It has been a rough patch of living as of late, Mercury is about to complete her (damned) retrograde, which has left in its path tiny piles of destruction. I awoke this morning feeling that - while everything on the surface was fine - the world was somehow askew. I fumbled with my notebook, unable to find words. My cup of morning tea remained untouched, and my body refused to contort itself to any shape vaguely resembling a downward-facing dog. A bust, it was heading to be a bust of a morning - which, of course, runs the risk of evolving into a bust of a day. And that is not what I am after. I decided, hesitantly, that what I needed was a change in perspective. To shift not what I was looking at but rather the direction from which I was seeing it.
2 Comments
Wow,
Left longing. Hanging, somehow. By a thread. Dangling, It's terrifying: How far the ground, How quiet the light How faint is my breathing How dark is the night. Endless, this pounding In the depths of my chest Panic, rising. Close my eyes. Is this dying? Flashing, Everything, nonsensical, Before my face. Reaching for hands That do not exist. I might faint. I never do. These days lay Heavy like anvils. Falling like an angel, Just breathe. Release your feet. The world, fast approaching, Is not a fate that you can beat. This is an older piece of writing that I rediscovered on my old (currently unused) blog, When the Bird Flies. It's just very fitting in my life right now, so I want to share it here. Peace and love <3
What I felt in that moment was stronger than anything I had felt before and everything that I have felt since. It began, packed densely as a star about to burst, in a tiny spot behind my navel. But it carried like wildfire through my body and into my hair, which stood on end. How alive it made me feel to feel anything so deeply. In that moment, there was nothing else, no questions lingered. I was you, and we were truth, and we were truly living life in the way the powers at be intended us to. And it felt like magic, for everything to be so right. It was intoxicating. Divinity was wrapping its comforting arms around us. I could finally breathe with ease. But moments are just that, and of course they pass. Time has its way, and as it carries on, so do we. With only a memory, one that seems to fade with increasing speed. Until that feeling, that in the moment was so strong, becomes nothing more than a whisper. Like a word on the tips of our tongues, we can’t quite place it. But it was there, we know that it was, that it existed. Didn’t it? I could have sworn the gods reached down and touched us, that the earth shook. But now I’m not even sure that you were real. Or that I was, for that matter. In this time, in this place, it’s hard for me to picture your face. Let alone remember what it felt like to be loved by you. Maybe it’s a case of my brain protecting me, selective memory. So that I’m not left here longing for something I can never have again. Or maybe it was nothing, and I was a fool to think otherwise. This is a poem of sorts that I wrote to the theme of compassion. The Warriors spent an evening discussing the topic with the aim of writing poetry in collaboration with an organization called Petals of Compassion, which is raising money to rebuild homes in earthquake-struck Nepal. Check out their website for more information on the project or to get involved!
The apartment had been empty, except for Lucy, for so long that she had lost track of the months. She sat watching the light rise through the bedroom window and set over the kitchen sink for days at a time, no sleeping. She couldn't bother trying to stomach the last packet of crackers lying just outside her reach on the hardwood floor. Her hunger had left her not long after Thomas and their little boy.
Yay, my favorite! I love the grab bag storyboard. Arguably my best of the night, though I am so grateful for the creative energy in that room and all of the art that it inspired. Thanks, Warriors, for an awesome meeting! Now, here's my storyboard using the following 10 words: jaundiced - frank - beetle - breathe - front - last - great - labor - time - free "Somewhere deep the Amazon ... two beetles were about to experience a great challenge ...." "Ahhhhhhh!" "Anita! What is it?!" "The birth of their first batch of eggs ..." "It's time, Frank! It's time! I'm in labor!" "Just breathe! I'm coming, baby!" "Frank climbed as fast as he could, only to arrive as the last of their dozens of eggs was laid onto Anita's leaf...in front of their father's worried eyes." "They gasped to see that all the eggs were jaundiced and bad .... destined for demise."
"My dear, they are dying ..." "It can't be ... we are free!" "And they lived happily, childless, for all their days." It makes a noise, different when it's breaking.
A slow hum, almost like a moan. Heavy in my chest there is an aching Every time I glance down at the quiet phone. Just as he came Now he goes, he goes And so I brace myself Again, For the all alone. |
AuthorChicago-born citizen of the globe, rich in the things that really matter. Let's get weird. Categories
All
Archives
January 2019
|