My therapist recently asked me "have you ever tried mindfulness?"
I laughed a bit, remembering of the week-long mindfulness camp (sugarcoated for in-patient psychiatric care) I attended for troubled teens. I went to this twice.
This peaceful brain training was designed to give us a retreat when the world is too loud. During group therapy, most teens shared their experiences with domestic violence, yelling, S.A., running away, abuse. Endless. We were all numb, but there was so much comfort in being locked away with others who needed the respite as much as I did.
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 jumped back into the talk session, remembering my dedication to mindfulness years ago. My anxiety followed me into adulthood. I think mindfulness can be out of reach, stupid.
And yet, I looked out of her dusty, sun filled window decorated with three vases of dry arrangements. My mind started to posture into how warm and antique this image felt. I felt hot, quiet tears building up from feeling that peace again.

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 early 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.

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 it's gone

i feel like i'm holding
a pile of Lego bricks,
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
and i'm exhausted,
by the time i look around,
i'm in the same place

I fit into a shell
whose 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.

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.

the plural of grief is grief,

in our lives, we busy ourselves
accumulating various assorted
grief, some physical, most mental,
those stories when retold, first
make you groan out loud,
every-one asks
what’s a matter, no spilling beans,
you shake ‘em away with
a smile and a “just life”
and it gets
dropped

if you’re so young, that you haven't
started a career of serious collecting,
the objects that will decorate every
place, in every state, wherever the
airy transplants, you won’t be
surprised, thinking you “forgot” to
pack them, for they travel light,
though, they weigh more than any
hope chest of unworn garments that
will never be discarded,
even when
hope is so long gone,
it is still an
unrecognizable

And yet,
the plural of grief is grief

and there is a singular story,
a lost love, a guilt for letting
someone get lost, leaving them
unknowing that if you could,
you’d whisper shouts of reconciliation
for days, to cain assuage the years
when they lay unspoke,
brike broke inside a human chest
of petty
grievances

I have one,
midst all my knowns, which
even not even now, even
in my truth serum poetry
that will not be confessed,
lest you’d beg me to
never write again,
move on to parts unknown,
let that gory story abide in your own,
in your windowless palace,
with your
other locked up secret treasures
wrapped
in black
tissue paper

my own chosen grief,

unspoken, unwritten,
and resting restrained upon an
invisible line
that lives on my tongue,
it is fresh, imaged, just
a hasty taste away, when it
resurfaces at its own chosen
speed, its own chosen need
to be rebreathed, when least
desired, least required,
**in other
words,
when it chooses to emerge,
& it chooses you,
at the precise right
always the wrongest
time & place