Does too much to say make the saying harder to come by? Have you consigned your will to create with the words that entice you or are they challenging you to do more and better, forcing you to feel deeper and stronger? You don’t know how to write yourself out of what you have fallen into so you simply stop writing because, maybe, if you don’t write then you don’t feel each moment as though it has permeated your soul.
You could fastidiously gather the words you love and compile them to write your story, punctiliously fashioning each chapter. But through trial and error you have learned that designing the chapters is not nearly as exciting as letting the chapters bring you to life. So you have an experience and define what it means to you; minute by minute, day by day, month by month, and you take pause with each temptation to formulate the words that will make perfect your sermon to self. Trusting and living with intention provides words abundant with which you can tell your story.
The words that are so much a part of you are simultaneously screaming to speak and begging silence. There are lessons learned you want to share; perhaps in hopes of precluding collective travels down the same path you have found to be lackluster by comparison. You are learning to welcome love and pain, to let raw emotion consume you as it provides the truest form of living you have experienced. You have feelings so intense that they threaten the pillars of strength you have built, brick by brick, which ground you. And as each step and misstep petitions for grace as it dissolves into your melting pot of growth, you see your authentic self with increasing clarity.
There are so many questions but you don’t know where to begin. What path led you to this leg of the journey; which choice or un-choice to this outcome. And as you think about your life and attempt orderliness of the pictures and flashbacks, of the note cards and summaries and dissertations, your omniscient core knows that the questions are not yours to have, to beg, to postulate. Journeys happen and they take you where they may and you tiptoe, run, walk and sometimes crawl as best you can in the moment.
Meanings are myriad depending on what you choose to believe in that moment and from that experience; to where you let it guide you, to what ensuing experience you let it lead. Life has many serendipitous happenings if your mind is open to receiving them. The relational nature of life becomes vivid when you seize what presents itself along the journey. Open-minded living is joyous because the surprise of the next serendipitous moment is looming… another opportunity to make a connection on your journey of here and now.
Life is education on your terms: you hold the power to decide how you will let each opportunity color, change, mold and improve you. Life is an auspicious exploration of self; an offer to learn, grow and attempt to understand you. One day at a time. And one day at a time really means one moment at a time, one experience and then another to form an existence, to create a story, to live a life.
Be in love with you. Be in love with life. Be.
#poetry
outside in
You, my child.
You are before me with eyes wide open and I search myself for what it means to raise you. Love over contempt, action over apathy, acceptance over fear. We teach by example, you and I; learning through each day we are allowed another opportunity.
I and you – anger and retract, push and apologize, cry and try harder. I see me in you – the good and the bad – and am too hard on you when I see pieces of myself that I wish not to see.
You act and I learn, you fear and I understand, you hurt and I die a thousand lives in one moment while I hold you with voice strong and embrace stronger. Together we hold hands that at times are hard to extend when we are at our most vulnerable existence.
We are beauty in that we are. And then there is you, and you. Individual and exquisitely you and I love with admiration deep and mind altering.
And when I think I have seen the most beautiful creatures on earth I am afforded the opportunity to view you through the looking-glass of another. And I am in awe. Always in awe of you but the view from outside in is truly breath-taking.
we
it is
me.
most definitely,
me.
who is
confusing,
even to,
myself.
still, you have
desire. of. none.
for me…
not the me, of now, for
she – in all of her
she-ness…
is a trigger. that.
ignites within…
you (she hates that).
we have taken the
worst, of
us…
to display in all
ways, to
us…
you, and me,
we.
never.
planned.
this.
blindsided, with eyes-wide
open… and,
afraid.
taxi cab from monterey
i want to tic with kerouac in the shiveringest of places.
mind does not matter if mind is over matter.
that place.
i see him. i feel me there. i sense him beside me; red wine exhales and musty clothing.
he is my breath, my thoughts, my words.
i understand; no explanation extended.
i just simply do.
cranberries
pain in the deepest blue-gray swell of ocean crashing on cliffs and exploding in my head. beg to leave, go, settle into calm, peaceful sky but no. medicate without true placation i breathe in and breathe out mindful of each ocurence as it needles and gnaws, clawing at each part of my body wearing me down to nothing more than a staccato reaction of myself.
my words not heard in your ears the final wild-card for a perfect storm and i break in that moment.
only to pick myself up and be whole.
headbutt
i need you to know…
my love is there.
i push, because-
i want you to grow, into
your best you.
my strength – your strength –
same eyes,
same legs,
same heart –
butt heads;
push and pull, and
i know…
it’s hard to carry your load, and
it’s hard to carry my load, and
i need you to know…
my love is there.
i push, because
i see amazingness
in you.
i just needed you to…
know.
interior monologue
Art in various forms. Warm rosemary bread and coffee; Vanilla Nut. Drumsticks and earphones. Dirty socks on the floor. Stuffed Animals. Beach artifacts. Fresh herbs and scented candles of the real-wick type. A swinging chair in which to sit and ponder life. Palm trees and brightly colored, freshly planted flowers. Painted Terra Cotta pots of twelve-year-old girls.
