connections

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.]

May 30, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the end
of an era

Joann’s was synonymous with
creativity

and even in these last few weeks and months
of craziness and chaos,
bankruptcy and shut-down,
final sales and equipment liquidation,
the workers still find ways to connect
and laugh
and breathe

January 17, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

apparently
i first opened this version
of scrivener
in january of 2021.
or,
more specifically,
january 17
in the morning.

and i only noticed the “first opened” notification
on this january 17
today
in the morning
[though in the 7:00 hour, not the 8,
as was the case
in 2021]

and i still can’t get over
the passage of time,
nor the happenstance
and connection
in my life.
but
i think it’s interesting
when things just kind of
align
and line up
and i can take that however
i like

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

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]

July 23, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the connections
i make
at night
when the mind has been
working hard all day
and scrambling to make sense
of a world that just
doesn’t—
those are some of the smartest
clearest
most profound connections
i’ve made—
and i always rely on
the morning
to write them
—
but by then
they’re gone

August 9, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

every time i type the word August
i read it in my head as august
like the adjective
like distinguished and respected,
impressive and esteemed;
contemplating the connection
between the month and the prestigiousity
[and i know full well
that the month comes from the person,
the Augustus of it all,
but, i mean, another few synonyms
for the adjective
are distinguished, high ranking, exalted, noble,
imperial,
and i think, though they may [or may not] have been connected
linguistically
in the past,
they just might be connected again
now…]

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.