What I want to do?
Well, let me tell you
I want to sing with the bees
Taste the maple dripping down the trees
I want to take a thousand pictures
with old Kodak disposable cameras
And make crazy wild art
I want to write straight from my heart
And sing everyday
I want to learn how to play the acoustic guitar
And I want to get better at skateboarding
I want to go whitewater rafting
I want to laugh with friends
I want to travel, oh do I want to travel
This bright wide blue earth

Who do I want to be?
Well, let's see
I want to be kind and gentle
But only when the occasion calls for it
Otherwise
I will be loud but sentimental
Soaking in the vibrancy of life
And loving every moment of it
I want to be the embodiment of love,
but not perfection
I want to be messy, ******* up
and full of foibles
I want to be quirky
and own up to it
I want to be joyful and free
And that's really all there is to me.

Dear girl, dear boy
Dear little child with so much hurt and abuse and harm
Your body has marks and scars and your mind holds the secrets of the hatred you felt and saw that no one who lives a sheltered life could begin to understand
Dear child, living deep within your mind's recesses, living within the inner most part of your being
You have so much God in you,
Even more God than the richest person in the world, or the most fashionable or the most intelligent
I understand you struggle with your self worth
But I'm here to try to help you understand
That there is someone bigger than your problems
Someone bigger than your trauma
Someone you can bring your worn, pummeled body to who will heal you
Heal your soul
Someone who will bring you Justice
And pay retribution to your wrongdoers
Jesus is his name
And he will take care of the child others had battered
The child who lives inside of you.

Thank you for destroying me,
Dear ex
I had never loved another so deeply,
Or let down my walls more
Than I had with you
And what did you do with me?
You tortured my soul
And burned me like embers
You toyed with me
Making promises you knew deep down you would fail to keep,
But still,
I thank you
For destroying me

Because, you see
You were the fire I needed
To burn away
All the parts of myself that were inauthentic,
Turning to ash all my ego,
Obliterated my sense of self
Losing you and all of the promises you made
Was like losing one version of my life,
That I had come to cherish so much
It was like being the captain of
The sinking titanic,
Choosing to die
With the damaged ship

But I reemerged from that icy misery I existed in for so long,
Realizing that **** happened
And I couldn't do anything to change that
But what I could do
Was take the actions required to have the life I want,
Instead of wasting my time wallowing over how someone I once loved
Hurt me,
Almost destroyed me,
And we called that love
But it WOKE ME UP
It destroyed me and woke me up,
Do you understand?
Yes,
I lost something I had invested so much time and love and care into,
But I can't control that
And it's time to reconcile with the pain,
By making peace with the past,
So I can live in the right here, right now,
In the present.

The boxer has so much rage
Pacing to and fro in within the safety of a cage
She is bright, mighty and powerful on the stage
Where all wild inclinations can be un-caged

Her brain burns violent red
Her anger originates from her head
In the grasp of aimlessness she lay in her bed
In the grasp of torture she wishes to have her pain bled

Maybe if she could see pain in her opponents eyes
She would understand why
We all have this inclination to fight
Why we become ruthless and inhumane through the darkness of our life

If she caused someone else to bleed
Maybe she could conceive the victory
With her punches--In making someone small
With her kicks--In making someone fall

Being kicked down, beat, and unwanted
Is all she ever knew from birth to now
She just needed to understand her existence somehow
Picking fights on the street isn't allowed
So she chose to fight an opponent for a crowd.

“I suppose I’m just shy”
I think to myself,
As I cave into myself,
Or rather fold into myself.
I look up at them.
Some I am fond of,
Such as the retired nurse,
Laugh lines creased in her face.
Others I am subtly repulsed by,
Vitriol bubbles up in me
As I observe his behavior
That I find unseemly,
Especially since vestigial emotions
Of lust
Are connected to him in my psyche.

I don’t know,
I don’t know how to feel.
That’s a funny way to put it,
Because is there a particular way a person must feel?
I wonder from where our final decisions originate from.
I wonder why I am internally perplexed,
Not satisfied.
I wonder what can help me.
I see people who also suffer
With my sense of discontent and disconnection
But their ways of dealing with it
Don’t seem to heal
Their dissatisfaction.
If anything,
These people who seek therapies
For their woes
Only seem to fall further into the pit
They had found themselves in.
The labels psychologists
So frivolously bestow onto them
Have become a ball and chain
On their identity
Causing them to fall
Down the endless void of their suffering.

