change is good

October 17, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

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.

July 31, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

thirty days have september,
april,
june,
and november
all the rest have thirty-one
except february which completely fucks us up and every four years gets even a little bit more complicated because time is a mortal construction and probably not as linear as people make it out to be…

i see my friends
open themselves up to the universe
to give and receive and the universe complies
sending platonic connections from years and years past,
sheltering under iridescent wingspans
and holding safe a space for baby queers;
we are the ancestors we wish we’d had
(and we do have those ancestors,
they just may not be blood)

the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb
isn’t it great how the actual saying is saying the opposite of what everyone who says it thinks they are saying?
there are a lot of things like that in this world, aren’t there?
(and do we even need to live our lives by sayings made up by humans long since dead?)

i’m still finding my way
slowly opening myself up to the universe,
trying not to ask it too greedily,
as i’m still scared it’s not real,
i’m too much of an atheist/agnostic to trust in anything outside of myself
(but, one might point out, the universe could simply be a part of ourselves that is unknown,)
and we are far more connected to one another than we think we are,
so maybe those connections are the universe
and each other are the spiritual guides,
but all of these are very ‘what if’
very potential answers
but not definites,
and it is too early for this kind of contemplation to make 100% sense
(and i was definitely up too early to be too comprehensible to others)
so we can just write this
and post it
and throw it out into the universe
and know that our place in it is constantly changing
and at times you need the guidance
and at others you are the guide
and it constantly changes
and change is good
scary
but good.

July 25, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

for so long
i was the kind of person
who woke up every morning
and stretched for fifteen minutes.

i think i needed it, at that time,
so much loss and change and variability,
and i had a goal and i achieved it;
within the year (maybe within six months)
i could:
touch my toes,
drop into full splits,
left, right, and center,
and i could arch my back
backwards
and touch the floor on the other side.

and yes, i was younger
and limberer
(though i certainly didn’t feel that way
when i started)

but after high school,
i entered college
with roommates
and depression
and a year away
and figuring out my life
and another college
and too many classes/assignments/rehearsals
to fit in 24 hours,
and the diligence
of stretching every morning
slipped away…

and then meeting my to-be spouse
and graduation
living/moving around the midwest
Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Madison,
eventually ending up in our own home
and still i didn’t have a morning routine
akin to that which helped me through high school
nothing for my body
nothing for my mind
nothing for my soul
(but i was fulfilled, body, mind, and soul, in other ways;
discovering circus,
meeting my people,
having my kip with me through it all).

and when we moved to New York,
the spouse and i created a new tradition,
a new morning routine,
to make our lives a little more centered
as we entered our busy days.

and that habit ebbed and flowed,
adjusting for our own needs,
adjusting for the start of a global pandemic,
adjusting for the stressors and fears that accompany
life
in a ‘new normal’
kind of situation,
and we’ve been at this
morning pages
for a year and a half now,
and the poetry version
i’ve kept going
for a little over
one hundred days

and this has been paramount
to my emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health,
i’ve felt more connected to my own thoughts
(or awareness that i’m not)
for the first time since i was a small child

but my body still begs for consistency
and my muscle flexibility
hasn’t been touched in weeks
and there’s no habit i have that helps…

but that’s how i started
a decade and a half ago,
a feeling of need,
of desire,
of a goal i wanted to accomplish,
and i set my mind to do it
so i did.

and i know it won’t be as quick
(and i have more knowledge now
of all bodies and their different needs)
so maybe
now
i can find a time
an activity
a physically centering habit
to help me as we adjust
for new changes,
healthier spaces,
and connect body/mind/spirit
in one.