Category: Poetry

Poetry

The Little Inventor

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CHINESE NEW YEAR

The Little Inventor
There once was a little girl
Who invented a time machine.
Sitting underneath her pine tree.
She clanked the parts together
Screwing a bolt in here
And hammering the metal down flat.
No one would believe her
Except something was different
The day that she came back.
Her voice had changed
Now soft and quiet.
And her eyes had aged, too.
Neighbors whispered, “problems at home.”
Her distant parents didn’t know what to do.
Teachers would advise private school,
Doctors peddled medicines,
The little girl just sat calmly, staring lightly
Awaiting more problematic comparisons.
She saw this day, the days between
The days before.
Wearing an uncomplicated smile
Daydreaming, breathing
Of the memories at the shore.
She kept growing up, growing older
Almost surprised with every year.
Lovers tried to learn her
Family always concerned with her
As she lived a life free, and without fear.
She saw her parents die,
And bore many children.
She loved, and loved, and loved
With abandon.
Yet, only the moon understood
How she circled ’round and ’round
Admiring and witnessing
Watching and waiting,
But never really feeling
Her feet plant in the ground.
Without questions and patiently present
Dancing in her favorite dream.
Reliving and rendezvousing with
Familiar faces, in slightly new spaces
Projecting from her mind
Onto a private movie screen.
A once young time traveler
Now faded and aging into her foreshadowed scenery
Elasticity leaving her once supple skin.
Lovingly longing out the window at the pine tree greenery.
Why did she come back to this life, one might wonder?
The stars sang of exaltation, relief of recognition
The moon now sighing at the poetry of her rendition.
She jumped in puddles,
Kissed a doe on the nose.
Sang so loud her voice gave out
And smelled an evening primrose.
Now standing at the foot of her shore,
Awaking as the little girl once more
Under her pine tree,
On Earth’s loving floor.

Poetry

Wear Me

by Purpose and Prose4 Comments on Wear Me

wear me

Wear Me
Her eyes are red
Bearing his tears
His hurt wears her
As the sun turns to set

She reaches out a hand
In her striped blue sweater
His loneliness wears her
As the sun turns to set

Her nightmares continue
Longing to sleep naked again
His tiredness wears her
As the sun turns to set

She is without poetry
A voice once ‘prolific’
His words wear her
As the sun turns to set

Her shadow doesn’t move
For the first time
His silence wears her
As the sun sets.

Poetry

No

by Purpose and Prose5 Comments on No

NO

PREFACE: I used to think it was important to only share recovery, and on that same wavelength, I used to think only love poems were the kinds that were important to share.  Today, I am reminded of the process and how I had to hear experience, then strength and hope in order to heal.  Knowing that you’re not alone is key to releasing the power that traumatic experiences have on the mental, emotional and spiritual states of the person who has been disturbed.  I am reminded that both light and dark exist together.  The following might be triggering for some assault/rape survivors.

…

My dream last night was about James.  He was the sweet neighbor boy who lived around the corner from my house growing up. We would ride our bikes around the dirt roads together.  One day he “forgot” his bike, so we had to walk, and he grabbed my hand and held it all afternoon.  We would go swimming in ponds and pick blackberries and on one evening, he gave me my first real kiss when I was 13 in the back of my mom’s car.

I remember wearing his football jersey to school on a Friday to support him for the game that evening.  Feeling important and trusted, I wore it like a badge of my status, popularity and commitment to my new and first boyfriend.  After the game, he kissed me again, this time in front of his friends.  I was amazed at his confidence and bravery in liking me.  He was a year older at 14, and fellow friends envied that an older boy was dating me. It gave me this image of “maturity” where locker room girls asked for dating advice.

James and I didn’t date long, however, age differences at that time of puberty made a big difference.  Girls at 14 were starting to make-out with boys, get felt-up, even play below the belt.  But I wasn’t ready.  Nervous to even french kiss him, that didn’t seem to be enough for his current appetite.  However, we remained friends all throughout junior high and into high school.