I just so vividly perceive a sickness in society,
And it makes me want to jump out of my skin
I don’t know….
Because oft times I find myself
Surrounded by people
Who easily pontificate,
Stepfords who don’t
Show any sign of a spark of Life
People who religiously
Play out their learned roles
From childhood,
Until their last moment on earth,
Never really going off script,
Never really having a desire to.

Now, I feel as if it’s almost unfair
That I had to feel these ways I do,
That I can see the world for what it really is.
But when I say this,
I know in a sense I am wrong,
Because my mind is just one mind
Synthesizing my reality through the
Scope of past experiences .
But why do I have to have this orientation?
Why can’t I just live a simple-minded life,
Like before?
Why must I always be searching for truth,
Searching for the reason why we’re here,
Searching for purpose,
For a deeper meaning behind all this?
Can I just forget?
Can I just forget and go back to a simpler time?

A simpler time
When the real world
Was the only world I was truly concerned about
It’s simple, straight-forward beauties
Nourished my soul enough.
I didn’t have any pressing need to
Explore unknown realms of the esoteric.
The natural world already had so much available to explore
And discover.
I was satisfied.
I was content.

But the anxieties of youth
And the horrific pains
Of childhood abuse
Created within me an incessant need
To improve myself.
First it began with makeup.
I caked layers and layers of makeup
On my acne filled preteen face.
Then I delved into the mind altering world
Of drugs,
With an emphasis on hallucinogens
Which was just another way to escape reality.
Just a mask of concealer that I could hide away under,
As my mind’s fantasies--
Fantasies that I could manipulate at will,
Became more real than reality--
A reality that I had known primarily to be
Cold and unforgiving.
But eventually the drugs took control of me,
And fate made it so
That I had to stop.

Finally, spirituality.
The final frontier, at least for me.
The most compelling of them all.
Absolutely endless and seemingly
Without dangerous side effects (not so)
Just another delusion I bought into, it feels.
But not quite.
There isn’t yet an ending
For this segment of my life.
I’m not sure
If there will be an ending to it.
I’m trying to find a way to actualize it though,
Instead of it being
Just another extension
Of my hopeless orientation to get lost
In daydreams.
I’m attempting to call this new chapter of my life
That I am currently writing,
The “Love in Action” chapter.

Well,
That’s it, I suppose
I don’t know why I make myself do things I don’t want to do,
Which inevitably makes my mind
Disengage
But anyway,
I guess I just want to become “real” in this lifetime,
And heal,
And stop searching so much,
And go back to the innocence,
The carefreeness,
The quiet joy and contentment
Of my childhood.
American culture is such
That EVERYTHING that can be commodified
Will be commodified.
So, I have to cut myself free
From the hypnosis of capitalism,
From the ideologies of the white man
So I can be lighter,
Flow through life with more ease,
Unaffected by this world’s disease.

I’ve spent years stuck in limbo
Wanting to move forward,
Break through to the other side
Claim my vitality
But I was scared
Not scared— terrified
To leave my old ways
Those old ways that held me in a protective container
Shielding me from the senseless pain of living

It’s not that I didn’t have courage before
I’ve tried so many ways to heal,
But maybe those ways were inauthentic
Leading me to seek salvation by external means,
In an array of distractions
But nothing could fill me
The way I am filled
When I choose to open to life
Without a guarded veil skewing my perception
When I choose to love myself
In both my pain and my glory

Why do I feel like this times different?
I’m not sure
Maybe I’m just being truer to myself this time
Following the flow of my healing
Easing into it
Letting it just be, and receiving it
All the support and love
Is like a buoy that keeps me afloat
Maybe this time is different
Because this time I’m convinced
That I deserve better
Than what I’ve settled for all my life
I’m ready to take responsibility for my life
And change.

The day I said **** it
To what everyone thinks
I can't control their perceptions anyway!

I realized
I must have lost
My spark
Along the way.
It's time to rekindle
That spark
That resides in my heart

But how?
With my dreams so far off from me
Right beyond my reach?
But I must be brave
And get up on my feet
And reach over the abyss
Of my longing
To take hold of
And manifest my desires

Adulthood squashes ambitions
Under it's steel toed boot of expectation
It pushed my worn and bruised body down into the dirt
But my spirit didn't die
My mind and heart and body were exhausted
But I still clawed at the soil beneath me
Making a tunnel to my freedom
Through the inky darkness
Barely breathing, every cell of me parched
Clinging onto the very last thread of my life
That beat steadily and quitely
In my heart

I've finally
Emerged
Caked in dirt
This place is unfamiliar,
Foreign
But I like it,
It's new
There aren't many people here
So not very much pressure
There is a lot of vibrant green leaves
Rustling in the crisp air
The sun is bright and yellow
The sky,
Baby blue
I think I could stay here for awhile
Without much to do
I'll curl up next to this rock
And rekindle my dreams
To once again
Light the fire in my heart
That once roared when I was a child
I'll forget the world
Of arbitrary expectations and rules
And drift off into my dreams
While my eyes delightfully scan
The canopy of trees.

