To simplify,
To complicate,
These questions, on repeat,
In my questioning, confused head.

What do I want from this world,
Beyond simplification,
Yet a fraction of complication?
I’ll never know.

All I know, is that incarcerated birds,
still cheerfully chirp,
And nothing is ever what it seems,
Not even people.

I learned the hard way,
Achieving desires means,
Losing drive,
A sense of purpose,
And all fulfillment subsides.

Success is a state of mind,
Placement is what brings you peace,
So much to experience,
Yet so little focus.

At a certain point,
When getting old,
This contemplation follows,
And leaves me with nothing to show,
For all that I’ve experimented with—
Because staying put is too hard to bear.

One step in the soft concrete
and the direction you turn from there
will shape decades.
You may find the very place,
step there again, walk over it;
turn again.
It is the same pavement noticeably
worn by micro erosion, cracked
by the hard ice of twenty winters.
The place is the same,
the space is changed—
shaped as it is now
by twenty years of urban development.
Some buildings provide
familiar shelter,
others drip stormwater on your head
from strange appendages.
Stand there
if you can spare a moment.
Turn again.
No pavement lasts forever;
concrete is liquid
and can take decades to dry.

There has to be a way to stay true to that calling inside of me that feels wild and unruly, other worldly and independent
while also pursuing a life that has more abundance and conformity, maturity and rules
how can I still be an independent thinker in my world while also applying the rules of a corporation for a better paycheck and feel good about that?
I want more but I have never been apart of the club
The person who agrees with the majority for my own well being
It’s a battle between my morals and my personal gain that I don’t know how to win
When you know you can do great things but also worry if the great things are just like lipstick on a pig

This poem is a response to one I wrote five years ago: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2605739/in-which-i-am-brutally-honest-about-my-mother/

My eyes blaze with guilt,
and an outrage at being guilty.
No, at being wrong.

While I waited for the crows,
I was devoured by the chasm
between my father’s brows.
Felt my stomach drop
as I fell into the ground.
Even when I’m right,
I wish I were wrong.
But that’s just how it is to be the victim.

See, my mother was played with by god.
She’s quick to love only to be abandoned.
I remember her whispering to us,
in the middle of some nights
as if we were the daughters of Medusa.

My mother was hurt by god
She did not create sin but
she’s spent most of her life running with it.
Running from it,
running to it.
And I think at some point
she felt too distant to be worth it.

I thought I wanted to hate her,
but it’s impossible to deny her humanity and
to keep trying would only end in tragedy.
I know I’ve ignored her and
I know that worsened the distance.

I want to personally lay the burden
of how I love onto her shoulders,
tell her “You taught this to me.
I watched you love others from the mountains to the sea and I’m

sorry for the years I didn’t let you love me”.

But healing happened in a crockpot,
that wasn’t plugged in.

As a child, I felt so betrayed
because she was my favorite,
and yet I felt so alone
on nights when I couldn’t use her back
as my pillow.  

I tried to understand the kaleidoscope of her broken pieces,
and yet I wish I persisted as I got older.
I thought I protected my peace,
and maybe I did,
but it took me ten years to warm up
my shoulder.
I was sad about the absence,
until I became mad and indignant.

A case of unrecognized bias.
By having two drug-addicted parents,
and a lot of black-and-white thinking,
One had leaves, so the other was poison.
Two different flowers in the same garden.

And in that garden,
I’m weeding out the past
and digging in the dirt using only my hands.
Creating stability and forgiveness at that.
Forgiveness for my mother, who has grown despite my doubt.
Forgiveness for my father, for dying
at the hands of the devil he couldn't live without.
I am perpetually digging even further for hope.

And there is always potential for hope.

Why is it,
That something so necessary,
Seems so dreadful and bittersweet?

Why am I so sad,
Over moving on from,
Something that made me so sad?

Why do leaves fall of the trees?
Why do hairs fade to grey?
Why do things fail to remain consistent?

Why can’t I live forever?
Why can’t I seem to want to?
Why can’t this fear of change make sense?

Change,
A dwarf sucker of emotional algae,
These bits of change that we face,
In life,
Are merely a placeholder for temporary discomfort.

Another month has gone
And my cards have been drawn,
I look them over and wait
until I can feel what they say.

I've felt so overwhelmed lately,
Life can be so challenging.
It makes sense when I see
The nine of swords in front of me

I'm surrounded by triggers of anxiety,
People I want to please,
A job I intend to keep,
Time continuing on, forgetting about me.

It's stressful.
But I know things will change,
Eventually I'll flow like a jellyfish
Because the empress appeared today.

What does it matter?
These thoughts,
Feelings,
Concerns,
Are merely passers-by,
In this life of uncertainty.

No thought goes unforgotten,
So why do I think so much?