We went to parties together often, although he typically would socialize with the more popular, athletic crowd.  Whereas, my group was a little more rough around the edges.  He was never judgmental, though.  When I wore too much makeup, or a shirt too low, or when rumors began to spread of my sexual conquests (apparently I slept with an entire football team at another school and got 7 abortions one summer), he remained my friend.

I often thought he was one of the kindest, truest men I had ever met.  I trusted him wholeheartedly and even thought that one day we might end up together when life balanced out a bit.  I could see us on the farm raising a bunch of babies, working the soil and having too many animals. He loved dogs and I loved pigs and we both already had at least 5 cats between us.

Within a single evening, those tender daydreams turned into rocks that were thrown into my perception and shattered my reality.  Parts of me broke all while I slept.  At 17, he raped me in his dorm room when I was unconscious. The once sweet boy who I shared so many memories with became a horrible nightmare for 13 years to come.

I got very drunk at a party one night. I knew I had overdone it and was worried about my safety.  As a smart girl, I knew that boys could take advantage, so I called James to come get me since he lived in a dormitory nearby.  It was no secret that I was fall-over drunk. I was young, still trying to figure out my limits with alcohol and as some children from disturbed childhoods do, I was self-medicating. Even as I write this, I find myself justifying.

I don’t remember much after returning to his dorm room.  Just laying in his bed and trying to fall asleep, my shirt coming off and telling him I was cold.

I woke up the next morning completely naked beside him. Confused, embarrassed and sore. I got dressed and left knowing that I didn’t want to have sex with him, but I had, or he had with me. Feeling like it was my fault – for years to come. Scared if he had or hadn’t used protection.  (He hadn’t). If only I hadn’t drank so much.  If only I could remember what happened.  If only I was awake long enough to tell him no.  If only…

I drove home missing a part of myself.  I drove home never wanting to see myself naked again.  I drove home with my skin tensing with disgust and anger.  I drove home to a place where I was not safe to tell anyone about what had happened.  I drove home in silence and alone.  I drove home looking at a sunrise and feeling like nothing would ever look beautiful again.  I drove home empty and numb.  I drove home passing his house.  I drove home.

That night, I was given three things: an inability to get close or trust men for nearly a decade, a tendency to disassociate with myself that spawned many more years of abuse, and I was given chlamydia. Which my parents nearly disowned me over.  (Back then parents were notified of sexually transmitted diseases if the child was under the age of 18.) Fortunately, one of those things was treatable with a tiny little pill.  Unfortunately, everything else wasn’t that easy to overcome.

I wrote a poem that day, it later won some prestigious thing that’s not even worth mentioning – but here it is.  A poem I haven’t read in 13 years that all of a sudden today, on the eve of 2018, somehow feels important:

No
Hold my heart out on my sleeve,
Take a breath and watch me leave,
Caught in passion that I didn’t want,
Act as if you’re nonchalant.
One can’t be after such an assault.
The heart is in remorse and life comes to a halt.
Hide my tears and never tell a soul,
My body is numb and my love is cold.
Never regain consciousness from this perdition I’ve been placed.
My life is over.
I’ve been erased.
Not so fast, this isn’t my fault.
Don’t ask why, one could never understand,
Why this man could have laid his hand,
His hand upon myself in an outraged way.
Don’t ask why, for on that day,
You will take your life away.

 