You're a sheet on a clothes line
Dancing with the winter winds
Pinned on that gritty string
Waiting for the day your soul will be allowed with all your being, to sing
Your hands are those of a worker,
A simple and practical man
Your face, I remember from long ago
When I looked into a river
From which the rich rain flowed
On this course I must go
Down to this road
That only few know
Please don't whisper in their ears
Where I plan to go
After all these years
Cause it's good time
That I go away
The time is now
And I won't let one more minute stray
No more clinging to the wind
These seeds in my hand
I will plant in ripe soil
No more vain and useless toil
I will not let my heart's musings spoil
There shall be a great unfolding,
In due time
I will plant the seeds today
And reap my harvest for a more promising day
For that sweet future is so near,
It awaits
I feel it so clear
Like the kiss of a cool breeze on my face
This day, this future is near
I can, I can almost hear
The cheerful buzz of spring
Ringing in my ears
I look into your limitness eyes
And I just know,
Our great unfolding is so close, so near
It's almost here.

I walk the splintered sidewalks,
The smell of sewage permeates the air
People stare straight ahead with faces like hawks
So many people, but it still feels like nobody cares

I feel the heartbeat of the street below me
I feel it as I lose my equilibrium
Trains rumble beneath my feet
Everything is buzzing around me as I experience delirium

A tear wells up in my eye
For the city will perplex and overwhelm
I seek a place to run and hide
To try to get control of my inner-helm

This city must have a heart somewhere,
Because I can feel it beating
Sometimes I think behind every face that seems not to care
Is a broken heart that is bleeding.

These days I don't look at the calendar,
These days I don't watch the clock
These days I don't have money,
But I'm alright,
Just doing me

These days I don't worry about no one but myself
These days I don't people please
I just walk forever,
Trying to get away from what's killing me

In December I left my job
I couldn't take the bullying anymore
I was sick of the minimum wage,
The sparse hours
No matter how much I tried my best,
My coworkers looked down on me,
I was the only one who wasn't a struggling single mother,
Maybe they were scared that I thought I was better than them

In December I would keep singing the song
I dreamed a dream from the Les Miserables soundtrack
I was so stuck
But then there was Christmas break
For three days
And I felt so free!
That I just knew I couldn't go back

But now I see it's the last day of June
I have no idea what I'm doing next
It's scary as hell
To be a blank canvas,
To be so aimless
What am I going to do with my life?
I wish a lightning bolt would strike me from heaven
And tell me what I'm supposed to be
It's been six months of doing nothing,
But within this intermission,
I feel myself healing...
Deeply.

Vacant Streets
Barren homes
Concrete rubble scratching beneath my feet
Am I all alone?

Towering viridescent leaved Giants
On the other side of the road
Wind swiftly whispering hollow secrets
Into the grove.

I intently observe the grooved bark of a tree
What species is it?
I don't know, but I would like to know
My eyes scrupulously make their way up to the reaching branches at the very top
Next to this tree I observe is a tree stump
It doesn't look like it was cut with precision, it looked like a flash of unpredictable lightning chopped it right in half
Incapacitating it to no longer grow, ragged shards of raw inner wood
Now blackened with death.
The difference between the stump and the outreaching tree was one proliferated while the other did not due to death.
I felt my heart in my chest and arteries transporting blood to a part of my mind neglected and depressed
As the realization swooshed and then swelled into my heart,
that these conditions of my mind and circumstances were not forever
But temporary lessons
Yes, that's all these bad things are,
Temporary lessons
A tree can be cut but if not cut through all the way to cause death, it will grow around that cut, and everything else about it will eventually become bigger than those few times it experiences pain
The key to all of this was to move forward, grow
With limbs outstretched to the sky.

The final day, the final hour
The final minute, the final second
The final moment
Moments
Wrapping up around me
Like sweet sweet surrender
Coming down on me
Turning frowns upside down on me
Oh sweet melodies
Caress my inquisitive mind
And time no longer follows a linear path
The past, present and future merge
Into this outcome
That like a once cocooned caterpillar
Emerges
With luminous wings of art
And the wind whispers secrets
My conscious mind cannot yet discern
When I close my eyes
Close, open
Close, open
Like a sea anemone
Pulsating beneath
Layers of dense, buoyant water
Strands like limbs
Moving fluidly with the flow
Of I know and I don't know
The outcome,
Like an equation
Nearing so close
Hold my heart so
passionately inside of me
Here we go.

