shame shares a tight border with shyness
both remind me of being a skittish mutt

With long ash blonde hair
freckles dotting my face and shoulders
rosy lips and cheeks from the sun
I am a young girl again
Laying on the Atlantic ocean shore
my back pressing into the soft sand
Letting the waves roll over me
laughing hysterically
as the salt water tickles my tummy
and I plug my nose

It was at this age I smiled cheek to cheek
without worrying about the layout of my teeth
I didn’t consider myself lonely
I had quite a lot of fun with my imagination
Not yet the age where I was preoccupied
with image or my emotions
Just living like the waves crashing over me

In my journal I had written a bit while I waited in the hospital for a family member.
I observed others. Some elderly woman looked run down, tired, and a bit irritated with their writing tasks and paperwork they must complete in the lobby. They are full of pain and impatience.
Then there was this woman.. this woman who was raised up in an electric wheelchair, smiling out of squinted eyes and wrinkles like memory foam from decades of laughing.
She reminded me of the transition from summer to autumn.
Those first couple days of crisp weather and that restorative feeling you get and thought you forgot during the peak intensity of the heat. Her face was full of youth and acceptance.
She knows everything will be alright.
And I find inspiration in her countenance and stop biting my fingernails.

I've lived somewhere between 40-50 homes.

The ones that stick out?

In Portland I rented a micro-studio. No individual unit kitchens: it was 'communal'. Bed came out the wall. Apt description: trendy, affluent, hipsters who want to live communally in theory, but eat out every day instead. Communal kitchen was empty. No one was ever home.

One house in Florida we had a pool and the neighborhood ice cream truck sold drugs. My neighbor took me to the mall sometimes.

In Wisconsin we lived above a bead shop that turned into a dress shop that rented out overpriced prom dresses to everyone. I watched middle-class flock to the shops beneath me. For being a town of 1,000 we had the coolest apartment because I could spy on the whole town and their frequent trips to the bakery.

In North Carolina we lived in a neighborhood called 'beverly hills' and the house was interesting, not very bourgeois as the neighborhood title suggested. I wanted to turn the basement into a gaming center for kids.

In Blank I lived in Blank, it was kind of Blank and I really liked the Blank. From this experience I learned Blank.

Romanticism is
Melancholic at best
Always daydreaming
Each one a test

I'm a hopeless optimist,
Some may say.
Tossing petals on a silly rose,
wasting the day.

The idea of love,
So open and free
Thought provoking, mysterious
Until it gets to me.

Then I recall,
Why I prefer being alone.
It's hard to find peace,
In someone else's home.

By home, I mean mind
Two becomes one
You both have to share it
To simply enjoy the sun

Idiosyncrasies,
Start to synchronize
The way we view life
Is seen through one set of eyes

We become a machine,
Two bodies and one brain
A lovely entanglement
Loneliness has been slain.

You passed the test,
And you've set me free,
But only through binding,
The concept of 'you and me'

Romanticism is
Melancholic at best
Until the real thing comes,
And starts a fire in my chest.

If I had enough wits to fly,
I'd like to escape the sky,
I'd leave in mid-June,
wave bye to the moon
whilst riding a huge firefly.

I keep hearing that
in order to exist properly
amongst your peers
you need a strong sense of self.
I think that
the stains on my shirt
melancholic playlist in my ears
grumbling tummy
and agitation with self help websites
might be as good as it gets for my 20's.

and I'm tired of trying to be perfectly healthy all the time.
and I think capacity for constant self awareness is a privilege.

There was a feeling by the name Romance,
who asked if I would like to dance,
but clumsy I
could not comply,
my legs fell off by pure mischance.

On my journey to my grandmother’s, the landscape holds my attention with subtleties.
Muted hues of soft lavender, pale brown, and ashy green painted outside the dashboard. Everything peeking out from a gentle coat of dust.
Yellow weeds and thistles dot the golden hills.

This corner of the country feels like a cherished family heirloom. The color palette resonates with my only sense of familiarity. Maybe it is my fixation on the colors themselves that buffer any sense of grief I carry towards instability.  None of us in my family have claimed permanency in structure. Yet, my grandmother’s home is a sanctuary.

