calming massages
and meditations
and stretching in mornings
[or evenings]
and taking deep breaths
and being thankful
and all the things i know would help
but i either forget about
or never have the time
or, more often than not, i feel like i’m undeserving
of the care and its after effects
and i just wish i could somehow convince my full self
i’m allowed some kind of
self-care
[and maybe even remind myself
that it’s imperative
to take down settler colonialism
and capitalism
and the white supremacist patriarchy]
dismantle white supremacy
February 12, 2023
a puppy
eating ice cream
and then the whole container
what a treat
~~~
sometimes i worry
that i’m wasting my writing talents
on publishing in a blog
but then i am reminded
of folks who may have thought
i wasted my acting talents
on community theatre
and who is wasting
and who is benefiting
in either of those situations?
is it simply
elitist?
classist?
or simply the whole vibe of white supremacist culture
to give some places
more standing
than others?
i suppose what i’m saying is
tho i wish more folks would read my words
and i saw more accolades and admissions of quality
(moreso for my own validation/vindication/curiosity)
i’ll continue to place it
here
for anyone to come across it
who may want or need it
(including me)
~~~
late night writing
(ok
again
not really that late)
toasty fireplace
cozy tea
coffee ready to be placed in the fridge
for tomorrow morning
when i’ll write all over again
May 3, 2022
it is
very
hard to concentrate this morning
and i don’t know if it’s from
the stress of last night
or
the vividness of the dreams
or
the sadness of this morning
or
the lack of coffee in my bloodstream
or what
but
it is
very
extremely
extraordinarily
bizarrely
quite
hard to concentrate this morning.
~~~
i feel like i’m getting a better handle
on what makes my poetry
my poetry
(but i really have
absolutely
no idea
still
about what makes any poetry
‘good poetry’)
~~~
i would like to write
another
slam poem;
start a flow
and just go,
balance out the rhythm and rhyme
with internal structure,
alliteration,
and find
the transitions,
the cues,
from one section
to anther,
playing with words
and meaning
and framing
the repeating
as metaphor
as a tool
as a lock to turn the key
and find out something new
about me,
about life,
about our home planet earth,
and our collective strife
to stay alive
when all we want
is eternal sleep
(not necessarily because
death is the answer we’re looking for,
but because all these
isms
and power structures
and so-ingrained made up concepts
keep us so wide awake
that sleep seems a necessity
we never get to get
[when was the last time you had
an actual
honest to goodness
no stress
very good
night’s sleep?]
so i guess
that’s what this poem’s about:
the collective trauma
that is
white supremacy/capitalism/america
and how the one thing
that could give us
the fight
we need
to dismantle it
is the the thing
it keeps us
from doing
every
single
night.
(and are my daytime naps
my making up
for this lack,
or is that just a symptom
of the depression
my awareness
of these systems
gives me?)
((or is that a subject
for another poem
for another day?))
July 4, 2021
perhaps it’s just the folks i know up there,
but nearly everyone i know in Canada
has passed on their normal July 1 celebrations
to contemplate the bodies of indigenous children
that continue to be unearthed.
and i feel guilty that i’m not surprised.
and i feel ashamed that my country probably has ten times as much blood on its soul
(at least)
and i feel embarrassed that there is no national day of reckoning here,
no setting aside celebrations
for the purpose of confronting our relationship with the
problematic,
hardly taught,
secret history of our nation.
last year i confronted July 4th,
i marched and chanted and sat and listened
in a crowd gathered;
white folks there to learn,
Black and Brown folks there to share and celebrate.
i stared squarely into the face of what it means to be
born
on stolen ground.
i looked down at my feet,
where i expected to see myself standing on only my own accomplishments,
and finally saw the backs of Black folks i’d unintentionally climbed over,
that my ancestors had climbed over,
had climbed onto
had used (knowing or not) as a step up for themselves.
and i saw the blood on all our hands.
i watched native dances from the tribes of lands we live on now,
and i heard words from folks who chose this country over their homeland,
in spite of what it meant for their skin,
but because of what it meant for their queerness,
(though that story is also so very complicated)
and last year the only fireworks were from everyday people in the neighborhood
just letting off a little steam,
no city or state or nation led celebration,
instead individually making the ‘holiday’ what everyone wanted.
what everyone needed.
what do i do this year?
there should have been ten times as many people confronting July 4th last year,
there should be ten times more doing the internal work this year,
but i can only worry about myself and what i do.
so i’ll do my work.
i’ll continue to do my work.
though i know there’s no end in sight;
that’s what it means to be a citizen here.
May 1, 2021
i felt like
two days ago
i was worried it was close to the end of the month
then i found out
it wasn’t even the 20th yet
and today, today it’s the beginning of May
and my sense of time hasn’t been this off
since the beginning of the Global Patrick Stewart
last year
(over a year
ago
now)
and i have to wonder
if my sense of time is off
or if i just looked at the calendar wrong
or if time is a myth
and a mortal construction
and any feelings of ‘shoulds’
within the constraints of
‘time’
are all a product of capitalism
which in itself is a product of white supremacy
and we should be dismantling it all,
right?
kipventures 