It's been a long time since things have been quiet
I'm always on social media,
Playing music
With the t.v. on in the background
I fall asleep to Netflix episodes I never watch,
I just put them on to lull me to sleep
It's been a long time
Since I've stopped the constant chatter of electronics,
And just sat silently with the natural sounds
I suppose they scare me
I'm numbing with devices
Filling my mind with empty vices
Until I finally experience the silence
And my mind speaks out in violence
I want the quiet,
I need the quiet
But I can't stand what my mind is
When all the chatter isn't there.

Confusion is addicting
I devour metaphors and gulp down symbols
Forever attempting to conjure a path that is most fitting
To finally discover the key to that which fulfills

But I turn down wrong roads
Most times I find myself stranded
I have no chosen destination to which I set out to go
So I am as a vagabond haunted by the multitude of roads

I've sought a saviour
But I know I must save myself
A total overhaul of my behavior
Will guarantee the something else (I seek)

I've been running for so long
But now I have no other choice but to collapse
For I am no longer strong
All my youthful energy has been sapped

If only there was a way
I could know for sure
I just don't want to make a big mistake
One from which I could never turn back

But a silent whisper in my heart
Says these words to me
"There has to be a better way"
And for this way I pray.

There is a God, you see
Watching over humanity
And he cares individually for
You and me
Even if you feel separated
I can guarantee
That this God I speak of
Is caring and free

God is not bound by conformity
Disharmony or chaos
God is the excellence of the wave
Hitting the shore
Drinking up the raindrop

God is two humans gazing
Into eachothers eyes
God is a child's love lullaby
God is never vain nor
Ignorant
God never hates,
He is pure love,
Could you even imagine that?

What is not from God isn't pure
It's deception that demands a cure
Only God can straighten the crooked path
Only God can redeem you even
When everyone tells you there's no turning back

God is the purest light
That guides you in the darkest of nights
My soul aches no more
For God is a balm that has healed all my sores

I look up to a sky so blue
And even though this world makes me sad and confused
I thank God in heaven
For the vast sky and
The cool breeze
That fills my lungs
And brings me to ease.

There is no such thing as love,
Don't you understand?
All this romanticizing and propping on pedestals
People are all ugly deep down
Pierce through the facade and you'll see
The greedy devil
devouring the life within me

Ha, I had dreams
But where did dreams ever get me?
I can't waste my time
And I'm too wise
to lend my heart over willingly

What if I don't want exclusivity?
What if I believed all people have beauty
What if I'm happier being single
And I don't dream of marriage and having kids
I dream of growth and freedom--
Desire unleashed

What if I'm not typical
I don't feel like I'm a woman,
I don't feel like I'm a man
I don't feel like I have any particular role to fulfill
I only feel obligated to be free and love
Create and play
And make sure everyone can enjoy life in this way

So,
There is no such thing as love...
As we know it.
Love is so much much than what Hollywood sells us.

Am I your rose?
A unique love under the bell jar?

I look at you, You look at me
Your prussian blue eyes
Pierce my being

A love that is ethereal,
Divinely orchestrated
A symphony of sweet surrender
The Angels sing I love you

Come to your rose,
Tend to me
I am no common rose
I am your rose,
I am unique in all the world,
Because of the time you have wasted on me.

These times of solitude are for growth,
Hours of writing, listening to music, reading, creating
Sometimes it can get lonesome and I'll feel bored
But I also sense deeply that this time is pivotal
to my development into the person I'm called to be in this world
It's a gestation period,
Where I'm being carried in the safety of God's womb
Until I'm mature enough
To embody and walk out
Everything I am learning.

Not everyone is a ******...

Not everyone is a ******...

Not everyone is a ******...

D on't assume

O thers intentions

U nless you want to get hurt, you

C an't have everyone like you and treat you well

H owever, you can set boundaries, so not

E veryone can clean their ***** shoes off on your heart.

