Gilead

There are nights when I feel weak
Depleted, lacking, always reaching for something that isn't there, trying to get a grip
My hands are cracked from all the hurt I have tried to hold in them, my throat is hoarse from all the words I tried to say, there is a hole in the pit of my stomach the size of a peach pit from everything I've tried to swallow, tried to stuff inside, tried to grow inside of myself
There are days when I pause and ask if it's all worth it, this whole living honestly thing, because living with a heart wide open means you are wide open when the stones get thrown
Sometimes I wonder if this is what healing feels like, this lacking, trying to hold everything with arms getting tired, heart chapped by the wind because it's been on your sleeve, exposed to the elements, for quite some time now
I feel an evident lacking tonight
Lacking motivation, lacking wisdom, lacking the ability to turn simple words into something poetic, lacking blood
I think this is all part of living with your heart wide open, living from that place of honesty. It is incredibly hard, and your heart gets bruised and there are times when you want to take back your open hands and close your fists so tightly nothing can get through, nothing can hurt you
Living honestly means sometimes there is crying, messy crying, and there are meltdowns in the bathroom and there is standing in front of the mirror trying to get yourself together and there are sleepless nights and evidence of lacking and weakness
Living honestly, openly, engaging in this give and take with myself and the people around me and the universe, it is depleting, and exhausting, and hard. Being real and looking myself in the mess and accepting that, it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see a girl who doesn't know if she's worth loving today, with all the imperfections, when I'm not nice, when I am selfish and exhausted and depleted.
And then I take a moment, and I step back, and I realize there is beauty in this too
Because now I can write pages and pages on his eyes, her laugh, being surrounded by people and witnessing beautiful words and moments and conversations.
And if I acknowledge the hard parts of living honestly, I also must acknowledge the good
How it has allowed me to love myself and accept myself, even when it's messy
How it has allowed me to become a beauty seeker
How it has given me moments of connection and interactions with amazing people
Living honestly means you take the good and the bad, and I guess you set up a monument for both.
You acknowledge the good and the bad
I have books filled with memories of all the good things, the beautiful moments that made me so grateful to be here and to be alive and to be human
And I have a box filled with all those painful reminders, the physical and metaphorical scars I wish I didn't have to carry around with me but are such an important part of my story
Lately I've been hearing a lot about monuments, and naming the important things in your life
A while ago I came up with a word I wanted my life to embody, and looking at it now I think it's starting to blossom into existence


Gilead: A place of healing

Truth Telling

I told the truth today
Sometimes the truth isn't what you want to hear.
Sometimes the truth is messy. It gets all over your hands and stuck in your hair and tracks mud through the house
Sometimes the truth is bold and loud and demanding, roaring and stomping and bellowing
Sometimes the truth comes softly, in whispers, on the wind and through other people and through the voices in your own head
Sometimes the truth is scary


One of the things I've been trying to do for a while now is to live my truth. That is easier said than done. It's hard to live your truth when you're grumpy and angry and annoyed or when you're sad and scared. It's hard to keep living from that honest place when it feels like there is nothing left.
And yet, at the same time, I know that maintaining that honesty and that truth telling is a huge part of my healing journey


So I've been gathering wisdom, learning from poets and teachers and brilliant minds.
They are teaching me to live in this skin I'm not sure I belong in, how to breathe in acceptance and live from that place of honesty
Even if it hurts
Even if it's hard
To open my hands to accept whatever comes, and to give whatever I can
To let myself feel even the ugliest, messiest parts of this life, and love myself anyway


And I look at myself at the end of the day, tired eyes and messy hair with a long to-do list and a mind running circles around itself trying to get it all right (Because even with all I'm learning, I'm still trying to get it right)
And I can honestly say that today I told the truth

Here's to love

Here's to messy love, the kind that leaves you with a broken heart, extreme emotions
Here's to family love, and the amazing people who make up mine and  remind me that family isn't just where you come from, it's where you belong
Here's to friend love, and the beautiful, crazy individuals who laugh with me, cry with me, learn with me, share with me, and support me even when I don't deserve it
Here's to your first love, and the boy who takes your breath away
Here's to your last love, someday, and the person who loves you when you're young and also when you're older
Here's to all the loves in between, the people who hold your heart, and sometimes break it, and all they teach you along the way
Here's to the first person who gave me a valentine
Here's to loving yourself
Here's to loving other people
Here's to being loved
Here's to the old ones, the young ones, the free spirits and the workaholics, to everyone who is waiting to be loved and not realizing they already are
Here's to the newlyweds, and the couples who have been married for 50 years
Here's to the people who fight for love
Here's to the people love crept up on
Here's to sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and friends and boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives and memories
Here's to love, in every shape and form, because it is all beautiful

Forest Green

I've started identifying each day with a color
Blood red, harsh pink, ocean blue
I write every day that today is harsh pink or today is burnt orange
I've been taking notes
Some of them in a running word document I have on my computer titled Remember this.
Remember the way you feel right now, remembering how it all was, remember how you felt, remember this. Sometimes the words are coherent, detailed accounts of what happened. Sometimes they are feelings, words I shouldn't say but write anyway, the honest truth. Sometimes it is only a sentence, or a color.
Today is blood red
There are years for questions and years for answers and so far this year has been one for being stripped bare, standing naked in front of people, wearing my heart on my sleeve, gasping for air, trying to understand this. I'm not exactly sure what kind of year that is, but I know this last month and a bit has felt like a sledge hammer to the stomach, kicking my spine. I keep choking on the truth, acting like I have something to prove.
I've been writing a lot, most of it broken records, the same thing repeated in a million different ways. It's not always polite and I'm learning that sometimes honesty isn't polite. I'm over using the word metaphor and the truth is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow.
Today is forest green. It's wrapping my mind around the truth and trying to get it right. It's too much poetry, not enough honesty.


"There are places inside me I'm still learning to love. They are shaped like God or cigarette smoke"

Deterioration Transfused

A poem


You’re killing me.
I mumble the words as I sit in the front seat of my car listening to some country station
You’re killing me
Like the poison they are feeding you through lines and tubes is flowing into my veins, creating a lethal combination brewing in my blood stream
Loving you and missing you feels like it will be the death of me
My heart beats too fast (every beat a resounding “Don’t die, don’t die”), my palms are sweaty, my muscles ache, I barely sleep.
You, my love, will be the death of me.
Its not fair.
I want you here, to hold you and promise you a thousand tomorrows. And when time screws us over, as time has been known to do, we’ll still be running like we are invincible and death is just a detour.
There are no answers. All I can give you are empty words and promises. There is nothing romantic nor elegant about deterioration.
It happens in twins. One deteriorates followed by the other. Its a crisis, an emergency.
So why, now, are there no alarms sounding?
I’d do anything to turn back time, to change things. But I am not god nor magician, only a simple poet with her heart on her sleeve.
Your deterioration is killing me.