what to write
in these morning pages poetries
the cuffs on my sleeves are long
and tight
and the tightness in my chest is just a little bit looser
today
but i don’t wanna jinx it
(i never want to jinx it)
because we’re still waiting to hear back
and i’m still trying to get over my own shit in my own head
and the thread of this poem is slowly fraying
and i’m praying
(though i never pray)
(so much so that i have to look up whether it’s ‘prey’ or ‘pray’)
that someday i’m able to ride this roller coaster of life
inside one of the cars
instead of fishtailing off the last contraption
caught
and desperately catching
at
anything that passes me by
but it’s wizzing past too fast
and i can’t seem to grasp
anything for long enough to remember it by
so my memory is filled with blurry images
and the feeling in my stomach as we rise and free-fall and whip around corners and tumble and zoom and loop-the-loop and…
and…
and the longer i think about this
the more i realize
roller coaster as life is a cliché for a reason
the slow beginning
each year clicking by
taking an eternity
waiting for something to actually start
childhood
the track
set straight
controlled
and just when you think you have your shit figured out
just when you think you’re ready for the freedom
the track continues to box you in
but the pace is uncontrollable
and yes there are moments throughout
that aren’t quite as fast
but none of them are ever as slow
as the beginning
(except, maybe, the end)
and i’m trying not to think that i’ve discovered something crazy new,
that i’ve come upon flame for the first time
that i’m inventing the wheel
or anything like that
but it sure makes sense
and maybe those two cents on life
will help my brain sense of why i constantly feel so out of control
i need to control other parts of my being
with such a tight fist.
writing about writing
August 1, 2021
i don’t know how
i knew it was approaching
the end of july
but somehow didn’t remember
next comes august,
because as soon as i see the date
my stomach turns
and my heart palpitates
and i start worrying about the summer reading i only half finished
and the schedule i need to complete
and the downhill roller coaster snowball out of control truck
that is
School.
even though it was only public school that started in august,
and i haven’t even been enrolled in a school for eight and a half years,
there’s a trauma that’s associated with
the educational system here
and it teaches us more
about how to be uncomplaining drone workers
than anything critical thinking
enjoyment of learning
sort of thing
and any amount of years of higher education
won’t help us recover
from 12+ years
of…that…
and i do call it a trauma,
though nothing about it was grossly traumatic,
because if your body reacts to a thing as a trauma
it is.
~~~
don’t know if i want to be so dramatic as to post that
implication and bias and only a half-way understanding of how our american educational system was actually built
but i do believe my therapist when she tells me that if something feels like trauma in your body, it is,
because our bodies often know more about what’s happening than our brains
which is why sometimes it’s an easy coping mechanism
to divide ourselves from our physical selves
to avoid that confrontation, that knowing,
in order to simply survive one day, one hour, one minute, one second at a time…
~~~
i would watch a movie/tv show
about a villain
who truly believes they’re the hero
and everyone around them insists they are,
they have state of the art gadgets and mentors
[which my autocorrect changed to monsters]
telling them where to fight, and whom,
and they go about their time fully believes they are doing good,
for a solid 7-8 years they feel they’ve done such good
and then, for whatever reason, they have all their gadgets and things taken away,
as well as a fair amount of their people,
but with less people insisting on their heroism,
and more interaction with the world as it really is,
they start to suspect they’ve been the villain all along,
and they get into an artistic expression as a form of therapy
to understand the awful things they’ve done
and they begin to represent the people they’ve hurt
in said artistic endeavor
as a healing,
and though they don’t expect their own personal healing will help the families of those they’re representing,
they try to raise money
(as they are still in the public eye)
to help those families.
a roller coaster ride of a hero/villain/citizen story
a true story of redemption
a cautionary tale of only listening to those on your side
(and of blindly going into the ‘family business’)
and obviously not inspired by any real person or story in our country or society
at all.
July 29, 2021
switching around apps
to write these morning poems
everything in flux
everything about to happen
and yet
(and yet)
there are still so many mundane days to have
before the just before
July 28, 2021
i’d like
for my poetry
(and my acting, similarly,)
to open up the secret parts of me,
those parts that no one [sometimes not even me] sees
and bring honesty and truth and a dash of the full, elaborate
condition
of humanity
out into the forefront of all our minds
but i find
that i hide behind
humor
and perfectionism
and overthinking
and intellectualism
(but aren’t those a part of me, too?)
how can i find the true me
if it takes a bomb to push through?
that day
in class
when i accessed
what i’ve been trying to for so long,
it wasn’t a push or a force or a bomb
it was a steady ease into the presentness of my body
my mind felt connected,
continually,
for the first time in (give or take) an eternity
so maybe that should be my aim
the gentle
allowance
of self
into my poetry
but how to do that?
[breathe?]
