge of becoming.
She was making choices every day. Big, scary, life-changing choices. They were not always the right choices, but she accepted that they were hers, and hers alone, to make. She was breaking walls, breaking boundaries, breaking herself, and within the broken pieces she found what she needed to build herself anew.
She was different than she had ever been, and people noticed.
There was brilliance in those moments, genius even. Though the time was often harsh and unforgiving, she was riding so high on the intensity of stepping into herself that the air around her buzzed with it. That woman – who had asked permission for everything that had come before – suddenly ceased looking for validation, and she nearly went dizzy with the freedom of it. It was the first and only time in her life that she had existed fully from a place of personal power. Saw it, grabbed it and claimed it for her own.
That woman, she stood solid on the shakiest of ground. She threw her head back, flung her arms wide and proclaimed her heart, her soul, her truth. And when she said ‘take it or leave it’ she actually meant Bring. It. On. Because deep down, even in the darkest moments, she knew she could handle all that was to come.
~~~
I remember her. Indeed, I remember her with immediacy and longing. And because she and I are really one, I know she still exists, but I cannot access her. Cannot seem to make my way back to inhabiting that space that was the cradle of my own personal power.
When I posted that poem, one of my own dear truth tellers wrote to me:
“and out of the shadows rises this you – the graceful poet who boldly owns her spirit and yet knows when to set it free to dance upon those shadows. And somehow, this is the YOU I’ve always known and loved”
And I wonder, when did I go back to fearing the shadows? When did I begin asking permission again? When did I stop owning it?
Because I know that in the answer to those questions I will find the key to my creating.
~~~
Take yourself back to a time where you were fiercely alive, entirely present. Find something you created then. Soak it in and if you’re willing share it with me, will you?
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