Peace permeates through my body
The ocean swells in my chest
And waves explode onto the shore of my soul
I dove into the great expanse
Into the deepest depths
And found a truth more real than matter

There’s so much walking
But never getting anywhere, it seems
There’s so much time passing
And my skin is showing it’s age
I’ve only got this one body
I’ve only got this one life

It's pretty radical being human
The breath of life swirling through my nostrils
Maybe I’ll burn all my doubts
And all my insecurities
I’ll love myself
And live the life I want to live, fully

New
Like the dawn
The glorious sunrise
Pinkish hues awash with silent beiges
And the sun
Is a fiery orb
Coloring life into every living thing

I feel the new
With my breath
In and out
And I think of the ocean
The powerful ocean
I can feel it within my heart,
The waves rumbling through my veins

I can see the new
In not so distant visions
Of a future full of growth
I’ve healed so much
And yet there’s more
More of the new
I open my doors
Let it all in
All the gloriously soothing beauty
Of life’s simplest pleasures
Healing me

There’s been a crack made in my lifelong illusions
I’m beginning to feel clarity, and not confusion
Saying yes yes yes
To more beauty.

Have you ever felt alone
In a world so vast?
Have you ever felt different
As you look on at everyone else?
Because I think a lot of us feel this way,
Like foreigners in an unknown land,
Or a round peg in a square hole
Looking for community
In which we can be fully unveiled
And fully seen
Because it’s when we’re stripped of all our masks
That the heart has room to heal

But we are conditioned to hide our vulnerability
And instead wear practiced smiles to conceal our deep down fears
Maybe this is because many of us were raised by unsafe people
Who failed to hold space for our tenderness as children
And instead taught us to armor up
And always be in a state of protection

It’s true, it may take time to find the people you can be “you” with,
Without conformity and performance
Your people will be those who accept you for the simple you—
Without assessing your accomplishments, background, or identity
In order to fit you into some social hierarchy
And they’ll listen to you with an open heart
And you’ll feel understood for the first time in a long time

But your people starts with you,
My people starts with me,
Our people starts with us
Though there are many who currently prove themselves as unsafe to have our tenderness shared with,
Boundaries are essential
But for those who have gained and maintained our trust—
We can open our gates and share the truth of who we are!

But even if right now, you can’t find anyone who is safe to be yourself with,
Take time to cultivate this beautiful bond within yourself
Allow both your vulnerability and your strength to be fully expressed
And as you allow the full spectrum of who you are to be expressed, unaltered and unabashed,
You will witness the gradual blossoming of yourself.

The sun
It breaks forth through a quilt of clouds
And it shines down on me
Me, bundled in a scarf stitched with iridescent thread
Walking, with intent
My mind falls into familiar patterns of thought
The tiredness of monotony and the buried hope of eventual freedom

Some nights I have vivid dreams that scare me into waking up
Those dreams feel realer than my waking life
Real life feels dull, repetitive, lifeless
A gear stuck in it’s designed rotation,
Propelled by the surrounding gears that have also given up dreams to submit to the status quo of drudgery

What is this anyway?
Senseless pontification
Calling everyone a phony
But what happens when the finger is pointed back at me
And I have to reckon with my own disease?

Because I can see what’s wrong with all these systems and how “they” perpetuate it
But me too, I perpetuate too
And the pain of the world just feels too big for me,
And I just can’t please everyone, not even myself
But it kills me
To see us devolving into people in love with their image,
Kissing their reflection,
While our hearts turn cold and we become social media activists who are largely disconnected to the marginalized experience
Disconnected from our true, simple and beautiful humanity
I can’t bear to witness this descent in us,
Especially when I see it in me

I just, don’t want to think so much about it anymore
Whatever it is,
I just can’t figure it out
And it makes me angry
And wonder if I’m a misanthrope
Because it seems like no one cares,
And I’m starting not to care now,
But well,
Who cares?

But I do care, but it takes scary things for me to show I do
Like the feeling I get thinking about someone I really love leaving
But I don’t show it on a daily basis
I’m just a frazzled, mad person
Touchy, irritable, paranoid
Charming, but deceptive
Smiling, but lying
Because when I’ve told the truth
No one cared anyway
Or they hated me for telling it

What’s the point of this string of thoughts?
I don’t really know
Except that I had to get them out of me somehow
And unburden myself from the heaviness
Of these leaden thoughts clanging inside of me.

You wanna heal,
Don’t you
But breaking the ingrained patterns of generations
Is hard
But you’ve grasped the idea
And now you just can’t let it go,
This notion that you could be stronger, healthier, more joyful— inviting all of life in through your senses
And just letting go
Of all the heavy burdens that have weighed you down for so long
You’ve spoken your burdens for years
But speaking never beget change
The change you ached for, the transformation you only theorized about
But what you didn’t know
Is that this idea of healing
Was a seed that was planted into your heart
And this kind of seed
Takes a long time to gestate
So even if you haven’t seen visible changes in yourself and in your life
Just know that the seed has cracked open
And is spreading deep roots,
Replacing the roots of your traumas
Your healing, when it is born and continues to grow in its visible manifestation
Will appear differently than how you imagined it
Yet you will be more overjoyed by its reality than by your limited fantasy of it
Your healing
Will be a revolution to yourself and to all those you have ties with
Some won’t understand your changes, neither will you at times
But just continue to listen to your heart, it’s simple, inviting song
And rest in all the beauty that is unfolding before you and within you.

Joy was a dream I once had
My happiness is fake and imbibed,
Well really, contrived
Because no one knows my secrets
And what if they ever slipped?
And everyone saw me,
Naked, like in dreams
In public, my shame unveiled,
Bare
For people to see
But I don’t want them to see
Because what if they hate the real me?

But these things I didn’t overthink when I was a child
But in adulthood we create narratives that represent us falsely to ourselves
Adopting the labels others have assigned to us
Threading them into the fabric of our identity

I wonder, how can I embody joy again?
I’m so **** tired, and scared, and bitter
And I’m worried that everyone will hate me,
Or even worse, nobody even cares
I guess in childhood I had more stability,
Everything didn’t seem so fleeting,
So cold, so dark, so lonely

I guess all I can rely on right now
Is the possibly irrational notion
That things will ultimately work out
That I may not find the light,
But I can learn to create it and sustain it within myself
A reassuring ember of warmth,
Guiding me into reimagining my childhood dream.

The young people of this world will save us from our old, destructive ways
The young people, with their uncensored courage and brazen haste
Calling us jaded, complacent adults to change
Their pure, untainted hearts still unburdened by hate
Will become the very pathway to our escape
From the death traps we’ve made
Because for so long we’ve hated ourselves and we’ve hated the world
But the youth, with the full force of their fierce love
Are saying: “WE’RE NOT GIVING UP.”
They’re not giving into death and decay,
They won’t allow our earth to simply waste away
With all its beauty and all its wonder
But greed has corrupted our hearts and fear has led us astray
Filling our minds with hateful thoughts that cause disarray
But the youth, they’re here to stay
They wield their heart as their weapon
And pierce through the chaos our hatred and division has caused us
To make way for a better life,
Beyond our self-inflicted misery and strife

So carry on, young warriors
Brave and wise
Fight for this life we have taken for granted,
And save us from our own demise.