July 6, 2024

Three Musings on Summer Thunderstorms:

the sky darkens to post-sunset dusky grey
and a lightning bolt passes by my window
the rumble of thunder
the stream of rain
and this summer storm is at it again

[i love this weather]

~~~

thunderstorms make me smile
interrupting the daily toil
of sunrise and shine and set and night
darkening a summer morning
or lightning-flash-brightening
midnight pitch black,
sounds escaping our atmosphere —
booms and cracks and the smacks of hard raindrops
cleansing the air
feeding the ground
offering greener hues when the showers subside
and summertime just isn’t summer
without

~~~

drench me in rain
fill my ears with thunderclaps
and my eyes with bright bolts of lightning

let me taste a summer storm
and offer my nose the delightful scent
of petrichor

as the pressure changes
and my heart grows
and i know
i’m present and whole.

July 5, 2024

kip drumming
kip playing piano
the puppy playing
the cat running away
and me humming/singing/writing
maybe lyrics
maybe poetry
maybe something to feel less numb
to this world and what it has already become

July 3, 2024

i’m careful
too careful
i know what could happen
[to anyone, not just to me]
and i work around those possibilities
those eventualities
but i never account for the time it takes
to account for all these things

i think i’ll be gone one hundred times over
before i live out all the lives i
planned for

July 1, 2024

flying
flying
flying
all aerial
is flying
all aerial
is playing
but
the high/dynamic kind
of flying trapeze
of cloud swing
especially
is playful
and feels like true
flight
to me

June 30, 2024

i suppose i could/should write a poem
about this past pride month
and all its craziness
and what it’s meant to me…

but i think i need to absorb it
and put it to bed
[or at least let it nap]
before either of us are ready
to assess how i feel
about how this hectic
time of rainbows and shows
and running around and barely breathing
and nervousness and new experiences
and wholesome friendships
went

so…
one of these days
when it’s no longer june
i’ll write about it

June 29, 2024

wounds
from circus
are worse than bruises
because they are usually burns
and they continue to make me squirm
in showers to clean them
and days afterwards
if they need band-aids
and then, finally, when they’ve stopped looking like
peeled flesh
and grossness,
and the healing process has set well in
the itch
is all-consuming
and unimaginably annoying
and because i usually never get them this bad
i can forget this stage
but right now
this healing thing on my ankle
is all my conscious can think about
and how much i want to scratch my whole skin off
but then the process would just start
all over again…

June 28, 2024

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]

June 27, 2024

mutual aid
mutual companionship
community
and us keeping us safe

i can listen and adopt and absorb these ideals,
but being raised in middle class white america
means my default is to
the individualistic/
pull oneself up by their bootstraps/
bullshit this country forcefeeds us

even when i don’t want to believe

[brainwashing is a powerful thing]