there is not enough season
in spooky season
i’d like it to extend
from september 1st
till thanksgiving
(i mean, we could go until new years)
(or even all year ‘round)
(that’s the real gay agenda:
spooky season all year ‘round)
Author: HJ
October 24, 2021
i’ve been writing and deleting
for a few days now
[and drawing and erasing]
and i know this happens
no matter what;
it is inevitable at some point
to need to re-create
in order to finish a creation
but i’ve been starting and immediately stopping,
each burst of creative energy is met with
“ehhh…maybe not…”
to then need to forge a new path
ahead
and i am unsure if this means i am having trouble following a complete path
or perhaps i’m simply noticing earlier where paths will not lead
or maybe it means i’m putting everything down on paper[screen]
when i initially start
instead of editing myself in my head
whatever the reason
[be it “good” or “bad” or “neutral”]
it doesn’t stop the “now”
from being quite frustrating
every time.
October 23, 2021
will i ever find my own voice
my pattern of poetry
my own way of writing
a style all my own
in this poem-a-day-venture?
do i even want to?
i want to find my own style
while drawing
because right now my “style” is simply
me not really knowing what i’m doing
and trying things out
and fading limbs when they err too close to the hands
and to the feet…
but i generally know what i’m doing
with writing
(or at least i was formally trained
for a time)
(though that doesn’t necessarily mean
anything
at all)
a style in visual art
to me
would mean
i’ve achieved choices
and a way to be recognized
and a general idea of what i’m doing
(and doing it with purpose)
but a style
in poetry
to me
would mean
pigeon-holing me
into one particular mode of voice
and this cacophony of styles
i suppose
is my choice
(and i guess,
at least right now
i do with a semblance
of purpose)
October 22, 2021
woke up to harmonized meowls
identical cats standing off directly in front of our front door
the calling card of pre-fight yowls only losing their congruence
at the tail end
the cats’ tails puffs of agitation
and my “ps ps ps” no match for a turf war
(no matter if now i technically own this very turf
by silly white human law)
and our cat took no notice whatsoever.
October 21, 2021
i’m a writer who draws
and an actor who overthinks
and a spouse with a cat and a dog
and all i really want
is to create some beauty
through this slog
called ‘life’
October 20, 2021
stories of my past
problems from our pasts
[solutions towards the future?]
October 19, 2021
oh holy shit.
i just asked my body
what it needed
(instead of simply looking at the water and coffee sitting next to me
and thinking:
well, i haven’t had any of this water yet,
i suppose i should make sure to start it
so i can drink the full water bottle
before 9 am)
and my body seemed…
so excited to be listened to
so relieved to not be forced into doing
whatever i thought it “should” be doing
that i very nearly teared up…
and that tells me
a lot.
(of what, i’m still not quite sure,
but it sure is
a
lot)
October 18, 2021
just atop a grain of rice
it makes my laptop all
wibbly-wobbly.
and something so small
that affects so much
has to be a metaphor (right?)
(ok, granted, my laptop is far closer to the size of the grain of rice
than say
myself
or
the universe
but still,
size-wise
it is quite
small.)
so
what great insight can i gain from this
“rice under the laptop”
experience?
perhaps to always look for the root cause of an issue
and to not judge too harshly
if the core issue seems
“too small”
to affect that much.
or maybe the lesson here is to simply
clean off the table
between meals and morning pages.
October 17, 2021
the wind rushes through the trees
rustling the branches much stronger than a breeze
that pushing of the wind, the apprehension i feel,
used to be so frightening to me, but now, there’s appeal
the wind brings changes, newness, the switch of the seasons
and while change is scary, it’s no longer frightening without reason
i choose to look towards the possibility of what change may bring
and hear whatever the winds choose to sing
for in this poem, this struggle of rhyming couplets,
i’ve found a calmness in my fear’s former culprit
and that, i think, is worth this hassle of a rhyme-scheme.
October 16, 2021
the trauma was not good;
no amount of “things happen for a reason” will change that,
it was unfair, unfathomable, wildly wrong.
but how i choose to deal with the trauma,
how i have survived thus far,
and how i choose to keep on going,
that is where the beauty lies.
and i can adjust my own coping mechanisms;
make them healthier, make them stronger,
for nothing is truly “good” or “bad”
“positive” or “negative”
but there are healthier and not so healthy,
things that help me access my emotions
and perform acting in a real, vulnerable, and honest way,
and that is how i choose to keep going
(start going? this is technically all new to me…)
and, similarly,
there is no “recovered” vs. “not recovered”
there is in recovery and the levels therein.
but one level does not disappear once you move on to the next
they are uneven steps existing in a labyrinth
that sometimes require backtracking to continue on.
and if i can look at my own mental health
in a way
that is
Non-Binary
(just like me!)
then maybe,
just maybe,
i can make friends with my trauma
(and how i felt it initially/since)
and understand a little bit more about me
in the aftermath…
kipventures 