Found Word Poetry

-

An avalanche, a spiritual bone-setting
Rigorous and painful

A wanting heart, scared and clinging,
bundling beloved memories.

Zany masks compelling me to
turn you inside out

Devised fire,
combustible and clingy.

Work was hard,
an unnerving, inexplicable tide --

In retrospect, the ripple effect of being able to receive.

I was learning
to counteract this pain with purpose --
to enjoy, to want, to experience.

Fear calls; there are no delusions.

Teach myself presence. Teach myself how to be alive.

Popular posts from this blog

Breathing in the Wreckage

-
If you want me to breathe in this wreckage, I need a place where I can fall apart. I don’t know how to do that when I’m also expected to go on, when I’m expected to keep living. I need more support than anyone could ever give. I need quiet, I need space, I need time. I need to not have to think about money, for my clients to cancel their appointments, for my children to never need anything from me. I need to never have to go anywhere, to never have errands and bills, to know for sure that I won’t lose my friends if I stop taking any interest in their lives. I need the impossible. I need a room of my own. I need a cabin in the woods. I need to be away, away, away -- far away from this world that no longer fits, from this life that suddenly feels foreign. I need unlimited rest and sleep and quiet. I need endless opportunities to scream and sob. I need nature. I need the trees to hear all of this, to hold all of this, to be there with their steadiness and strength. I need a place where I ...
Read more

The Shape of You in Me

-
When you died, people said things like, “To know one was to know the other, because they were so thoroughly a part of one another.” I used to wonder if others could see it, if they understood - all the ways that our souls were intertwined, all the ways we were a part of each other. It’s hard to speak to the shape of you in me because you are my insides. We’ve always been a package deal. There is no me without you. You and I are the foundation of my heart, the place where I began. You were born when I was two; I literally don't know a life or a world without you in it. There is nothing that came before you, and no part of my life that will be untouched by you. You are woven into every part of me. And so how can the world see the shape of you in me? Your shape is in every bit of love I give, because everything I know about love started with you. Your shape is in all the ways that I mother my children, because our relationship taught me tenderness and trust. Your shape is in every one...
Read more

From the Ashes

-
Prompt: Read this poem and write a response. Happiness grows back Like saplings after a forest fire Barren grief No longer your primary residence That old hollowness Carved out Washed With holy tears An old topography of loss You will follow Back to life Ugh, parts of this poem annoy the hell out of me. The idea that grief will hollow us out and then we are cleansed with “holy tears” simultaneously makes fire come out of my ears and makes me want to gag. Look, I get it. I get that grief can be transformative. But I hate that this feeds the narrative that somehow grief is here to do something for us, that it will cleanse us somehow, that we will be washed anew. Fuck that. I don’t need those holy tears. I don’t want to be cleansed, thank you very much. Keep your tears and your transformation and give me my sister back. On the flip side. . . I can believe (sometimes) that happiness grows back. I do like the image of saplings growing back after a forest fire. I can imagine it, those littl...
Read more