I was in 2nd grade when the twin towers were hit. I remember all the children in my class one by one being picked up from school. I had no idea at that point what was going on, but I was so jealous. I wanted to go home early from school. Eventually, my Aunt picked me and my cousin up. She told us about the towers as we walked home. I could see the thick, montrous black smoke of the fallen towers from the street I lived on in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. We went inside and turned on the television. Report after report confirmed the devastating aftermath of the attack.
●
My mother was in Manhattan, for she was a secretary at the Wall Street Journal. At the moment the towers were hit, she was just arriving, walking towards her job that was located in a building right across the street from the twin towers. But what she saw bewildered her. Hoards of people covered in white ash were running in the opposite direction of where she was headed. She asked one of these people what they were running from, and they frantically responded that the twin towers had been attacked. After learning this, she walked to my Grandmother's job in midtown Manhattan. They later arrived home safely.
●
Looking back at this recollection of my 2nd grade self, I have to admit I wasn't traumatized by these events personally. But in retrospect I can see now how it had affected all those around me. On the ten year anniversary of September 11th, Paul Simon sang Bridge Over Troubled Water at a memorial service in New York. As I watched it on the news, the lyrics filled my heart with warmth. What I suggest, through the healing of old traumas and in the handling of new wounds, is that we make ourselves a bridge to others, a source of stability in an uncertain world. This is described so beautifully within Simon's song: "When you're weary, feeling small, When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all, I'm on your side, Oh when times get rough, And friends just can't be found, Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down, Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down." Through every unexpected tragedy, if we come together as a community, the most horrific pain will inevitably shrivel in the light of sefless love.

The writer's life
Consists of looming strife
For a writer's eyes are keen
To the suffering that usually goes unseen

All writers are bearers of truth
Wielding their pens like a scalpel that cuts through
All the **** we tell ourselves
That keeps us in denial

A writer seeks truth incessantly
And eventually comes upon the somewhat ambiguous answer
That all truth originates from Love
How does the writer's analytical mind
Grapple with such a fluid concept?

The writer sees beauty in the invisible
Writes poetry on bathroom stalls
Lives life solely for stories
The writer feels things deeply but doesn't speak them,
But rather scribbles her thoughts fervently in a notebook
The words dancing on the page
As they are released from the tip of the pen
The writer knows, sadly, that even though she writes stories to make people feel less alone
That these people will never truly ever understand her and neither will
She ever be able to fully embody the experience of another human

The writer has wounds that go deeper than you could fathom
When no one was there to turn to,
She picked up a notebook instead and released the toxic emotional build-up in her head
Made art out of her sadness on the page
Through poetic words,
Elusive and enigmatic,
She could tell her story, indirectly
And still set herself free from the ******* of unspoken miseries

The writer's life is a privileged one indeed
For we see things, but don't speak them
But rather transcribe them forever in our memories
Until we find a clean sheet of paper,
And write
Write everything we've seen, heard, tasted, felt, known and intuited
Every struggle and every victory
Meticulously crafted upon the bare canvas
Like a war zone with an abundance of pent up zest
Finally unleashing itself upon the page
So, write, my fellow Writers
Write fearlessly
And our stories will prevail
They will impact even just one person
Who thought they were all alone,
Perhaps like we once felt.

Take me to the thin places
Where I can nearly grasp God,
Step into the ethereal
Swaying with kaleidoscopic celestial beings
like the cool breeze dancing with the branches of the willow trees

I ran out too far on the ice
I found the precipice, the end of the world
Looking down from the solid glacier I stood on, I was so small
I saw darkness,
Only darkness

The ice cracked, the world split in half
Earth's core wailed out
Crying tears of flames
We tried to console her,
The Mother we abandoned, the Mother we abused
We tried to console Her,
But it was too late.
Her sadness consumed us.

Sometimes, humanity still has faint glimmers of vestigial memories
That makes them look up from their hand held devices
For one passing second,
To contemplate if there is more to this life
But no answers are found on their Google searches
And they forget,
Like they always do.

But I remember,
Some of us still do
The way the babbling brook laughs,
The sounds of chattering birds
Hearts being shared with loved ones
Smiles being shared with everyone
There must be substance in this world
Beyond all the vanity
And we are determined to get it back somehow
And in that pursuit,
To gain some semblance of sanity

But as the world wars,
As the girls paint their faces
And the middle aged men buy their fancy cars
As we all pretend
With feigned smiles
With stoic personas
We curate our perfect lives,
For we desire people to like us, to love us
As we actively hate ourselves
Well, I will be seeking those thin places
Where I will be absorbed by the stars
The sky will be closer to the ground
Which my feet will no longer be on
I will be as light as a feather
Being carried by the breeze of the Spirit
In iridescent splendor I'll rest
As this world continues on in it's ubiquitous unrest.

Words fail to describe
My heart's lullaby
It sings a beautiful toon
That reaches all the way up to the moon

It's a promising song
One that reminds me to hold on and be strong
For many times I feel weak
But when I hear it I once again get up from my knees

I would be lying
If I went denying
My multitude of blessings spread through my years
Why did I waste so much time on fake friends and fake fears

What I've realized is right now I'm just Here
And I've learned to love being in my warm bed instead of backpacking
Those dreams may be accomplished later, or never at all...
All I can experience right now is Here...
And I choose to enjoy and revel in this very moment.

