Category: Poetry

Building Home(s)

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If the life you are building looked like a house, what would it look like? What would it feel like?

How did you build it? From love? Necessity? Both? Neither?

Did you make it a home? Does it feel like it is your own? Does it feel strong and vibrant and changing and fulfilling? Does it feel suffocating? Airy? Expansive? Exposed shiplap? Does it feel like a place we can welcome others in? Does it feel safe? Do you?

I want to build a home out of my life that is beautiful at its core. It is warm. It is inviting. Solace and peace whisper in the paint color. It is vibrant and steady. The beams are strong and radiant. The ocean is nearby. Salt speaks to the foundation, teaches it how to cleanse; how to endure. The patio has fireflies and crystal lights. Everything, illuminated. It is my own. It is awe-inspiring.

We can’t build homes out of human beings.

Maybe we can build them out of our souls.

 

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” – Dr. Maya Angelou

‘The Hard Season’

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the hard season
will
split you through.
do not worry.
you will bleed water.
do not worry.
this is grief.
your face will fall out and down your skin
and
there will be scorching
but do not worry
keep speaking the years from their hiding places.
keep coughing up smoke from all the deaths you
have died.
keep the rage tender.
because the soft season will come.
it will come.
loud.
ready.
gulping.
both hands in your chest.
up all night.
up all the nights.
to drink all damage into love.
– therapy // Nayyirah Waheed // salt

 

The ‘hard season will split you through’. There’s no better way to describe this. So much of this year has been pain mixed with anger mixed with instability. I’ve been so raw lately. Triggered by so much, internally and externally. I find it difficult to feign optimism and joy these days. Even my 3-seconds-a-day videos ring hollow. Most days I’m left wondering: how could anyone bring a child into a world filled with so much hatred and alienation? Everything that’s happening in the world is terrifying, overwhelming, and enormously sad. Violence is more common than peace. Heartbreak more common than unity.

So what do we do with this? Where does this hopelessness and hardness fit in the tapestry of life experience? I’m not sure. I barely know how to begin to answer this. So I return to the words of the poet, Nayyirah Waheed.

We keep the rage tender. We learn from it. We speak truth to the fears building in us. We dive deep into ourselves and find the honesty needed to place one foot in front of another. To show up each day for each other.

Somewhere along the way we diverged. We lost ourselves and our homes. Returning isn’t as easy as sweeping claims, deep quotes, and picture-perfect social media posts. I wish it were. But returning is much more tedious than that. It’s more thought-provoking and time-consuming. It can take days, weeks, months, or years. But it can happen. It has to happen…right?

 

we all break.
it is okay
to hold your heart outside of your body
for
days.
months.
years.
at a time.
– heal // Nayyirah Waheed // salt

Diverge // Digress

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I feel myself separating. Detaching.

Diverging in a new way. In a way that is both sad and merciful in its making. In a way I could never have predicted. I feel myself separating from you in a real way. Growing out and away. I feel quietness when thoughts of you broach my mind.

What is this?

The love that we cultivated was the netting on which I built my universe. It’s so strange to not feel that anymore. Or at least, to feel so very far from that. So very distance. Almost as if I have to remind myself of how real that once was.

What is this?

I call this detachment both sad and merciful because it really is. Sad, because our connection was so central to who I was. To what I wanted to be. To what I could see, feel and hope for. Merciful, because I thought I could never let go, or worst…that it would never let go of me. I thought I would drown under the weight of our damage.

But maybe not. Maybe I’m finally done. Maybe I can finally breathe deeply once again.

With time, I’ve changed. Grown. Released. Cried. Been tormented. Prayed. Meditated. Cried. Laughed. Longed. Raged. Released. Become…

Become something different. A new animal.

One less…wounded. Devoted. Bound.

One more…awake. In control. Tired. Honest. Detached. Ready.

I don’t want to go back to where I was before. I felt like I was shattering and burning. I was self-destructive and called it love.

I can’t be attached like that anymore.

“I let you leave. I need someone who knows how to stay.” – Warsan Shire, the unbearable weight of staying – (the end of the relationship)

Swim in the Rain

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May20 - Cafe

“Be present. Make love. Make tea. Avoid small talk. Embrace conversation. Buy a plant, water it. Make your bed. Make someone else’s bed. Have a smart mouth and quick wit. Run. Make art. Create. Swim in the ocean. Swim in the rain. Take chances. Ask questions. Make mistakes. Learn. Know your worth. Love fiercely. Forgive quickly. Let go of what doesn’t make you happy. Grow.”

– Paulo Coelho de Souza, Brazilian lyricist & novelist

milk and honey

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The two poems below are written by Rupi Kaur. She’s this incredible poet, writer, and bad ass woman of color. You might have heard of her a while back when her menstruation-themed photo series was taken down by Instagram for being “offensive”. I was in a book store (as usual) and my eyes ran across her book, milk & honey. I had no idea who the author was, nor made the connection with the Instagram story. But something about the book whispered. So I got it. Inside, I’ve found beautiful poetry of love, loss, and healing. The ones below articulate a couple things I’ve been unable to up until this point. Mostly, it’s this aching to move forward while knowing how much I would leave behind. Destructive cycles and putting the past on a pedestal don’t work. They never have. Letting go and moving forward is the only way I know how to mend and survive this…

neither of us is happy
yet neither of us wants to leave
so we keep breaking one another and calling it love
 
– untitled // Rupi Kaur
 
you were the most beautiful thing i’d ever felt till now. and i was convinced you’d remain the most beautiful thing i’d ever feel. do you now how limiting that is. to think at such a ripe young age i’d experienced the most exhilarating person i’d ever meet. how i’d spend the rest of my life just settling. to think i’d tasted the rawest form of honey and everything else would be refined and synthetic. that nothing beyond this point would add up. that all the years beyond me could not combine themselves to be sweeter than you.
 
– falsehood // Rupi Kaur