the poet

i’m trying, i’m trying— can’t you see that i’m trying? you’re doing enough, my girl— rest and let me

they shut me up in paper and gave me some words. “you’re a writer,” they said. “write.”

i used to belong entirely to everything when i was a child. my pink walls, my dappled kitten, the colours of summer and spring and fall—they were all a part of me, and i a part of them.  then i grew up, as we all do, and i stopped belonging. i didn’t fit into the spaces between pine needles and around the emptiness of lazy sunlight crawling through my bedroom window anymore. “don’t give your whole heart away,” they told me. “restrain, limit, contain yourself.”  but that was when i belonged entirely to them, rather than to everything else.  i long now to be a part of life again—to belong entirely to one moment, be completely present and allow it to fill me. i want to climb onto our second-story roof and watch the sun set and smell the wind and know that spring is coming. 

i’ve found my old notebooks— the letters of an angry little girl. there are tears in them, and loneliness. a disappearing cat, a rollercoaster, a crush.  stamped on nearly every page is a pathetic message—i’m never enough. why am i never enough? i read on, now my memories call. our distant cousins are coming— they’ve came.  the promised of pierced ears has finally arrived, i’m sitting in the chair, i’ve picked out the studs, and oh— the pain, just a moment but then my mother calls— something about dinner (or is it laundry?), and i’m awake again.

the sun showed up today again— and this time i didn’t ask why. because i’d learnt that each time it rose it was to give me another try. and now my heart is in my throat again, but i can feel no fear. because i’m crushed full of adrenaline and light beats dark, my dear

i’ve felt. i must whisper these words— it’s almost too amazing to say them aloud at all. but i’ve been out and i’ve been filled and i’ve never felt this way before. i am almost in love in this in-between season, and you know how much i have despised it before. this dead, cold ground is stirring, nothing is still— it all responds to the rushing sunlight, which leaks like a stain on the grey earth. it is still dull and brown; but in our field the roots are pushing up green. everything is alive in a way it’s never lived before. you’ve made me feel this way— everything humming and stinging and responding in an overflow of feeling that i could never try to put into words. yet i am. and i’ve made a mason jar out of a stained glass window. i am this earth, and you are this sun and everything is alive. -i’ve felt much more than this utter vapidity of language has allowed me to say, but here is my attempt (february 28, 2018)

it takes very little to make my day; something that starts out as a thought, then morphs into a smile. i’ve woken up to good vibes so often this week— a message about a wonderful idea, or just the feeling of sunlight on my eyelids, or a comment that made me laugh. i’m in a good place right now— and i don’t want it to go away. there is so much sunshine in my soul;

i went out for silence, and it was then that i realized— my worlds are never silent, not one, there is always something moving, stirring, whispering. white noise. i like to hear the sound of my voice with the background sound of the world slowly spinning on its axis 

it’s been dark for so long. but now the sun has woken me two days in a row, and i can’t help but think -  that if this is the way things are going to be, maybe there’s sense in waking up early

he’s a country boy, soft spoken and deep hearted. she’s a city girl, bold stares and neon words.  together they're a foreign place, where it’s both silent fields and overflowing bus stations. but there are so many places yet unseen, and wanderlust lurks in the softest and boldest of souls

“That was the night when I finally realized why people fear silence.” When I was standing next to you, my ribcage pulled apart and my heart open to the world. My courage gone as quickly as it had come. The words had climbed out of my throat, angry that I had held them back, relieved to finally be free. “I love you.” And there was nothing but silence. No reciprocated “I feel the same”, no eager “You’ve finally caught on?”, not even an apologetic “sorry, I don’t.” Just silence. And then loss. And then I was alone.

every day we have a choice— to remain or to grow and i know which one is easier, and i know the comfort found in your skin, and i know somedays it’s all you can do to pull a shirt over your heart even while it constricts your breathing, but you have to do it you have to let it go

today i am heavy and dark like the slur of a piano when the pedal holds on to a note and crushes it with another; like a tear-stained page with ink blending into pools of black; or a man stumbling down a cobblestone street lit by the stars, only the stars are so far away now. heavy-lidded eyes and the slow drum of a dropping heartbeat. my brain is pressing into my heart, gravity feels stronger, thicker— i can hardly hold a pen.

A little lady in a little white dress. White, blue, and green sparkling under the sea, clambering onto rocks the size of elephants. Laughter and singing off-key and hair whining our faces. generic head-bobbers shaking the speakers, salt crusting to my dress

you need to learn, darling that stars are not found by trying to peer through a covered telescope, or squinting from below a tapestry of city lights that fade out anything else. you have to go to them, not wait for them to come to you. and you’ll find the stars in an empty field at two am with your heart aching and your eyes pooling and your hands cupped in a plea

foolish girl, she lights the match while being drenched in gas

i was told to beware of the ocean. ‘too dangerous,’ they said. ‘riptides and sharks and churning, crashing waves that will drag you under and hold you there. just stay in the shallows.’ they told me this because they were afraid of the haunting, rolling sea; of the bewitching colours and movement that can capture your attention for hours. they were scared that i would come back different, more understood, more in awe. now i forget to be afraid then they tell me to, for i have seen what has made them so scared and i’ve only seen beauty, and a part of my soul was made understood. only now i will never be able to get the song of the sea out of my veins.

i’m excited to see the ocean, for it’s not the same as hearing it in a shell. to be pummelled by its force, rocked by its lapping roll, soothed late at night by the sound of it returning to shore.  i’m excited to find myself in all the depths of the sea, in all the changing waves and midnight colours, the milky foam and sparkling beads of air pocketed on the surface. i’m excited to maybe find home.

when you’re in love with the sea you understand the beauty of inconsistency, how it can keep me on edge and engulf me in the feeling of safety all at once.

i love the ocean because of its restless contradictions. for how it can be limitless in a limited space, infinite in a finite world. i love how it plays with my mind—calm one moment and harsh the next, grounding me in its bottomless gulf.