I’m terrified
Of loving more;
So I never
Take the tag
Off my relationships
In case
I have to return them.
As if love was a possession.

If you can love this mess
This hot, sticky mess
That listens to Noah Kahan
And still cries
Even though I’ve heard these words
Over
And
Over,
Tell me yours
Once again
So I can fall in love with you-
If you can
Fall in love with this mess

I feel
A tender sorrow
For my younger self.
I wish I could tell her
That this heartbreak
Is not a mistake
And that there will
Come a day when
She will feel lighter.  

I wish I could hold her
In my arms
That are strengthened
By hindsight;
And rock her to sleep
Like my mother
Should have done.

I'd like to
Write a poem about you;

It's the first I've written in months-

But I don't know where to start;

Perhaps I'll start
With how I melted
When I lay on your chest
And listened to your soul-

Perhaps I'll  start
With how you remind me
Of a love I once lost.

How do I explain
That you used to
Make me feel
Like my inner child
Was being held?

How do I explain
This emptiness
Now that you’re gone?

Heartbreak feels
Like treading barefoot
On hot coal;
As it burns,
I can’t help but remember
This pain
Felt with lovers before.

And I am left wondering;
How many times
Can a heart be split
In two?

I want to say
I love you
I want to say
I hate you;
I want to say
I’m sorry
I want you
To apologise;
I want to explain
And I want
To remain silent;
I want to regret
And I want to
Believe
it all happens
For a reason;
I want to
Go back in time
And I look forward
To better days;
I want
A lot
And that’s
Okay.

I’ve always been a bad sleeper;
In fact
When I was a little girl
And I’d finally had enough
Of wrestling thoughts
and sticky sheets,
I’d tiptoe across quiet hallways
With sleepless eyes
To find solace in another couch or bed,
As if heartbreak
could be left behind
Like tear drops on pillows.

-LMJ.

Today I'll dare
To dream of better days;

Today I'll be bold enough
To believe the future is a better place;

Today I'll dare to believe
That the stranger in front of me,
Gleaming from ear to ear,
Is me in times to come.

Today I'll give them a smile
To show them how far they've come
And today they'll smile back
To remind me this isn't the end

As I meditate in prayer
I realize heaven
Is the golden spaces
Between thoughts

Presence is a form of prayer;
Instead of praying that all will be well,
Know that all is well;
Instead of praying that the future will bring happiness,
Know that there is happiness now.
Instead of praying for perfection;
Know that right now everything is in place.

Presence is a form of prayer;
Know within you that this moment
Is carved by the divine.

I am trapped in a crystal lattice
Of my own emotions-
The prickling reality
Of my anxious thoughts
Are keeping me from moving,
Breathing and knowing truth-
If only pure consciousness
Could dissolve
Such tortuous bonds,
I would  know freedom from myself
Once more

Life flows in an endless stream of moments;
Like a river it has always trickled on with ease.
But for while, an obstacle has been in its path;
Sending streams of fate into parallel universes.
Soon when the path is clear once more
The stream of movement will continue;
This time, as a force to be reckoned with.

My woman,
Take back your strength,
For it is not something
You have to discover,
But something
You have always been entitled to.

My woman,
You once housed all power,
So take back your strength.

When it rains
And I am happy
I know I am at peace.
When it rains
And I am not
I know storms are brewing within.
The inside and the outside
Are connected more
Often than we think.

I know my garden of peace
Will not grow overnight;
Like any fruit worth eating
I will wait for my manifestations
To blossom and ripen
Before I can live them.
But as of today
I vow to plant my seeds of intention,
Water them every day
And to remove any weeds of doubt
That may creep up on me.

Come rain or shine
I await all nourishment for my garden
With open arms

And the show would be far more enjoyable
If we all realized we were the spectators
Not the lead role

Writing has always been a fickle friend to me;
Sometimes the only thing standing between me and a masterpiece
Is the mood to write.