Poetry

Come to Me

by Purpose and Prose1 Comment on Come to Me

COME TO ME

Come to Me
Open your eyes.
Don’t look away,
I want to show you my body.
I daydream every day
About lifting my dress over my head.
Feeling the contrast
Of your hands on the warmth
Of my velvet skin.
You have yet to feel the strength of my thighs.
Or how delicate my fingertips can be
On the curve of your low back.
Our eyes whisper
Forgotten articulations of intimacy
More complex than walnut burl searing
In a healthy winter fire.
Lips like crushed figs
Swallowing with anticipation
To kiss you, please let me.
Trembling, quivering, pulsing.
Nourish me with the sparkling contents
Of your smile as you see my vulnerability.
And then don’t make me wait.
I have felt the pressure of your excitement
Against me,
Subtle movements pressing closer
The bulge of your affections
And I want it.
All of you.
The way I had you now and then.
The glisten of sweat,
Boiling the blood
Like a kettle I will let you know when I am ready
But take your time.
Taste me, I’m sweet
And I want to hear all of your noises.
See my secrets, my scars,
Smell my sexuality,
And move into me.
See my fevered eyes
As I rake my fingers down your chest.
I want you in my hands, in my mouth
I have felt you everywhere but there.
Make me pant, hear my gasps,
Write your name inside me.
Bury your face into my hair
As I push myself selfishly closer
Covet me. Cover me.
Come to me.
Oh my dear,
How I miss you.

Poetry

A Tale of Two Lovers

by Purpose and ProseLeave a Comment on A Tale of Two Lovers

CREATIVE ASSIGNMENT: FINAL PROJECT

A Tale of Two Lovers
There is a profound sadness in her.
Bathed in responsibility
And graceful with acceptance.
Passersby can’t even see her hiding
That sweet, calm smile,
Selflessness worn like a familiar sweater.
Worthiness a tattoo written backwards on her shoulder
A silent reminder.
But not many, only a one,
Can see the poor girls heart.
The one that sings louder in cars
Or alone with her pillow.
Or in a bathroom with the water running.
Her prayers hang on the wind
Sorrowfully tussling the leaves.

…

“May he find that love.
One that is patient in silence, like mine.
May she kiss his lip when he bites it.
And may he hold her hand long enough to split realms.
I hope her body effortlessly tangles into his
At night, with the candlelight
On the ceiling at just the right angle, the way he likes it.

Allow him a home.
And for her to be braver than I.
I want her to look him in the eye,
and say with clarity, with vibrancy
Without hesitation,
Or fear of exploration,
– I know you,
– I love you, my only one.

Have her kiss his back, and the soft spots on his wrists.
The parts I have yet to kiss.
When she touches his neck,
With ease, he will settle into her.
May she delight in his humor,
Make her clever –
I know she will be so beautiful,
More beautiful than I. ”

…

She wistfully watches
As two birds dance and flirt in the sky
Above a building,
High over her head and thoughts.
She remembers him,
And the way they bumped into her car
While falling in love, and holding each other
Like teenagers do.
Paintings on the wall ask her,
“What do you want?”

“For him to think of me.
From time to time,
But not all the time.
When laying with his back on a rug
Or when that song comes on.”

Her love of him, it does not end
That’s not what this is
This is slow piano music played in the dark,
It’s the smell of a memory once loved but not forgotten
Slipping toes in sand,
The sensation of stars dripping from the night sky.
A first kiss, before sullied by time.
Or the way she felt with a new book when she was younger.
Hopeful and complete.
Eager to read on, a seemingly endless and fascinating tale.

Poetry

Just Words

by Purpose and Prose9 Comments on Just Words

JUST WORDS

Just Words
I will spend my lifetime searching,
Wandering the pathways,
Pacing through the corridors.
I have already hiked down an Austrian mountain
And yet, I haven’t found them.
I drove across the country from a small town farm in Michigan
Sleeping in my car for days
Winking at the moon and blowing kisses to the stars.
I once saw a baby greet a Christmas light with the tip of her tiny nose
And yet, they still allude me.
Sunsets have poured over hills and valleys,
I have heard lonely trains ring out in the night.
I flew in a helicopter with a glass floor and marveled at the grass below.
But where are they?
“Longing” sounds too friendless.
“Wanting” sings of desperation.
Those are not the right ones.
I’m searching for something sweet.
A seeker, traveler, an old nomadic people,
A people who make love everywhere except a bed.
We are out there and we are adventuring.
All in the hopes of finding them.
“Adore” feels commonplace
“Rapture” has an aftertaste of leaving
“Treasure” is not rare enough.
Yet, I have not grown tired,
Nourishment and apostles lead the way.
My footsteps are one of many, but they are of my own.
With every mile and exhale of relief, I hear your names.
Painters are drinking sangria in Madrid,
Musicians are caught flirting with their eyes
All the while, I am sleeping just to dream about you.
In South Africa, a baby black rhinoceros coos for her mother’s milk,
And bright blue nameless birds fly over a harsh and tanned grassland.
The clever wind knows where to take me, another nameless bird.
Like the soft and marbled clouds, I float and watch and wonder.
“True” inching closer…
“Providence” there is wisdom, but there is no pulse.
What language do the God’s speak?
Have they found them yet? Or were they the first and forever hopeful mercenaries?
Will I always be too human to hear them?
Children and babies have slept in my arms
And so did you, once.
In my love for you, in my pursuit of you,
Oh my dear,
I will one day find the…

