connection

October 7, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i hope i never lose my fascination
with other people

my deep-hearted desire
to understand others,
to hear about their lives and endeavors,
even when i don’t understand them —

listening to info-dumps
and rants about favorite hobbies
or points of interest
or simply stories of personal past histories

i adore being invited into strangers’ lives
[even when the stranger is one
i’ve shared a life with — their pasts are still
unknown to me and my life,

and being invited in, no matter how distant
feels so intimate]

i write this from the perspective
of trying to tell my own father
about my life
and what’s important to me
and seeing/hearing/feeling him
get antsy from
not caring
if he can’t
understand
or relate

and it breaks
my heart

i never want to make anyone else feel like this way

i hope everyone feels invited
to share their passions
with me

even
/
especially
if i don’t “get it”

[i adore learning new things,
and connection
above all]

June 16, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

so interesting how
being in one’s 30’s feels
like settling into the person you
were before testing out all the other life things

i’m hungry for experiences
but i need only try something
once
and then i’m happy to go back
and just cuddle my kip and my cat and my dog
and organize books alphabetically
and wake up each morning
to write poetry

[i do wonder if this is the true 9-year-old me, but i also have to admit,
i still have that 9-year-old inside me, plus the 16-year-old who couldn’t
help but immediately drive to see friends the moment they got their
license, and the 22-year-old who just really wanted connection with
whomever would connect with me. i think it’s always been, not about
partying, but about connection. and i also think 9-year-old me
would agree.]

November 15, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i feel my ability
to create
has been sucked dry
by a cabinet that has yet
to even take power

and i don’t want to let it

the universe deserves art

art is what makes life worth living

it doesn’t even have to be spectacular, world-paradigm-shifting/
perspective-altering/makes-you-see-new-colors-on-earth
great
art

it just needs to be art

because every human is creative
and every human deserves to look at something
and feel —
even if that feeling is
‘i want to do that’
for inspiration
or for competition
or for proving something —
art takes humanity,
splits it into a thousand pieces,
and connects every piece of us
back with each other

and even if we only ever see two or three pieces
of ourselves
connect with others in our lifetime,
those pieces continue on:
in your stories to the friends you make later,
in one audience member’s recollection,
in your peers’ inspiration
and on to making their own creations

we all continue to live through our art
because humanity
is connection
and connection
is art
and art
is humanity
and all reversed and back again
and we cannot survive
as a species
without our art, our connection, and our humanity

so please, as defeated as you feel, artists, keep art-ing
i will
i just need to stream these feels into my art
first
and then maybe this poem will reside in the heart of someone else
who will help someone else
continue on
and
on
and
on
it
goes

September 29, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

thought i’d write about yesterday
yesterday
at night, as a meditation
a mullination
on happenings and debriefings
and chill-times
but instead it was
two denny’s-es in one day
and conversations and wonderings
and connections and
i think that’s exactly what i needed
yesterday

August 9, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

just before
a big trip
the anticipation
the nerves
the excitement
the hours and hours of ‘what to do’
audiobooks
and d&d style games
and maybe just chatting
and maybe singing with musicals
and maybe
just maybe
the animals will connect
the way we usually do
on long car trips

March 24, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it’s 8:30
and i’ve started my morning pages
[morning poems]
and i’d like a coffee, but i forgot to get one
and i’d like to water the plants, but it’s not time for that
yet
and i’d like to be known
but
i’d like to work outsides of the systems our society is based on
and working outside of those systems
is pretty much impossible
because everything is connected
just like everything is connected
to our Earth
here
and we just can’t stop things from going
the world from turning
the sun from rising and setting
and time from flying
and people from dying
and people from being born and born and born
and it sometimes feels so overwhelming
when you feel like the whole universe is in your mind
but turn it around
to the other side
you are one part of the universe
small
but
so
so
so
important
don’t hold things you don’t have to
let them go
and work for your little corner
of the great
connections

[we are all fractals of this planet]

March 2, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

locking eyes
trans on trains
but it’s more than
‘i see you, you see me too’
it’s the
‘i might know you
from our silly rectangular social boxes’
and lo and behold,
check the algorithm —
there you are
and there i am, not so much sliding
but stumbling into your dms
saying, ‘let’s be friends’
[and blaming my spouse in the process]
and i’m too nervous about awkward connections
to check the reply
just yet

but i do know you have
replied

and i think that’s enough connection
for this socially anxious
ball of rainbows.

[but now the spouse wants to know…]

July 20, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

maybe
the reason i feel
my emotions take over my whole self
or
my brain can convince me of untruths
or
my body doesn’t understand how to body
is not because
they are all fighting for control
but because
they are fighting
for connection

i am in the center
my self is the combination
of heart
and mind
and physical being
and if the three can be
together
as one
maybe i won’t feel so lost
and separated
and not
myself

June 2, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i feel sixteen again
the air around me tastes louder
brighter
coloring with so much
i can’t help but squint

perhaps it’s the neural pathways
refusing to trim
perhaps it’s the music
and late late nights inspiring
deep connection again

May 30, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it’s always interesting to me
to see loud queers in the wild.

while it no longer feels as it did in the
early 2000’s—
where each tiny indication
screamed so loudly
but only we could hear;
where acknowledging each other
on the street
seemed a sacred secret
shared by head nods
and the rare smile
at even rarer held hands.

these days there seems to be
more queer
than not queer
(at least here, in nyc)
but there’s still a moment
for rainbow hair
and rainbow Keith Haring button-up
to share
mutual
queer
joy
from across a crowded 1 train
and be completely delighted
by each other
through eye-crinkling smiles
(the kind seen even behind masks)
and hands making heart-shapes,
asl thank you’s,
and waves goodbye.

and i think that’s
beautiful.