Dear Self

Dear Self,

If you are going to survive in this world you need to possess a sense of self which supports its own evolution. You are not a definition in a text book. You are not a checklist. You are not limited by the opinions of others. You are dynamic. Organic. Once in a lifetime. 

Do you really want to let your pride prevent you from being happy? Is being right really that important? Is maintaining a certain image more important than the freedom that comes through genuine acts of self-expression? Do you really need affirmation for what your heart knows to be the truth? Would you rather spend your life telling beautiful lies to a room full of critical strangers or would you rather live a beautiful life rubbed raw by the naked truth? I know that sometimes it hurts having a heart but know this a heart is never a cage when open. So if someone or something intrigues you explore it if you can.

If you have to be something, be weird. Be you. Not everyone is going to read your story. Not everyone that you invite into your life is going to accept the invitation. Some people might even question your motives but as long as you know that your intentions were good, then there is nothing to fear in it. There are going to be plenty of people who simply don’t get you. That’s okay. You are no less you, for a misunderstanding. You are no less you in the face of rejection. Never be ashamed of yourself for feeling. Love lest of all. Love is too beautiful to fill with doubt.

I want to remind you of a story. For most people this would be an embarrassing story but not for you. This story marks a pivotal moment in your emotional development. In the 6th grade you fell in love for the first time. There you were sitting across from your crush for some dreaded/not so dreaded group work laughing and chatting like it was no big deal. Sometimes even shy girls have days where they lose themselves in the moment. You were laughing when it happened but not loud enough. You farted and everyone heard it. Now you could have denied it, you could have run crying out of the classroom, you could have passed along the blame, you could have froze but no. You looked that boy straight in the face and you said “That was me. I farted.” And then you busted out laughing. Not that self-conscious laughter either but deep belly laughter. Everyone in group laughed. Not at you but with you and just like that it was forgotten and never mentioned again by your classmates. Your crush though was pretty impressed. There is something liberating about owning yourself. You see relationships come and go. But you have to live with yourself day in and day out. Spiritually. Emotionally. Physically. What hurts isn’t peer rejection. It is rejection of the self. So the next time someone takes a hard pass remember that I still have your back.

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Dear Self

I know I am stating the obvious here but you are impatient and in your impatience clumsy. You live life in two modes like the shadows at your heels will overtake you if you stop to catch your breath/as if you were already suffocating inside those shadows. There is a middle ground. Make friends with your shadows. As far as shadows go, they are alright. Now that you are no longer locked in survival mode you want to make up for lost time, to live your life according to your own principles, to pursue your dreams organically and with abandon. I get that. I respect that. A few things to keep in mind on your quest for a more fulfilling/well-rounded life. There is one relationship which is by its very nature is eternal and that’s the relationship you have with yourself. You have to nurture that relationship because all other relationships are built upon that foundation. Getting to know yourself is a lifelong process. So at the risk of sounding insane listen to the voices inside your head. Change is inevitable. The pauses count. The pauses we take give us time to recover, build, and grow. They are critical to the journey. A pause can bring with it much needed perspective and inspiration. Pace yourself. At the end of the day success is a fleeting thing. Our life isn’t composed of millions of big moments crammed together but of millions of seemingly inconsequential moments with intermittent flashes of genius. Enjoy those seemingly inconsequential moments. Do something with your life that makes the drudgery of day to day existence mean something because much of life is just putting one foot in front of another over and over again whatever the weather. By weather I don’t just mean what is going on outside either. Our emotions too are like weather. They come and go. Every state of our being is vital to the miracle that is our lives. Be happy. Be sad. Be angry. Be ecstatic. Be anything at all. Feel even if it hurts sometimes and it’s going to hurt sometimes.

Wordle #288A

Who will bleed for my words,
for my dreadful inclinations?
No one for I would ask neither
violence nor charity.
Will the planets align just so,
a jinx on my interstellar passage?
No I move as my spirit moves me, I go
wherever there is a need for growth.
–
Ours is not a cult but an affinity.
We wear feathered headdresses,
in reverence for our Avian progenitor
and white silk tunics slit to the hip
that we may dance without impediment.
We seek a life beyond shallow pageantry,
we seek the truth as it arises
within each heartbeat.
–
There is no news here,
not so much as a sigh
for we are peace-seekers.
The goddess teaches us love,
the goddess teaches us
to decide for ourselves.
All doctrine, whatever its original intent,
leads to hypocrisy and bloodshed.
Be only as you are intended
for there is no more thoughtful gift.

Photo Challenge #89 and Wordle #227

image by Anne Worner “Peace” CC BY-SA 2.0

The river has wings
though she prefers
to stay inside her respective lanes
for fear that flight might
compromise her volatile contents.
–
My world weighs about 8 oz
but within her I am free.
The naked, red plains
somersault in moments of clarity,
Moments that cannot be extracted
from the mania of passing crowds.
–
I was not ready for my first failure
and every one that follows has a newness
about it that defies explanation, like love.
Peace requires dissent but violence
and paranoia are capable only of illusion.
If you want something, you have to accept
the challenge with every stalk
of your indispensable, irreplaceable being.

