living life

April 5, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i live my life based on the philosophy
i read in a tumblr post
once

the long and short of the text was that
after your were finished with a life
you got to what you thought were the pearly gates
of heaven
or hell
or limbo
or wherever
and you started to see,
though there was no one else there,
that you’d been here before
thousands upon millions upon billions of times
and it was revealed that you
are and were and would be
everyone

and every time you had been mean
you had simply been being mean
to a former [or future] iteration of yourself

and every time you had been kind
or received kindness
that was you
and you and you
all along

and it’s not that i can only thing about
the consequences of cruelty
or the benefits of kindness
if it is in relation to my own being

no

what got me about that philosophy
was the idea that
everyone around me
was so much closer than originally thought —

i spend so much time thinking i’m
a complete alien to the rest of the human race, that i
will never understand what someone is going through
and they certainly will never even try to see
what’s going on in my mind,
and everything
everyone
seems so damn foreign
and far, far away
and even when i think about
the interdependent web of all existence
there’s still a distance
i place between myself and my fellow [hu]man

but that one silly little tumblr post

it made my neighbor
and my ancestor
and the writer of the book i’m reading
and the anchor of the news show i’m fearing
and the baby in front of me
and the octogenarian on the other side of the world
and literally everyone in between
it made them all seem so much closer to me
in a sense of peace i had never before experienced

so i know that it’s probably not true

but what if it is?

and i tend to live my life based on “what ifs”
[as long as they don’t hurt anyone else]

and this particular “what if” has the tendency
to encourage
the opposite

so maybe think about it

or search out that og post
[it’s actually a pre-written short story called the egg by andy weir,
i just came across it on tumblr one day
as you do]

because i think it’s worth
the philosophizing
and the comfort
and the hope
it brings

March 26, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

how do any of us ride out this life?

there’s so much we could do
so much we do
so much i’ve done
but i constantly feel like
i’ve missed the boat on
so many things
everything

i don’t know how to get everything out of life
that i want to get out of it
so i’m just kinda
enjoying the ride at this point
admitting this isn’t how i thought it would go
but my adventures have been so
adventurous
and i do
love that

[maybe that is how you live life]

March 17, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

there are so many things i’d like to be doing
at all hours
of every day

writing

sewing

creating

flying

hanging out with friends

organizing my bookshelf

contemplating the mysteries of the world and the universe

and/or

just cuddling with my spouse and our animals

but i must participate
[albeit lightly]
in capitalism
and this country
[no matter how much i disagree
with so much of it
fundamentally]

and that includes having commutes
where many of my hobbies
cannot come out
and
an end of the day mind-numbing
exhaustion need that can sometimes only
be fed by silly stardew valley video games
and
a constant reminder in my head that
if i can’t make money off of a hobby
it’s not worth investing in
and
i hate that last brainwashing bit most of all

hobbies are hobbies for hobbies’ sake

i could tell you the benefits to heart and mind health
and creativity and the like
but
that gets us farther away from the point
which is that being alive
is about being alive
and sometimes we just gotta vibe
with the aliveness
that we have
and make a little shitty drawing
that makes us smile while we’re doing it
and makes a friend smile when they receive it

that’s what living is all about

[not capitalism
not capitalism
not capitalism]

November 1, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

they say to be a good actor
you have to live some life first

is the same true about writers?

they say “write what you know”
and if you know shelter and
safety and never worrying
and never feeling anything
won’t your writing be…
kinda beige?

but as a writer,
as an actor,
as a poet,
we feel things with the intensity of a human being
thrust into the sun a thousand times over;
we take our [possibly mundane] lives
and crank our imagination up to eleven;
we seek experiences to suck life from
and try to make art from the remnants…

is simply living life too much for an artist,
or is it exactly what the artist needs?

[or am i over-thinking everything]

[and isn’t that what creatives do, too?]

August 30, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i feel at odds
with my own creativity
with my own wants and needs
with my own life as i’m living it
amongst people

everything feels so fallible
so ephemeral
and i suppose it all is
it’s just, there might be some time
before all the skills and abilities
and friends and life
leaves us

so we might as well have fun while we can
[rather than worrying ourselves
into complete stagnancy]

December 23, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

how does one get
better
at poetry?

is it all about alliterations
and internal rhyme
and the thousands of metaphors
that have already been primed
to be shared, to be taken, to be overused
to the point of cliche
to say i want to be a poet
is not to mean i want to spoon-feed you stanzas of
love
as a beautiful weed
or churn out odes to
the moon
(though our lunar satellite is pretty cool)
but i digress
i must confess
my digression into this poem was nothing more than a question
not a contemplation of how i am the best
(my goodness, i know i’m not the best)
but i want to know—
for the poems that i read
and hear
that flow
and hit me right here
(that’s my heart, in case you aren’t watching)
they speak of the human condition
universal language
of love, joy, pain, suffering
maybe one day i could write
as well as
Amanda Gorman
Angel Nafis
Staceyann Chin
Audre Lorde
(hah
i remember a time the only poets i knew
were crusty old men
and look at me now,
just off the top of my head
badass black femme poets whom i’ve read
rather recently
and i want to imbibe more
more cultures
more languages
more experiences
because—
and here it is
the point i was trying to make—
i think
to be a better poet
you must have experiences
life experiences
living
breathing
interacting with people
experiencing all this world has to offer
this universe
and so
in conclusion
i guess i should go
live
more?
)

August 26, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it’s hard
to just life your life
when you look at everything
through the eyes of
an external narrator

when i just want to
have the experience of
surprise
say
or even sadness and grief,
my brain fills with the descriptors:
“their eyes widen in surprise”
“tears leak down their cheek, while they ponder
a long life well lived”
or even
“the pang of depression had lessened, but the grip was still tight
on their heart,
shoving it down
towards the depths of their insides
causing a pain
they didn’t even know
was possible”

do you see?
i’m frustrated with my own experience
because i’m constantly trying to describe it
for others
for my own narrative structure
to get the external markers just so
for the script/film adaptation, too
and i find myself unable to just experience
the experience.

perhaps that’s why i’m drawn to the two extremes
of hobbies-
the one that takes up every single ounce
of mental and physical awareness,
and the one where you do the same thing
over and over and over again
till it because just a background motion,
a memory of the muscles,
a pattern rather than an activity.

and maybe someday i’ll be able to feel things
experience life
without describing it
but for now…
i circus
and i embroider
and i write to try to find my medium
my in-between,
wherever it may be.