A B-B-Q pit; our first major purchase together. Books and books and books and music. Always music. Peak eared puppy scampering by. Overflowing laundry baskets and unflushed toilets. Jingling dog tags. Cuts and scrapes on my hands boast labors of love. Dog toys, pencils, discarded food wrappers breaking free from their under-couch resting place. Basketball hoop, deflated balls, no air pump in sight for years. Paint where it should not be and slightly unsightly hedges; both requiring too much attention to be addressed.
Voicemail messages from my long-distance love, saved and savored. Empty propane tanks and price tags still stuck to their owners. Teenage cologne and brightly colored hair. A subtle stench in bedrooms that do not get cleaned to my liking. Pilot pens. Sunshine rays that reach past the umbrella novella shine brightly on dog leashes. Breeze. Stairs piled with belongings needing to be ushered away by those who belong to them. Lives changing almost before my very eyes.
Ice cream and puppy treats. Music. Always music. Drum kit, crafting, art supplies. Sparkling water infused with joy and happiness. Friends and sleep-not overs; cereal stuck to bowls not properly rinsed. Dirty finger smudges, travel souvenirs; another string cheese wrapper. Journals piled atop one another in hopes of becoming a book. Hostage math text (remnants of someone’s fifth grade). Coat closet bursting at the seams minus any actual coats.
Tortillas, cheese, and sour cream. Elementary school recess loudness competes with the din of skydiving plane zooming overhead. Magnolia trees promising eventual shade and privacy and waterfall-turned-herb-garden amid various grasses, plants, palms and neglected dog poop. Warm sunny places to nestle and shady spots in which to nap.
Transformation. Always transformation. Grandma Tena’s too-small china cup and daddy’s ashes in a tin I once gifted him. Discarded school papers, a painted starfish, and two dozen tulips blooming in matching vases. Love. Always love. Sent by my love with love. Music in the backdrop; music in the foreground. Open and trusting bonds. Acne and stinky feet and elusive showers. Vans aside sparkly golden flats, both pair in need of replacement. Broken ear buds left by the discarder and trash trucks taking entirely too long to complete their missions. Cacophony of sound ripping through my silence; home entirely too close to the main thoroughfare.
Puppy kisses with stinky puppy breath. iPhone chargers abound. Shattered screens replaced with hard-earned money and vivid dreams that make no sense. A drawer full of his clothing and lip gloss he always kisses off. Puppy nose peeking from behind potted flowers; restlessness desiring of a walk. Taylor GS Mini, rosemary bread with butter, and an end to deliciosly satisfying contemplative thought….
Memories to cherish and last a lifetime.
phoenix
from the ashes of her deconstructed being,
she learns to take hesitant breaths.
from the fears that left her knowing nothing of herself,
she sees glimmers of enlightenment
and love for her soul, and
lightness in her dark.
sate amid her famine
tears with a purpose, she knows,
but is still to weary to define.
from the ashes of her deconstructed being,
she learns to see herself as beautiful again.
from the fears that left her knowing nothing of herself,
she repurposes her heart
she walks with less trepidation, and
does not convulse
does not regurgitate
signs of healing, she knows,
and she allows herself to slumber.
more than
Tears well up and will their salty selves to fall from my eyes as I fight to hold them back. Insecurity washes over me, and I mourn me as the corners of my eyes pull and sting with pain. Sadness consumes my being. Tears beg now to crash and fall hard and fully. Wash me clean and allow me to begin again.
I hold my own hand. I feel my strength and resolve attempting a return to me. I search for a place that is larger and more powerful than my sadness.
I am worthy to me.
reel
If I wrote you in words I would attempt to syntactify what we did in those sacred moments when we stole together and how it felt to be encased in your arms. I would remember the day on Ray when you walked through my door in baseball cap that I jarred when I ran to kiss you. My words would tremble as I did with our first kiss. I lived myself into existence through your touch. We, a Beautiful Mess of a beginning shared electrifying sparks as you held my hand while driving with presumed innocence in my car. You are the smell of Eternity which you gifted me and still she rests on my windowsill bringing me mostly happy but sometimes sad. My words lie on your back because no other place or position brought me close enough to you. Puffs of white everywhere engulfed us in moments, hours, days until we had not time remaining and through a door one of us walked while the other watched through tearful eyes. Reel not real. Not a lie. Full of truths – a combination of yours and mine that tangled and weaved until they found a rhythm that could support the push and pull of us. I love you in this way and that way neither fighting to contend; the way love works best. The words would be beautiful if I drew them into a picture. Robin’s egg blue eye into my soul.
Suzy Ham 