I think this is my list so far:
Kate Chopin
Jack Kerouac
W.E.B. Dubois
Harriet Martineau
Sue Monk Kidd
Nancy Isenberg
John Steinbeck
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Henry David Thoreau
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ernest Hemingway

At this point
It’s a matter of looking in the mirror
Finding the deepest part of your own soul,
Far deeper than the depps of the sea
Less tangible than the ocean floor.
And harnessing it.

Turns out, it’s not about money,

and it’s not about who you know.
Truly, it can be done without any real skill at all.
Like showing up on time for your life.

Sure, you can tell yourself you’re already late
But that’s so predictable, you’ve
Read that story a hundred times over,
Let’s pick something else.

You know what it’s going to take
To end up where you want to be.
So, are you going to do it?
Why not try because if all else fails,
At least you’ll have done what you set out to do.

I wanted to turn off today
because saving the world is exhausting.
It was the same exhaustion that plagued your face last night,
in between spoonfuls from your indistinguishable plastic red cup.

What a privilege to be able to save the world
instead of being the one who needs saving.

I think that's what drives me to leave,
the feeling that, no matter where I turn,
comfort means ignorance, willfully blind.

I don't know if it'll be any different anywhere else,
but what if he never explored the Giverny?
We would be lost without the Water Lillies.

So it seems
Any new space that is taken up
New voice spoken louder than before
Comes at the cost of you.
More than ever,
You feel alone
With only the castaways and stranded
to keep you company.

Instead, stand with us
Let us be your partners.
For you too, your sweet blue eyes,
Your charming ways,
Those too are not to be taken advantage of.

My space does not mean less for you
My voice does not mean your silence
Together, we can stand united
For a better, more equal land to roam.

Just tuned up enough
to tune in.

I know there’s magic in you
I knew first time we met.
You’ve always held me tight,
At times, something I regret.
But in the end it's you
You’ve always been the one,
To love me when I can’t be
and lift me like the sun.
I barely speak your language
Our love can be the gun
To shoot you with the sadness
Like a needle, take the plunge.
Dive deeper to the bottom,
I’ll be with you the whole time.
Don’t know if it’s darkness, light, or love,
Either way we’re going blind.

The smoked expanded into the wind like water color,
Rolling as it disappeared into the moon.
“Nothing is permanent”
Your voice whimsical and airy in my memory now.
“Even when it feels like it,
Even if you lay down roots and start a family.
You can always change,
You are free to be whomever you want.”
Your words spoke to me last night, my dear friend.
And reminded me.
So, I close my eyes and jump.

It’s a rose tinted nightmare now,
Dripping with fictional residue.
I don’t know how I ended up there,
Though I remember my soda perfectly.
The glass bottle gleamed in the sun light,
Thick smoke wrapped its way around my whole
And provided a freedom, cut off from reality.

I know you as a stranger
I know me as a stranger
But it didn’t matter at the time.
I needed the kind of release you can get
Only with a stranger,
No context
No future
Just that moment.

Sadness flowed down my cheek,
My anonymity was stripped away in an instant.
Props held the weight of my world,
Shifting, searching,
I tried to stay in the room.

I don’t think I’ll ever return
Though I know sadness will.
Because I took away your softness
I unloaded my weight onto you without permission
And for that, I am truly sorry.

I have jumped off
Ran in the rain
Took a big breath
Talked through the pain

I’ve sat on the beach
Purchased a home
Said nothing at all
At times felt alone

You’ve been by my side
Asked me to leap
We’ve been high in the clouds
And in water so deep

I don’t know if I would
Have pushed myself there
I take a big breath
And fly through the air

Your hands always close
Your comfort is round
I’ve never been so happy
When my feet leave the ground

I was told once the brain is our biggest enemy,
Thinking; the down fall of a species.
At the time
I couldn’t have disagreed more.
For the brain, as I thought, was what makes us feel,
See, understand, move.
But then I felt it
Certain and instant
The sound escaped my mouth
Without hesitation, without any thought what so ever
Instinctual and unrefined.
It was a pain I’ve felt emotionally,
Tried to describe though poetry,
Brought to a physical reality,
Throbbing with tangibility.
The welt began to grow
the brain took back it’s rein
leaving me with only a mocking pretense of black and yellow stripes

And a feeling
With which too over think.

Yesterday you began to share with me
Quick shrieks from their tapping shoes shouted as a slight reminder we were in the real though this recollection is dripping   In lethargy.
Your chip began to shimmer in the dimmed, shared air
Your pain and strength barreling against one another for a place to burn in your eyes
I saw it then
Different than any other time I had seen it before
Softer
Quieter, yet somehow more powerful than ever.
I understood it then.
We are the juxtaposition,
The cool, supple texture from the rawness mocking our conversation.
You fought to be here and ****** to hell with the rest.