Poetry

The Fog

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THE FOG

The Fog
The fog was alive in November
The time when we remembered.
It was a Sunday night,
And the man in the eccentric clothes never walked his dog.
No one could have known,
That the temperature had been just right.
That the birds were softening their sight.
As the mist began to grow
Only one house had laughter within it.
Piercing the street with sounds only lovers could make.
The hypnotic dance had begun,
Echoing and enchanting not just one.
Two young moonflowers unfurled in the dim haze.
Trumpeting their petals, swaying only with each other.
Circulating was the thick cloud, as if searching for her mother.
And just then, consciousness became her.
Delighting was the chant of the silent whisperer.
The twirling new blossoms inhaled the ancient world.
Recalling, enthralling,
The Earth was still somehow revolving.
But there was no proof,
The Bible should have written this.
The flowers were sighing
As the air started drying.
Only the smell of cinnamon remains in the empty field.
The field where significance once sat.

Poetry, Self-Reflection

I’m A Sucker For True Love

by Purpose and Prose2 Comments on I’m A Sucker For True Love

I'M A SUCKER FOR TRUE LOVE

There are so many flavors of love.  There is the kind of love that comforts you, like watching a puppy rummage around in the dirt and roll on his side and sneeze his snout into the grass.  There is the type of love that heals you – when you are tired, or sad and you are given a hug so warm and gentle you can breathe and let your shoulders fall.  There is another kind of love that excites and sends tingles from your fingertips to your toes.  And then yet another, there is a love that is so infinite it’s like staring at the ocean, mesmerized at the expansiveness of the horizon, making you question how far the human eye can see.

I understood the tingly love, boys are good at giving that.  It’s a physical love.  You feel butterflies and heat and inquiry.  But once the clothes are off and the lights are on, I would feel lonely. Not every time, not with everyone, but mostly I would feel it. A hint, a glisten, an underlying simmer of loneliness.

I was searching for the love I had been promised by childhood movies.  The love that would wake me from my forever sleep.  The one that would lift me up and guide me along the skyline on a carpet, or the one that would draw me “wearing this, and only this.” Let’s be real though, Titanic ruined all of us tweens for an actual dating life.  No one could compare to Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson.  Forever be still my heart.

However, I have.  I have found the type of love I had been seeking.  I have received all of the flavors, varieties, swirling colors and prismatic divinity anyone could dream of and the kinds I couldn’t even begin to dream of.  The kind of love that rips your heart apart and then puts it back together with a million new pieces.  The one that makes you want to discover new words, and then you realize that words are useless in the face of her beauty.  The kind of love that longs, and causes tears at the mere thought of a hug from their gentle, perfect arms.

A hopeless romantic, a loveaholic, an explorer for fate – my everything had been waiting.  And then, in the simplest form, as she effortlessly does – love appears.  Patience, faith, and openness lead me to her path. Once you are walking with her, and your fellow falling star, everything begins – just as it always had.

Today, on this gray and cloudy and cold morning, I am grateful for her kindness.  I am so glad love, in her grace, entered my life and taught me to smile in the way only she could make me smile.  And, I am just so damn curious to know… what my love feels like to him.

Okay Jack Dawson, I suppose I can let you go like the heart of the ocean.  I’ve found my own ship of dreams.