These moments in time
Snippets of the bewildering Divine
God makes me laugh and cry
He plays with my Consciousness all the time

Is this a Soul Mate dance?
One in which my heart is entranced
Of him I am a huge fan
And I simply can't cool down this desire for his romance

When I'm not thinking of him
I never see him
And yet,
when I have him on my mind once again
I see him everywhere
I say "It's not fair"
Or it's merely just meant to be
So baby let's stop playing,
and start getting used to You & Me

Fate is true
Destiny is real
How else could I explain
This phenomenon that is just un-real?
It baffles me
Makes me laugh
Makes me squeal
Gives me chills up and down my arms
This life is just too spectacular
And I love every moment of it!

I watch the hands of the clock slowly tick
As the light in the sky slowly dims
In the night the air turns brisk
Anxieties arise within and make me sick.

I get to thinking about time
How in a way it keeps me confined
I think, what a concept
And I hate restraints, to be honest.

See the mind is a funny place
Especially when it starts to race
In loops it plays my worst fears
It brings me to screaming and tears.

For with time the inevitable takes place
You leave this world without a trace
But I believe we go somewhere
All the way up there.

It's so easy to be consumed by anxiety
When it's all about me
But when I focus on community
I start to feel a sense of inner unity.

So let time pass
And let the lessons life teaches me last
In every moment I will live fully in the now
And I'll make it through this life wholehearted, somehow.

Time passes
Dreams slowly die
I looked into your open eyes
And spoke strange things

Time passes
And dreams go away
Nothing ever happens
The status quo remains

I might go insane
Everything is monotonous
Every single day
Come, take my pain away

I don't care how good or bad you are
I'll pack up all my life into a suitcase
And jump into your car,
Just one request: Drive far

Can't you see?
I can't take the pointless drudgery
Stuck in between
Wanting to stay and wanting to leave.

i'm tired,
can't you see,
the misery painted within the whites between my eye sockets
laughing through clenched teeth,
i bite my tongue
breathe, breathe, breathe
release my pent up angst
up to the moon,
salvation is coming,
soon

Today is just like any other day
I'm barely awake
The water runs as
I think of everything I don't want to face
I look back all the time
Remembering where I've been and where I've come from
My face is just a lie
My heart is seeking home

My home is my roots
Deep down within me
I'm a soul encased in white flesh
But there's a story to me

I try to behave
Everyday, all I ever do is behave
I remember in middle school
I heard on some women's talk show
That good girls don't make history
I would repeat that to myself as a teen
Now all I repeat is daily drudgery

I have expectations on my shoulders
And I'm surrounded by white people,
But I'm not like them
They claw onto their intellect
As if they know what suffering is
Their hearts are shiny, well polished glass
There is nothing in them
And they easily crack
No substance or meaning
Beyond their roles
White people, white people
With white souls

But I'm from Brooklyn,
does that make a difference to you?
I've known suffering
But not in the way some of my dark-skinned peers have suffered
I was just the white girl to them in school
My skin represented the source of their oppression
Some subconsciously hated me
I felt like a pariah,
I have always felt like a pariah
Clamoring to fit in

The best route to fitting in
I found,
was self deprecating humor
And acts of senseless rebellion
Or just becoming so quiet that no one would notice me
Now that I'm surrounded by white people,
Nothing has changed
They're the type of white people who glorify knowledge
I love to learn
But they are straight up elitist about intelligence and education
But what else can you expect from privileged white people?

My skin in some ways makes me privileged,
But I also am not the type of white
that comes from money
My family is not the type of white that is devoid of trauma
We're not the type of white who are bland, coldly intellectual, and superficial

But this poem isn't about flesh
It's about being ****** an outcast
Forever being misunderstood by a spectrum of people
While I deeply understand every person that crosses my path
No one seems to be able to understand me
And *******, that's lonely.

I’ve let fear hold me back for so many years

Allowing it to cloud my perception of what could be,

Blinding me to all the possibilities awaiting me

To open up to a life beyond what I’ve always known—

A heavy fog

•

But what if the sky could clear up; open?

What if I opened?

What if I let myself

Explore beyond who I’ve always believed myself to be

What if I could love more fully

What if I could be happy

What if I allowed life to pour through me

And I didn’t try to stop it

Bottle it up or control it

What if I just let myself live,

Relinquished my fear of existing

And found security within the safe harbor of my own heart?