I am making this origami box
With beautiful floral paper
At the kitchen table of my dear friend’s
Pressing down my thumb
to get that sweet crease
Part of this process is how I
Am intending to practice mindfulness
And mostly to get my mind off
The heavy pit in my chest
And I keep looking out the sunny window
At the evergreen trees
And open blue skies
Trying to find a way to take my focus off the origami box
But I keep coming back to the satisfaction
Of the perfectly aligned crease
And return and return
Until I have just made
3 beautiful origami boxes

California ~
thank you for my birth
never did revisit you
except disneyland
_______
Washington~
thanks for being home
the body of a mountain
lungs like evergreens
_______
Oregon~
washington's tumor
your coastlines are far superb
please stay a secret
_______
Nevada~
my ****** noses
homeschooling and snowboarding
miss your tumbleweeds
_______
Ohio~
all I remember
three legged cat in forest
hillside four-wheeling
_______
North Carolina~
the blue ridge mountains,
guitar hero and hopscotch
made up for the snakes
_______
Florida~
fondest memories
most important, my first kiss
beach had a nice view
_______
Wisconsin~
how did I survive
must have been warmth from others
also my parka
_______

Found a penny heads up
Saw your face on it
Tossed it off the Broadway Bridge
There's nothing lucky about
finding a small man's face
staring up at you
on a peaceful walk

When I am fond of someone,
I've always hidden.
Locking eyes with someone I'm so curious about
just has this feeling that makes me want to hide.
I've always hidden.
Behind mom's leg,
behind my locker,
in the details of my lunch,
in my comforter,
in my headphones,
in my fantasies.

cold, blue skies
with crisp air
and sun in my eyes
breathing deeply amongst the crowd
and I feel like an installation
in a hotel lobby
or a decorative vase
with dry arrangements
I feel so mad
the empty yet amused eyes
peering beyond me
while I'm duct-taped to this pedestal
while I'm nailed into a wall
while I'm the frame of a painting.

My therapist recently asked me "have you ever tried mindfulness?"
I laughed a bit, thinking of the week-long mindfulness camp I attended for suicidal adolescents. I went twice.
This peaceful brain training is essentially giving us a sanctuary to retreat when the world is too loud.
We would eat skittles and describe their flavor and textures. We would focus on our breaths. Make beaded art. Tell collaborative stories. Follow guided meditations laying on unfamiliar gym floors, giggling a bit as we soared through clouds.
I remembered my dedication to mindfulness and the rich peace I felt from finding the present moment.
Now that my anxiety followed me into adulthood, I was willing to revisit. It's kind of a stupid challenge since the present is always here... and yet, it's still a challenge.
I look out my dusty, sun filled window decorated with three vases of dry arrangements. My mind starts to posture into how warm and antique this image feels. My eyes well up with tears as I hear birds sing and trees sway.

you’re a deep canyon
i sit perched on the overhead plane’s wing
with goggles and a glass of tea

you’re a canyon, from here,
just a thin black outline
a giggle and a wonder

driving an old car in need of repairs
you feel every oddity
from the creaky, heavy door and
the every so often squeaky breaks
the manual roll down windows

sometimes you gotta hit the dash
to get your scratched CD playing
old cars have warm static hums and
headlights glowing in amber
the smell of carpeted seats baked in sun

when flirting with the future,
i drove a new car and it felt
much like flying a spaceship
you're unaware of the machinery that
makes it like every other car

"There are two types of people in the world," he laughed after a heavy swig. I laughed and anticipated a mindless reply.
"Those who are pens, and those who are pencils".
An eye-roll dismissed the statement but a curious brow stayed in place.
"All I'm saying is that some folks have a certainty about them. Everything glides off their tongue like cursive dipped in black ink".
I thought of where I might fall on the spectrum.

do you think
wallpaper wants to talk
to the people in the room?

don't you think there's wisdom
in wallpaper?
how it absorbs the stories and
the spinning revolving door
of people who come and go

Every decision I make is pushed by the ghost of my younger self and pulled by the blurry image of my future.