July 25, 2021
for so long
i was the kind of person
who woke up every morning
and stretched for fifteen minutes.
i think i needed it, at that time,
so much loss and change and variability,
and i had a goal and i achieved it;
within the year (maybe within six months)
i could:
touch my toes,
drop into full splits,
left, right, and center,
and i could arch my back
backwards
and touch the floor on the other side.
and yes, i was younger
and limberer
(though i certainly didn’t feel that way
when i started)
but after high school,
i entered college
with roommates
and depression
and a year away
and figuring out my life
and another college
and too many classes/assignments/rehearsals
to fit in 24 hours,
and the diligence
of stretching every morning
slipped away…
and then meeting my to-be spouse
and graduation
living/moving around the midwest
Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Madison,
eventually ending up in our own home
and still i didn’t have a morning routine
akin to that which helped me through high school
nothing for my body
nothing for my mind
nothing for my soul
(but i was fulfilled, body, mind, and soul, in other ways;
discovering circus,
meeting my people,
having my kip with me through it all).
and when we moved to New York,
the spouse and i created a new tradition,
a new morning routine,
to make our lives a little more centered
as we entered our busy days.
and that habit ebbed and flowed,
adjusting for our own needs,
adjusting for the start of a global pandemic,
adjusting for the stressors and fears that accompany
life
in a ‘new normal’
kind of situation,
and we’ve been at this
morning pages
for a year and a half now,
and the poetry version
i’ve kept going
for a little over
one hundred days
and this has been paramount
to my emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health,
i’ve felt more connected to my own thoughts
(or awareness that i’m not)
for the first time since i was a small child
but my body still begs for consistency
and my muscle flexibility
hasn’t been touched in weeks
and there’s no habit i have that helps…
but that’s how i started
a decade and a half ago,
a feeling of need,
of desire,
of a goal i wanted to accomplish,
and i set my mind to do it
so i did.
and i know it won’t be as quick
(and i have more knowledge now
of all bodies and their different needs)
so maybe
now
i can find a time
an activity
a physically centering habit
to help me as we adjust
for new changes,
healthier spaces,
and connect body/mind/spirit
in one.
July 23, 2021
i can’t seem to make my fingers type,
my brain to process,
my mind to wake up,
my body to…do anything but crave coffee.
i passed the 100th day of writing daily poetry
and of course i forgot all about it
in favor of writing a poem that was relatively mundane,
but also full of hope and potential and change
and, ultimately, relatability.
i assumed i’d write about the 100 days
(and subsequent forgotten anniversary)
the following day,
the one hundred and first day,
look back on the full hundred days,
look forward towards two hundred and sixty four more
but Louka needed us
badly
yesterday
so we were with her,
and my only poem was an invocation
a hope
that everything would be okay.
while it’s not perfectly okay now,
it’s not terrible.
still scary
for all of us,
but it’s not a stroke,
it doesn’t seem neurological,
and we’ll continue sleeping on the couch next to her
and carrying her up and down our fourth floor Brooklyn walk-up
for as long as we all need.
because
our dog
is the goodest dog,
she is,
and we would do anything and everything for her,
including buying a house.
July 21, 2021
decisions
preparing
discussions
excitement?
maybe?
~~~
all these silly
vague
hints
peek into my world
but don’t see
fully
~~~
do i write today?
do i post today?
do i wait today?
who knows?
(certainly not i)
July 19, 2021
the morning
early morning
just woken up morning
was spent crafting
a thought
a poem
a contemplation
about acting
about anxiety
about newfound epiphanies in my head
but the regular
morning pages
morning poems
morning contemplation
meditation
time
was spent arranging
and planning
and father-talking
which is all okay
but suffice it to say
i’m a little off my poetry game
now.
July 16, 2021
a kip home
a home for kips
the kippiest house to ever house a kip
but where/what/how is it?
~~~
do i feel better
(je me sens plus bien)
when i write in french
(quand j’écris en français)
because i don’t have to think as deeply?
(parce que je ne dois pas penser que profondément?)
–> est-ce que je me sens mieux quand j’écris en français parce que je n’ai pas à réfléchir aussi profondément?
~~~
someday
(maybe someday soon?)
i’ll get to create
the secret garden
of my dreams
July 14, 2021
once again
my frantic creativity
is failing me
this morning page time
and i know i have things i wanted to write about
and i know i have things i needed to write about
and i know i have things i could be writing about
but the sky feels grey, not blue
and the world seems tipped slightly askew
and i can’t conceive of how long this off-ness will last
(nor if it’s truly a case of of perception,
or if it could simply be a time of transition
asleep to awake
un-caffeinated to caffeinated
cat-lap-less to cat-lap-full
[and let me tell you, those claws in my legs sure helped me wake a little more])
so i suppose i’ll keep writing.
hoping things start making more sense,
hoping the coffee soaks its way to my veins,
pet this cat until my fingers find more words to write
(and forgive her when her affectionate head bumps a few letters out of place)
because this is my life;
i made it.
mine.