•

What if I said yes,

Not to a flawless life

But to a beautiful life?

•

(Inspired by and dedicated to Ram Dass. May he rest in peace.)

Maybe not everything is meant to be understood by the mind
Because most times words fail to convey
What's truly there
Only our hearts can intuitively comprehend
The feelings we're too scared to feel.

This is a poem for the ones who go unseen,
the ones who go unnoticed,
Who go through their life in a quiet reverie
Though they are of few words
There entire life is a dream
They don't get an influx of likes on social media,
No one is begging them for dates
They just do what they need to do,
While blending nicely into the background
Their minds are loud
But there lips refuse to make a sound

This is for the ones
Who think they don't belong
No one can see their pain
Because no one looks close enough these days
We're a surface level generation
Praising fool's gold
We fill our mind's with aggravation
And our lives are either extremes
of mania or stagnation
But then there are the unseen
Still reveling in all the simple things
They are the unobtrusive rebels of society,
The true rebels really
For they don't rebel on Instagram
They rebel, unwittingly,
For everything they do
Is in opposition to popular culture

I write this
To remind you all
To not overlook the underdog,
For they are the most riveting of people
Though they don't build a personal brand and a steeple
To advertise their life
They are the most genuine folk
Without a lick of pride

I haven't always been so cognizant
of the underdog's pain
I connect with them the most, of course
Because they really listen to me, and make room for my authenticity
But at times I've chosen to be vain
Ditching the underdog for the "cooler" crowd,
And all for social gain
And yet, surrounded by people with whom I do not have a sense of belonging
Loneliness echoes in my heart,
And it amplifies when I'm trying to fit in
It leads to deafening silence
And in the dead of night, hours of crying

But you don't need to be born an underdog
To change this social conditioning
For our whole lives our culture has programmed us to be on a mission,
To be better, more efficient
So we can gain success, so we can have superficial love
We're not merely automaton's with minds
We're sentient beings, with hearts that need to love
And *we're alive

To see life through new eyes,
To witness the ocean drink up the sunset
To truly live again,
And breathe deep within my lungs
Is my definition of paradise

To hold a lover close
To follow my heart and
Forget the rules
To revel in pleasure
And despise pain
To live genuinely
Without masks

Is to live life with new eyes,
And a renewed heart
To turn away from what is killing me
And embrace this life,
With every fiber in me.

You knock on doors, to no avail
No one seems to be home
You tread meandering paths
Trying to make sense of the aftermath
Of a life that didn't go as planned
Until you come upon
A waterfall haloed by a rainbow
Then you finally see,
The unexpected is just a grand mystery
And in the mystery is so much spontaneous beauty
So, please stop analyzing
Start living
This beautiful life
Enjoy the long days of your short life
Absorb in every last bit
Of this beautiful experience called living
Start forgiving yourself and others
So you can live a life with a heart unencumbered
And remember that the end of a life
Is really not an end
But an opening
Deeper and deeper into the mystery
Of awe inspiring beauty.

I have a tendency to
rely on magical thinking
To transcend
harsh realities

I must admit
I dream too much

I dream of spectacular wildflowers,
and loving with my whole heart
I dream of dancing on a full moon,
and embracing the unknown

I dream of both the impossible and
the possible
But to pursue the possible,
I would have to abandon my comfort zone

I am convinced
That if I were to live with integrity
And follow God's call
I would heal
And produce the fruits of God's Spirit

That will require
Turning away from distractions and sin,
To turn toward
A renewed life
Being reborn
And transformed
Into a new person

The question is:
Am I willing
To let go of this identity of mine
That I hold onto so tightly
But will be my demise?
Will I let go
To open myself up to
The reform God has for me?
Am I willing to trust?
Am I willing to let go and
Hand my life entirely over to God?

Is true intelligence committing systems to memory and being able to recognize patterns
Or is it being able to transcend patterns and systems altogether, coming upon the realisation that we are boundless and infinite?

When all the lies fade away
You in the corner, ruminating
The sun shines forth on this sullen day
And you realize your prized life has been forsaken

When you're too in love to see
Your blinded by compassion
You have so much of it that you live miserably
And now your stunted by inaction

I tread through the snowbank
I slipped down deep into it
And now everything is blank
So in the frozen stillness I sit

Within the center of the chaos
Resides the truth
Life is a multitude of revolving clocks
Spinning in alignment with abundant life which moves

Whenever you find yourself confounded
Instead of forcing a solution through manipulation
If you just surrender you will be astounded
By the simple ebb and flow of creation.

tunnels are like the transitory phases of your life
driving so fast, but everything seems to be in slow motion
in a surrealist painting
you're moving forward so quickly
but you still feel stationary
the lights pass you, one after the other
it seems like you will never again see the sun
all you can hear are the endless echoes that surround you,
all you can truly know
is the grey concrete that envelopes you
and the endless road ahead of you.

