June 22, 2023

i sit here
at my keyboard
wishing to hold the solstice
in higher regard
wanting a celebration
a consistent practice
an honoring of some kind

and i know,
i know,
that i have the ability to do so–
i have the calendar
and adult wherewithal
and resources
to make this happen–
but i feel trapped
by the depression
that anticipates
the worst
of time flowing by
instead of celebrating
our earth still turning
my lungs still breathing
our days still day-ing
until they
no longer
do

August 21, 2022

words melt in my mind
from time to time
thinking them in dusk
in witching hour wants
and needing to write them out
but feeling like that would
break the spell
to spell out too much
to identify in analytic hours
so they simply
melt
become part of me
where they always were
to begin with
it seems

and maybe that’s the lesson
that’s to be earned and learned:
the words neither exist outside of me
nor are fully lost internally
they’re always there with me
as is my power
my connection
my rhythm and rhyme scheme and
spirituality
it just takes a little bit longer for myself
to see.

for where are these words and patterns
and rhymes and smatterings
of slammings be coming from
if not
inside?

August 20, 2022

spirituality is getting
a doctorate
in yourself

but it’s emotional
it’s trust
it’s gut feelings and it’s hard choices
it’s things you can’t study and memorize and analyze
it’s just you and faith
faith in self
faith in humanity
faith in the earth/universe/the bigger whatever

and how can i write
poem after poem after poem
(the emotional writing craft)
but not have gotten any closer
to the self
i keep
in my
gut
?

January 8, 2022

too tired to write anything
of substance
too word-play-y
to not,
stuck in a limbo
of will i won’t i
(a new take on ‘will they won’t they’)
(get it, cuz i’m nonbinary and use they/them pronouns)

listening to music from the
‘Roaring 20’s’
so what are we?
‘The Coughing 20’s’?
‘The Dying 20’s’?
‘The Denying and Closing our Eyes and Covering our Ears and Screaming “[B]LA[B]LA[B]LA”
Over All the Signs
and Words of Learned Folks
and Science
20’s’?

i wish i had the compassion of
Amanda Gorman
the faith in people of
Anne Frank
the calmness and knowledge and belief
of so many
but i am caught between
i want to see the good
and
i can only see the bad
played
over
and
over
and
over
again
behind my eyelids
every time they close
(and most of the time while they’re open,
too)

i know i’m doing little
to halt/hold/stop the division
of one side
‘gainst the other,
but it’s hard to listen to folks
who’d never listen to me
were i to show them my true self,
who argue that folks like me
are a disease unto society
and deserve the worst of death.
if you can’t look at me like a human
then why should i listen to you
like your opinions have any say
in my living my own life
in my own honest way

(maybe this is why
it’s so important
to look inwards
for spirituality
as opposed to outwards)

but this poem
is kind of a mess,
but it is morning
so i can mull through
my thoughts of the day approaching
and get them all out of my fingertips
and onto this blank page/document/screen
for all to see
(or at least the six of you who usually read)
(hi, by the way)
and the poem doesn’t ~need~ to mean anything
it can just be,
a product of my brain,
my overthinking-
obsessive compulsive tendency-
pessimist in the body of an optimist-
-brain,
and leave it
for whomever may need it
(which might just be me
needing to get it out
in order to write
other things)

December 23, 2021

‘witch adjacent’
[my]spirituality;
a desire to be certain
[i want to believe]
too suspicious/agnostic/skeptical for my own damn good

but i’m
curious…

and yet

spirituality
is having a phd level knowledge
in onesself

..could that be why i’m so resistant?