Wordle #84 and 2 Lies and 1 Truth and Childhood Favorite

My heart grows like acanthus

Vertical, enduring, wild even in captivity.

I brush my auburn hair back

And lift my head high.

My smile is a flare,

My tumultuous eyes

Two rival seas pawing the horizon.

The sun may shine brighter

But unlike the sun I do not elapse

Behind the might of transitory nimbus.

I am strong and haunted

Just as a woman ought to be.

–

A dollhouse is no haven,

The universe is my home

And nothing less could contain me,

For I have so many roles.

We are all accountable

For the state of our lives,

No one else can rescue or fix

For we are not broken,

Imperfect yes but in those birthmarks

Our sacred power.

I am precisely as intended

Though some may regard me as loathsome,

Though some may fear my will.

I am myself. I am a woman.

*

I was given the challenge to write an empowerment poem. This was tough, I am sitting here listening to Maya Angelou now she knows how to write an empowerment poem!

I am combining two challenges in a simple way “2 lies and 1 truth” and “Your Childhood Favorite” Leave your guesses in the comments =)

1. My favorite childhood toy was a My Little Pony named Rosebud. She was light yellow with light pink hair and light pink eyes. I watched My Little Ponies everyday as a child and collected them. In fact I still have a sizable collection which I have since passed on to my own daughter.

2. My favorite childhood toy wasn’t so much as a toy rather it was a small music box given to me by my mom on my birthday. I loved music as a kid and it was a way to distract myself from the terrible things happening around me. The music box is now in the drawer by my bed.

3. My favorite childhood toy was a stuffed bunny my grandmother gave me when I was born. Originally the bunny had a white dress and held a carrot but those were lost and so I came to think of the bunny as male. My uncle ripped off one of the legs and my grandma sewed it back with heavy black threads. I still have the bunny in a box where I keep treasured items.

Prompt #6 “Life Changes”

It takes bravery

To be moonstruck in daylight

To sift through the veils

For your rudimentary face

For your strange, imperfect heart

And to offer them

With orts of conversation

To those who dare not join you.

B&P’s Shadorma & Beyond – Free Verse

Sabin Balasa. Freedom in the Aquarium, n.d. WikiArt

Freedom is a muse

Diabolically preening

Her multitudinous veils.

I sit sullen by the water’s laughing edge

Wringing my heart

As if it were a bundle of wet hair,

Each drop an echoing tome.

–

There is very little

An opinion can inform.

I am so much more and so often less.

The only freedom

Left a man after the streets

Have been laid is his curiosity

And I’ve a mind for misdirection.

–

I kind of cheated on this because I decided to have 2 stanzas but they can be seen individually

Wordle #145 (Audio)

Audio here

I juggle my ferocity,

The writing which facilitates

And tames my delirium.

Scraps of aspect sent,

Belligerent in foreign countries

But familiar when embraced.

–

I haven’t the time

For my human failings,

For tyrants who reach

Into my enormity

And underestimate my plans.

I haven’t time for the mask,

For the strands of elastic

Which sustain a more prosaic state.

–

A discretion long

Past scolding

I know who I am

And what it means

To be imperfect in perfect bliss.

I may not be the paradigm

Of my virtue, likely nothing,

But it is my nothingness to fill.

–

I fill myself with alphabets,

And the fragments of bones

Sucked to vacancy.

I am transparent, inarticulate,

A disease without remission.

–

I haven’t done audio for a while but as I am home alone I thought why not. The sinus infection may be affecting my voice at least I think I sound more nasal than usual (my ear is also blocked up so it’s hard to say).

 

 

 

 

Design

I circle the room three times

I would sleep but there is never

Sufficient reason.

Who would shoulder my burden?

The queer exasperated notes

That hitch in my throat

As if it were a sieve.

I gift riddles wherever I go.

 

An open mouth attracts scavengers

And I’ve died more times

Than there are stars to grieve.

The sky ought to be blank

But it never is, however, thick

The vestments sewn

To abdicate its features.

 

I am beautiful

The universe created me

And I could not be otherwise.

Even a mistake can provide

Sufficient impetus

For the evolutions that follow.

Who could look at me

And say that I am not as intended

When they are not even

Conscious of their own designs?

Source

Misery that you are,

I cannot occupy your flesh

The crumbs that you have laid

Are an obstruction of passage

I will not live in the archetype

That you have blessed,

In the multi-socketed sea

Of sodium and sulfuric ash

Within a hell not wrought

By my own misconceptions.

If I must suffer better

That I relish the source.

*

A short one high physical pain day