I’m craving
A hot summer day,
A scorching nape-of-the-neck
Kind of day,
Soothed by chlorine-blue waters.
An anxiously hot toes on pool tiles
Kind of day,
Where my inner child can play

I’m not more grateful
For the nurturing warmth of the sun
After a long winter
Than I am for the soothing shade
On a scorching day.
I love the yin and yang-
There is no good and bad
But thinking that makes it so.

I want to drown in sleep
Hold me down under a sea of dreams
I’m tired of this insomniaic mess

Men push yet
We rise
Men push and press yet
We rise
Men push, press, choke yet
We rise
Men push, press, choke, hold down yet
We rise
Men push, press, choke, hold down, tear yet
We rise
Men push, press, choke, hold down, tear, scrape yet
We rise
Men push, press, choke, hold down, tear, scrape, drag yet
We rise
Their hard clay armour will crack
Around our lush roots and
We will rise

My affect mirrors the sky;
My mood the sunlight-

With rays of warmth
Dancing  between dust particles
How can I help but feel happy?
With the sun actively
Tracing its way down my skin,
There is no way I can feel alone

“As we connect to the present, we recognize that whatever has us afraid is only a potentiality, like a bad dream. In this moment, our feet are planted, heart beating, breath flowing.. here and now we are safe.”

For me
Courage was first a mental act
Then a physical act;
Then came the physical reward
And after, the mental reward

Don’t forget
To tell stories-
You’ll live through the joy
Twice;
Once in the moment
And again when you share them;
Tell them just as they happened
So you can experience the raw happiness once again

Don’t forget to tell stories-
You’ll process the pain
Every time you work through
What you thought
you could never face again;
Tell them in whatever way
Feels most gentle to you,
And rest easy
knowing that you are now in control.

Tell the ones you keep floating on the surface
Always ready to be grabbed and told
And tell the ones you’ve been clasping
Deeply in your fists for years.

Tell them for yourself
Or for others to know
That they are not alone-
But whatever you do
Don’t forget to tell stories.

I’m confronted with the edge
Once again
For the umpteenth time
Since we last saw one another.  
The edge is so close;
The waves below
Offer to swallow me and my sadness.

Do I accept their offer,
And be granted immediate relief?
Or do I take a few steps back,
Carrying my load
Of iron and lead filled pain;
The same pain that will help me sink to the bottom of your depths.

My mind is telling me
That stepping over the edge
Will not end my pain
But will only make it worse,
But every fiber of my addiction to you
Beckons me forward

For a moment,
Instead of looking down
At you as my only option,
I look up to the sky I’d forgotten was above me
It’s vastness reminds me
That even though the idea of you was like the ocean,
The sky is even greater,
As it contains both you and me alike
And I let the tides beat ceaselessly along
Behind me

We took different paths and
I’m exhausted from trying to find
Some trace of you
In my thoughts
And in my dreams
But at least
I’m not running from myself
Anymore

Sink your teeth
Into my lips;
I am your bread and butter
Smeared with strawberry jam;
Your favourite childhood treat
When it was permitted,
Or when you could find a way
To reach the top shelf.

Relapsing with you
Would be like the dealer
Giving me a bad batch of relief
Tainted with guilt

Oh how my love
How I wish to see you again;
You've left my touch
But I still feel you every day
You've left my sight
But I still see you in strangers I meet;
A flicker of you draws my eye-
Is it my way of replacing you with someone else
Or is it because you taught me a little something about people
That I never would have learnt without you?

I think the truth is
My dear love
That maybe all you were meant to be
Was a fragment within me
That I carry wherever I go

Sometimes
All it takes
Is a ******* a plane
Sitting next to you,
Her notebook sprawled open
Her pen furiously spewing ink
Into the lifeform of a human face-
To realize that you’ve been missing the chaos of art all along

I think in art

I think in art-
And sometimes it does not
Translate well into reality,
So forgive me if the words
Don’t come out right
-they are after all only concrete words-
And I’ve already painted my love for you
Within the depths of my mind
In all the feelings and colors
That have existed
In all the worlds
Throughout all the times.