Two hands,
Holding my heart's contradiction
Two hands
Holding separate possibilities
Two hands
Pulling me a part

I once was so sure
I knew which way to go
And I knew who I was
But things changed suddenly
And change has changed my mind
To want another possibility

I'm at a fork in the road
Two paths in which I can travel down
Both equal from my point of view
But each will take me to two places that are worlds apart
Which one will I walk down?
Which life will I choose?
Which way is the path in which I will follow my heart?

I sit at the fork,
And hold my head in my hands
The sun is setting
And I am yet to come up with a plan
There's no way to know
Which of the two will make me happier,
So I'll sit right here,
Until the answer becomes clear.

I wait and wait
But my longing doesn’t abate
It’s been three months of heart opening bliss
But when the heart opens, we’re more likely to armor up when triggered, like a closed fist
But do I regret opening up?
Not at all
For opening up
Has awaken me to the power of my heart

There’s no doubt in my mind that I love him
He says I always make everything about me
And he’s tired of catering
I guess I’m insecure, when I feel uncertain I just need more
More reassurance, more care

But he has his flaws too
He’s insecure as well
He wounds me with his words
And when he’s angry he’s a different man
But it’s not those things I see in him
I see his kindness too
I knows he loves me
He’s just tired,
So am I
Our insecurities and fears
Block the flow of our love
And wear us down

So here I wait
My heart is wide open
But ******, right now it hurts
I let myself fall hard
And now I have severely cut up knees that will turn into ugly scars
But I don’t regret it
Whatever the outcome will be
I know I will make it through this grief
With my wide open heart,
No matter what, the final outcome will be
Healing.

Roses bloom under
A late summer moon glowing
I must understand.

Could this be a perfect day?
I'm out sitting on a cliff
Looking out into an expansive blue sky
White clouds adrift
The sun, so orange, on my skin,
Sun-kissed

Here on this cliff
I took everything I am attached to
Everything that is slowly eating away at who I truly want to be
And steadily,
One by one
I threw the things I love
Into the sky
And while I cried,
I also felt joy well up inside.

I’m calling to you
But my voice returns to me as an echo
Reverberating off these empty walls
Am I seen, am I known, am I loved?
My heart is wide open
Beating out of my chest and bleeding out onto the floor
Some might say
“Aren’t you afraid of getting hurt?”
But my fears have been overcome by the irrationality of unconditional love
My mind comes up with stories that cause separation and distrust
But there is an ancient knowing
A warm orange flame
Shrouded by shadows from the past
But still there
And I simply cannot ignore that flame
That knowing that defies all reasoning
To trust what I know deep down despite appearances

There is a storm
And I’m on a boat out at sea
All I can see is darkness
Powerful waves are crashing down on me
My body is crushed by pain
And my mind despairs
But my heart, that hopeful fool
Hangs on
And eventually the storm passes
The sea spits me out onto the shore
Morning arrives
With the sun and it’s promises of warmth
And again I come back to safety
A certainty within me that isn’t affected by what’s happening around me

Sometimes, you just know things
Sometimes, you just feel things
Sometimes you persist
Even when you don’t understand why
You just know you have to
It’s the truest path for you
Even if it defies logic
What I have with him is an extraordinary connection,
I would even dare to say it’s otherworldly
I asked for healing
And I found union
And in this union I’ve found
Freedom, love, light, joy
Feeling completely seen and known by another person
And I’ve found great pain
The resurfacing of old traumas
Fear of separation and our dreams of being together not coming to pass
Sometimes I reach my hand out to him
And he slaps it away
Pushes me away
Me and my wide open heart

Sometimes I just wish I could know the outcome of things
Or why something that could be so good brings up so much pain
We both said in the beginning
“This all feels too good to be true”
Maybe we’re not accepting how good it is
And how good it can become.

Oh sweet saccharine child
I feel your love from miles and miles
How could words ever express
Your bold golden orange decadence?

How long had my soul cried out in agony
Wasting away in it's misery
Until a soft feather like hand of an angel
Wiped my tears away
And gave me hope of a better day

Oh, twisted world in which I live
My perception is dark and hurting
You've stolen my rainbows and my butterflies,
Bumblebees and hummingbirds
But I've got faith enough for the rest of us...
I live on.