When I was young and sent to my room for some indignity
I’d cry as loud
and as long as I could
My mother would tell me, with spite on her tongue, “sometimes I think you like to be sad.”
I didn’t cry to be sad
I cried to be heard
But sadness kept me company, and held the comfort of a truth
that no one would be coming
but they should
they should
#bookofpoems
Grief
of time passing by
of plans unmade
life undone
settling on my bones
the well-worn weight of it
reveals the shape of me
a soft embrace
whispering
it’s ok to be
#bookofpoems #feelings
For seven days I heard a voice in my head
speak a truth
I didn’t know I had been seeking
louder
and
louder
until it had cleared away all the thoughts from my brain
until I could hear it echoing
deafening
off the bedroom walls
until I could only answer in reply
yes
yes!
YES!
until it covered me with joy
and my heart turned inside out
and all the parts of me found their way home
#bookofpoems #fragments #becoming
It’s already my birthday
in the place where I was born
Hah!
An extra two hours for me
#bookofpoems
Did you know
there are people who have feelings?
Did you know
there are people who have feelings
that just show up
like they have a standing invitation to the feelings party?
Did you know
there are people who have feelings
that they would like to share
with other people who have feelings?
Did you know
there are people who have feelings that speak
and not
the things that burrow into your body and gnaw at the walls of your stomach until you wonder if you have cancer
or the things that slide along your bones and bind your flesh so tight you wonder if you are made of stone
Did you know
there are people who have feelings that move and dance and cry and sing
and not
the things that fold in and collapse into a black hole inside you, threatening to swallow the world if you open your mouth too wide
Did you know?
I didn’t know
I didn’t know
No one ever told me
#bookofpoems #becoming
Someday you will die
and no one will know
that you stayed up too late
because you were avoiding the trash
Someday you will die
and no one will think about
whether you had a house
or how you kept it
#bookofpoems
My body is leaking information
words overflowing from my brain
slipping out silently between the sounds of our conversations
flowing neatly, swiftly, through the tip of my finger as I scroll on the phone
falling begrudgingly into my morning coffee, plop, plop, plop
to be swallowed back down again
they are littering the floor
piling up on the stairs
they are churning churning in my head and twisting up in my hair
I want to gather them up
I want to pour them into the cracks of the world
letting them grow thicker and thicker
until they pry apart reality and reveal
what is underneath
I want to pour them onto the page
and watch them arrange themselves into a truth
I want to gather them up into the shape of me
so I can show you and say, “see? see? now do you see?”
but they slip through my fingers as I walk down the hall
they slide down the drain while I cut my hair over the bathroom sink
they get lost in the piles of dirty laundry that do not care about me
and so I leave them, silently
#bookofpoems
In the mornings
in that moment of waking before the world becomes real
I would be filled with a feeling
like a delicious secret settled in my bones
and I'd think, it must have lost its way from a dream
and I'd wait for it to flee
as consciousness revealed its mistake
But I would wake
and it would wake with me
and it was real
and I was real
#bookofpoems #becoming #fragments
For seven days I heard
a voice in my head say,
“you don't have to be a woman”
louder
and
louder
until it had cleared away
all the thoughts from my brain
until I hear it echoing
deafening
off the bedroom walls
until I could only answer in reply
yes
yes!
YES!
until it covered me with joy
and my heart turned inside out
and all the parts of me
found their way home
#bookofpoems #becoming #fragments
Rejoicing in rain
blue skies heaven sent
hopeful souls dance
for a moment, reborn
But what souls still cry
for shelter from the storm?
what souls have left us to mourn?
Cloak yourself in faith, my dear
steel your heart with joy
we know not what the future brings
but it will find us here
#bookofpoems #fires