When I was walking in
I couldn’t tell if falling
Out of the sky
Was snow or ash
It seemed logical that
The small bits
Slowly flaking through the air
As if both heavy and weightless
Would be snow.
But given the circumstances
Blood still wet on the classroom floor,
Ash seems more appropriate

Tiny little reminders
Clogging my confidence
Defining my self

When the moon first met the stars,
Did she question
Whether or not
The
Amount
Of
Stars
Surrounding
Made her brighter?

make sure nothing is left outside of its boundaries,
which are both restrictive and comforting
like the love of a mother.

Add a little weight so that it is not only concrete in its existence
but its understandable
its executable
its a nice little pill we can all swallow and digest
a little burn in the stomach means that it’s really working

it is important all air pockets are filled in the box
we want no space to wander.
fill it with war
fill it with peace
the only box the two could ever coexist

When it’s totally full,
close the lid quickly
the longer the box is closed
the sooner you can put it away and reminisce.

store it away so that you can find it in twenty years and remember the feeling
the burn in your belly
the slight rose colored memories
when you wipe the dust of the box
it’s easy to remember what it all was
because the aged letters still read
the word for it all
“love”

The dance is beautiful
The rhythm of the universe pulses throughout
Intertwined with the sun and the moon and the stars
It is slow and elegant, without measure but limitless
The growth lives in a place intangible to the physical realities’
One in which dreams go to bathe in lush admiration and the whimsicality of existence
The  growth can be dangerous but worth the bloom
The slow movement like a ballerina with a lover
It is us, both existing and not
Dependent and singular
But it is the growth that we all depend
For the flower is beautiful.

It was like a scary dream
Childish fear brought to the surface,
Flush faced, wide eyed, the unfair advantage, still yet smoking and dripping in evidential residue.

The river singing it’s roaring song
Still the same.
Up above, the birds still perched,
Viewing the slaughter from above, with
A sort of grateful unexceptionalism.

How the world could continue
While this occurs, answered
only with boredom and indifference.

And when the flies began to gather,
The foresting neighbors began to collect, only then was left,
The fur still warm.

Horns the size of trees, yet
Gentle and innocent like a child’s swing.
Now sentenced to remain in the limbo, the
air, neither moving forwards or back,
then gone.

Only the body remains,
Unforeseen potential wasted with your intent.

I let go of my breath right after
Hadn’t even realized I was holding it
It mattered like it mattered what you wore to the first day of school
At the same time
It was already done and just because it didn’t get excepted didn’t mean it wasn’t a success
I submitted it
Already put it out there
Everything else was hearsay

I’ve always known it was the water that connects us
Not just the waves, soothing, rolling
Not just the community built within,
Not just the rain falling quietly in the thick breeze of the Florida afternoon
But in all of it
Even the new water
Frozen and pristine and soft
the kind that surrounds us now.
You are always with me,
No matter where I go,
Seemingly intertwined with my existence
But I have always been afraid to write about my ocean
Because with the written word
I am compelled to search through all of it
The beautiful coral that lies just underneath the surface
And the hidden depth that’s a secret to most
For how can I express my love for you
If you are but an ocean partially explored
The fear is cold
Unspoken
understood
While great revelation might be a few written lines away
Scribbled down with a simultaneous effortlessness and unrefined stimulation
I am afraid that like a snow flake,
While I continue to explore you my love
You will but melt away in my palm

All at once
They rush ahead
simultaneously graceful and sinister as their piercing emerald movement bellowed below
A warmed sense of urgency and rage pulse through them
It is not safe,
Out here or up there

The smell of cheap coffee reminds me of you
Reminds me of your grit
Your rough hands
It reminds me of how delicate you are
How guarded and misunderstood you have become
The glass of the French press still catches the light similarly
I think of you when I see an old car, when I hear an engine rev
You’re everywhere and no where at the same time

Where do you go
In your mind hole
When you slip Into the oblivion
Thick like the frozen mist that surrounds our mockingly warm entity

I’m kneeling at the alter,
The black cloth covering my face moves passively as I breathe in through my nose and quietly out my mouth.
The breathe of a yogi but out of context, out of noise, just trying to be there, for you, in that moment.
The pain over takes your body constantly, it has seeped into your blood and is throughout your existence now.
Empathy is where I stand, comfort is what I try to be. Warm, inviting, beautiful, like the wind in the trees of the spring mountain air.
But time passes, my head still bowed, in silent hope disguised as a prayer.
How long can we remain on our knees, they too grow tired of the kneeling.
And just outside, past the soft pallet of the stain glassed Windows, there is laughter.
I reach for your hand silently, look hopefully from you to the outside world.
Let us go enjoy the laughter, the breeze, we shall drink the lemonade and it shall quench our thirst.
But you are not yet ready to leave, your knees have taken all the kneeling they can, but your body is too weak to move.
How long before I go outside alone.