We are constantly trying
To achieve more and more
In smaller and smaller
Spaces of time

Praising productivity
Forgetting why we are expending our energy
Working ourselves to the bone
Forgetting the core of why we do this

Forgetting that we grow best
In soft, gentle, warm spaces
Placed in just enough sunlight
To bloom

Intimacy is
Wanting to feel
The way you choose to kiss-
Just as much as wanting to hear the words you choose to speak to others

Wanting to feel
The curves and movements of your body-
Just as much as wanting to watch the choices you make

Wanting to experience
The bareness of your skin
Just as much as wanting to view the unraveling of your mind in all its vulnerability

Suddenly
With a look of confusion on my face
But no confusion in my heart
I realized I wanted to write again
Like a man emerging from a cloud of depression
I wanted to live again.
I realized I could write again
Like someone standing after years of paralysis,
I could move freely once more.
I had to write again
Like I had to breathe-
Words streamed out
As naturally as exhalations from my chest
And as urgently as water breaking river banks

And I knew it was because I had left you and found me.

Never forget
You are the masterpiece,
You are the golden frame that surrounds it,
You are the mansion that houses all art!
Your soul is the proprietor of all the magic and value in the world,
You own it and to dispense of it
Would be a crime of epic proportions.

In these walls of skin and bone
I house a sacred soul
An inquisitive mind
And noble conscience
I feed it daily with nurturing thoughts
I tend to its needs like a caring mother
I have built these walls on a strong foundation
But painted it in soft shades of self love

I have built a home that I love coming back to;
A shelter when storms are brewing
A place I never grow tired of
Yet A place that could still use touch ups every day

And after years of building and refining-
I think I’d like to welcome you in.

Mom
You never gave me approval to water my roots with;
And it’s been two years and you wonder why
This plant is dying.

You handed me your love
But it was always on a silver tray,
Cold and at arms length
Where I could never reach it

Mother give me love
In my hand
So that I can feel it
Hold it
And Know how to distinguish its textures from others
(Mom I am giving my love to men who will never give it back to me
because I know not the texture of love)

Mother give me love in my hand
like fistful of raw earth
it does not have to be beautiful I promise
but it will be pure and true
and I’ll love you for it

mother give me love
so that we can nourish this relationship again
I miss the flowers that blossomed from these soils

Mother give me love please
So I can mould it into my hands
So that I may know
What self-love looks like

I write you into my poems at midnight
So that I never forget you;
I write you into my prayers at midnight
So that you never forget me.

I wrote a list
Of all the times
I have seen injustices
Being committed against women
In my life-
And the list was longer than the Bible.

I wrote a list
Of all the injustices
That had been committed
Against women around the world today-
And the list was longer than
All the words
From all the languages
They are silenced in

A woman bows her head
And says grace,
Thanking God for the food before her;

A homeless man outside bends over
And smokes a cigarette
With the waiter,
Thanking him for his company.

I think God
Is a relative concept,
Depending on who you're speaking to.

I don't know
If I find it more beautiful
That we can read different books
And feel the same way,
Or that we can reread the same book
At separate parts of our lives
And feel different.

I guess it's the same as loving people.

I've started to think
That the answers are
At the end of the bottle-
The end of the box of tissues-
The end of your lingering kiss-
But because there are no ends
There will never be any answers,
Except maybe at the end of my pen's ink.

I am no flower
Only just blooming from a seed;
I am a tree, rooted in experience

The best part of hell
Is probably still
Called heaven

He stuck to my heart
Like sticky sweetness
On clammy palms,
Transparent to the naked eye,
Something only felt by me.

Sometimes
It's nice to let
The silence of life
Trickle in through
Your ears

My face is
Not photogenic enough
And my thoughts
Are undercaptured

I thought that writing
had abandoned me;
left me forever
like a lover
in an unrequited union.

I spent evenings waiting for
it to come back,
for words to stumble into me
at the grocery store-

but alas I waited 14 long months
and I was still alone,
as I started thinking
I had found other pastimes
and met other interests.

But when the passionate
ebb and flow of words
finally returned,
I realised this old flame and I
have unwritten business to finish.