I've developed a strange type of anger lately
I've never really been an angry person
I've only felt it in glimpses
like when I was a teenager
and my mom set unjust authority,
or a few times
as a younger girl,
when she was drunk and didn't follow through.
Now I get so angry
that I've started throwing my phone
and deleting apps
and taking all 6 of my cheap gold rings off
and throwing them 1 by 1
at all corners of the room
I started ripping pages out of my planner
and throwing them across the room
I started ripping my phone cord out of the wall
and going for runs all of a sudden
and I am sprinting on the pavement
pounding my feet violently against the cement
and I've been collapsing at this field down the street
and laying in the irritating, dry, straw grass
and crying into the sunset
I've been snapping at people
and myself
I've been hyperventilating
and I keep taking my rings off and throwing them against the walls

This is all normal
Petting dogs and
Nodding at strangers
Holding the door open
Sometimes it makes me
Go underwater and cry
Where my tears blend in with
Everything
Sometimes I wonder why I’m
Wondering why
We want joy
I sit so naturally perched on
A tall naked tree branch
That’s in a grey sky
With a vague horizon
And quiet brisk air

The still, soft morning
A sun ray illuminates
The joy of being.

i keep a tight grip around
everything that hurts
i keep asking my therapist
"how do we let go?"
and what does that even mean?
she says
to only allow yourself
maybe 10-20 minutes
to think about all these things
and inhale
I never realized I had that power
to do that
and exhale

On a bright and sunny day
On the 18th of May
An earthquake resulted in a landslide
That unleashed a massive force brewing inside

The eruption removed the upper 1,300 feet
The magma chamber burst, rock and gas blown at supersonic speed
Within 8 miles, all was instantly wrecked
With a shockwave so big, what could one expect?

As the north sl0pe collapsed down
Life forms began to drown
Every tree in sight swept away
19 miles outward; a ruinous ashtray

Silence breaks as ash falls like snow
The once mature landscape now just an embryo
What had become a lifeless terrain,
Now shows us what 35 years can attain.

After the volcanic cataclysm
Biological legacies determine the pace of new ecosystems
The following colonizers proceed:
Lupines, pearly everlasting, alder shrubs, and fireweed.

The coniferous forest was replaced
The deciduous Alder trees won the race
The new forest attracts grasshoppers, birds, and ants
Larks, gophers, sparrows and deer mice take a chance

Out of 256 species alive prior to the eruption,
86 are now in production
20% of the surface is covered with grass and legumes
Struggling young trees that endeavor to bloom

Ecological gaps begin to fill
Strong ecosystems form, production is uphill.
Elk arrives to munch on grass and bark
The thick forests attract birds, like larks.

Fallen logs create nutrients and feed biofilm to the lake
Floating ecosystems now have plenty resources to take
Elevation affects the rate of recovery reports.
The higher the colder, which means the growing season is short.

The loss of trees means more room for sun
As the lake warms up, there’s increased production
More insects and bigger fish, like rainbow trout
Salamanders are scarce now, not many about.

Lupines deserve their own stanza, those purple legumes.
They help make a pumice landscape suitable for others to bloom.
Lupines create essential nutrients the pumice is low on
Other plants are thankful for the rare space to grow on.

All this information hopefully to inspire,
Life pulls through in situations most dire.
Mount Saint Helens’ destructive wake is seen clearly today,
The eruption that obliterated had also paved a way.

Reverberations are the hard part. Navigating something that will inevitably flow through you as if you have any control. Think about it. Someone jumps in the pool you’re in, you have no choice but to let the waves and molecules orbit towards you.

It is what separation feels like. Reverberations of jumping into a pool. The waves lapping out until finally they blend in the whole again.

love is
the friendly Atlantic ocean
a lotion that never fully rubs in
humid air

love permeates
like a leaky roof
honey on toast
dandelions

I fit into a shell
whos size
lays in the palm
of your hand

I curl my body so it’s
matching the hollowed spiral
and is pressing gently against
the cool, smooth barriers

The noises are muffled
and the air inside here
is how I imagine it feels
to fly through the clouds.

it takes me all day
to finish a bowl of soup
it is cold and sits on my desk
i chip away at it until its gone

it feels like I'm holding
a pile of Lego bricks
and sorting them by color
instead of connecting their parts

my eyes wander to
only what interests me
and I tend to move by
either branching or spiraling

my feet are running on hot pavement  
im exhausted
and by the time i look around
im in the same place

I'm working through stuff.
It feels like untangling a necklace
after finding it in the dryer.

