holding a fire burning

My heart is bright and excited for the future.

The darkness of the unknown is a new comfort.

I will be somewhere, soon.

The road to revolution

Does not wait.

The drums pulse

While martyrs fall to the side.

I walk upon the hard dust

In silence

I speak words in a whisper

I do not cry

I do not yell

My words must mean—

My footsteps must mean—

The road is—

My truth is not my truth alone

But a (mis)conception

Fed by experience

Jaded by perception

My world is given to me

And now I walk behind others

Deepening their ruts

Our world is not our own

We cannot realize responsibility

Until we give up ownership

And take care.

The damage we do

By our uncareful tread

By our imperfect step…

Try as we can

We cannot go unnoticed

The birds hear our voices

The ground feels our feet

It is not in isolation that we live

It is not in isolation that we live with each other

It is not in isolation that we—

We do not have to build new roads, empires, bridges, maps, towers, settlements

We have only to trust our feet to walk us together

To build

for us

a revolution

A revolution

A revolving door

Re-volution.

Re-volve. Re-evolve. Retry.

We do it again.

Our experience is our own

(it is the only thing we can own)

Knowing

It has all been lived before.

I am nobody

A red sinking autumn sun

Took my name away.

(Richard Wright, circa 1960)

To truly listen is to risk changing yourself forever.

Let go-

he said as we sped along the highway on his motorbike.

I closed my eyes as I rode my bike down the empty street.

Let go-

she said as I cried about what never was.

I hugged my knees to my chest breathing the cold air, wondering why I was still sitting there.

Let go

Let go

Let go

It echoes without action, without knowing what action to take.

I find myself losing my grip on what I have held on to for so long. To what I believed would make me happy, to what I found solace in. I spin into darkness, dizzy and disoriented. I numb myself. Back to work. It is too hard to cry. Too distracting. Maybe if I keep staring at the screen my thoughts will go blank and I will forget how I had to stop holding on. Where is the beauty in my tears? I thought poets found comfort in sadness. Wet and stained my face does not hold any majestic grace, as I once thought it should.

I had two serendipitous moments today.
They reminded me of our intimate connections with strangers. Our immediate trust but also the chances we take, in every moment, to let someone in.

We made a dating profile tonight. We typed out the description of our friend and then looked at the profiles of everyone else. How can we know anything about someone from a few pictures and words. But it was weird because immediately it felt like we did.

All the things I want to be. All the things I want to do. I feel I am teetering, about to become someone different than I am. Only the words that define me will change but now I get to make up new ones and I want to be a person that is excited to do this. Not terrified.

In the sun today, seeing that being present does not mean to be completely at peace with myself but to accept my discord, my unsteadiness.

What would my profile say? How do I describe myself to someone who gets to view only a static notion of me? What are the consequences of each word that gets weighted with so much judgement?

Found my heartbeat.
Heard it once again

Echo in the silence

of the mountains

of the sky.

Breathing deep

my lungs

take in

the air

exhaled by the earth.

The drum speaks

As a warrior

of my blood

pulsing into my hands

I connect to the blades of grass under my feet

Their sharp softness reminds me of my reality.

I want to show you how beautiful I see you to be so that when the sky is not the sky but black construction paper packed and stacked until gravity does not work that top sheet, the carpet in our house, will lift up and up and up and all together we’ll remember always and forever. And I don’t want to know what any of it means except that everything changes in the way that makes me Love the most.

A man sees a little girl whimpering on the side of the road. As he gets close to her, he realizes she is saying “help…help…”
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
Still whimpering she holds out her hand to reveal one quarter ” I dropped my other two quarters into the gutter”
“Is that as loud as you can yell for help?”
She nods.
And he takes her other quarter.