I keep writing about
working through stuff
without sorting much out.

Maybe I'm just playing with the stuff.
It's best to have a lighthearted dialogue
With your shadow.

During the dormant winter I longed for the carefree nature that stems from warmth. Now it is here, merciless, fully.. and the exposure is awakening our mindfulness as well as the collective sundial. Bringing us out and present in the wheel and spinning us around. We worship the sun without recognition. It makes it so easy to be warm with one another, to remember our roots in the universe, to flourish under a quiet and beautiful energy.. unbroken.

I never knew the grief I could feel from letting the sun-drenched clouds cradle me.  Looking below is a city I am familiar with, in all of its muted colors and sluggish movements like a worn-down machine. It's hard to feel the open sky's liberation while glaring into the morose solemnity below. The sun's warmth seeps through my skin while my tears grow heavy and fall, first a drop, then a release while the humidity billows up. In this suspended moment, I see gold lining the buildings and the leaves sparkle below. I start to dissolve as I see the  warm, gilded picture of everything, all at once. I feel at ease and dissolve until all I hear is a collective sigh.

I thought rock bottom was
a tunnel with a long dark way down
a hole you need to curl up in
and make yourself so small
out of shame, fear, and isolation
you can’t see or feel anything
and the thought of getting out is impossible

I didn’t realize rock bottom is actually
a golden plateau high above sea level
that you walk around on freely
and you don’t even notice the earth
beneath your feet
you have the same vantage point
as everyone else
looking out at the vast great unknown

rock bottom is often times
a series of events concurrently
pushing your vitality far into a combustible
zone that orbits around your heart

The night sky in its crystallized entirety
Snow falling softly
A sleeping baby
Roses

Hospital waiting rooms
Closed doors
Graveyards
Being alone

Empty alleyways in the city
Fond eyes
Libraries
A smile

I write about grief which is like a container for many feelings of hopelessness. I am writing as if we stand on a high plateau, where grief can soar. So often, we get painted into small corners, hidden behind walls of shame, into isolation, and patronized.

The reality is we are bold to face the world with uncertainty about ourselves and each other. We feel the presence of the smooth, cool creek flowing deeper than its dimensions. The raven's caw, breaking the silence on a cold morning, feels like a welcome message. The grey skies have an inspiring grip while the rain is a healing soundscape.

It's within all these details we feel a multitude of presences; a lost dog, remnants of a friendship, a brighter version of ourselves, a half painted mural, everything we have lost to get here now.

It's harder to get lost in yourself when you carry the fragments of your memories somewhere with vast, endless scenery and breathe with confidence that you can see your winding paths.

the musky candle
solely lighting
the black room
casts a shadow of the fern


follow me
as we exhale
deepening til there’s no air
as we inhale
let our eyes focus
to the buzzing space that lives
in between objects
and and bring your attention  
to the pleasure and pull
of being idle,
the gravitational force
of our hollow fixations.

Home has always been tricky to pinpoint on a map.
It's not quite where we came from last,
nor where we pay taxes.
It's not where we want to be,
or the house we grew up in, or the nostalgia we feel.
Home is not where our origins trace back to,
or where our ancestors developed our roots,
in fact, I'd argue
home is not an external location.
It's not the soft grass in our front yards,
it's not the countryside or cityscape,
it's not the wooden floors we collected dust on our socks in,
Home is a feeling.
It nests within us during our travels while we're looking for it,
it is present when we rest our head against a sunny window in the car.
It is here at work while we are making money for home,
it is here at the grocery store where we shop for home.
Home is in friendships where laughing makes you cry and crying makes you laugh,
it is in romance,
it is with family members.
Home is in familiar smells and easy living,
it is in solitude and fresh air,
it is a feeling of comfort inside of us,
where we can grab those fleeting moments,
and stitch them together like a grandiose stained glass window in a cathedral.
Home is a compilation of every place we have ever been,
are going to go, and where we are at presently.
What makes you feel at home?