Divine
His eyes so confident,
Oh, how he seeks;
Like a wandering Sophophile.
Wise with no words to speak,
I want to be with him all of the while.

It’s a tragically ending ballet.
But I want him anyway.

I show him I’m his and wait out time;
Goodness is a choice and redemption is fine;
All things are clear but then turn on a dime.

Gentle release and then trapped in kind;
Two borrowed hulls endlessly intertwined.

It’s lawless.
Oh, how I break.
To feel the weight of gravity,
Selfishly and recklessly I want to take,
And feel him beside me.

Tell me it’s worth it, my moon and sunshine.
Tell me you want me some of the time.

Poetry, Self-Help, Self-Reflection

It’s Not Purpose – It’s Important Life’s Work

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IT'S NOT PURPOSE - IT'S IMPORTANT LIFE'S WORK

To friends that are close with me, I say that my purpose in this life is unconditional love.  But that statement is such a short cliff note of what I truly mean.  First of all, I think saying that I have a purpose is like saying a single ant’s purpose is to build a colony for it’s queen.  When from a grander perspective, ants as a whole, aerate the soil so water and nutrients can flow directly to plant roots, they serve as food for birds and lizards, and they distribute seeds by storing them in their tunnels.

I don’t know what my humanly purpose is much like an ant doesn’t know what his ant-ly purpose is.  However, I do think what I choose to focus on here is important and my focus is unconditional love.

Nine years ago, when I realized that I wouldn’t make the kind of money I needed as a photojournalist, I was heartbroken.  I had $23,000+ in student loan debt and I lived in California, one of the most expensive states in the U.S..  I didn’t want to move back home and I was freelancing for (sometimes) 90 hours a week to pay my bills.  I lived comfortably, which was a step up from being homeless.  Something I also experienced for a month straight out of college.  I was grateful for the roof, the food, the work – but I was also alone in my apartment every single day for a year.

After I ‘gave up my dream of becoming a photojournalist,’ I realized that I could look at things in three different ways:

  1. That I gave up my ‘dreams’ and my ‘purpose’ and I sold out.
  2. That I chose a career that provided me financial security, while I could still pursue my passions in life: photography & journalism.
  3. That I can dream, that I can envision a pursuit for my life. Acknowledge that gift, and realize I can do anything else I want and it can change at any time.

I chose the third. (And a little bit of the second).  Once I realized that my career, and my financial well-being were not determining who I was or what I wanted to represent, that freed me up to dream even bigger.  And believe me, as someone who has spent 9 years dedicating her life to unconditional love – this is the biggest thing I can think of still to this day.  And that brings me to my next point.  What’s so important about unconditional love?

The reason why I chose this as my study and my important life’s work is to receive an endless and infinite answer. Love, time, and the universe are pretty much all I think about.  They’re definitely all I write about and my poetry can’t seem to find anything else to grip on to.  I tried writing a poem about a day in the life of my cat and that turned into a love poem too.

Unconditional love is a daily practice.  I have to give it to myself, try to receive it from the world, bestow it to others – even to people that I may be mad at for not using their blinker.  Seriously though, it’s so easy, I just don’t understand.

Sometimes unconditional love means boundaries.  Sometimes it means ending a really loving, authentic and genuinely happy relationship because you know you aren’t right for each other and you’re enabling your partner.  Sometimes it means saying goodbye to your dad every day so you can love yourself and heal. Sometimes it means ending friendships because they aren’t healthy for you.  Sometimes it means being honest and admitting something you don’t like about yourself. Sometimes it means putting your cat to sleep because she has diabetes and is about to go unconscious into a coma.

Sometimes you have to receive it, even if you don’t feel worthy.  Sometimes it feels too beautiful and too good to be given to you.  But sometimes, it’s easy though, too.  It’s all around and ready to be felt and absorbed and accepted and then churned inside of you to be handed over like a gift to passersby.  It’s in the sound of the wind, the dancing fall of the yellow leaf, the mother gently caressing the soft cheek of her young baby and the woman pushing her elderly dog in a stroller.

Sometimes unconditional love is selflessness, and other times it’s compassion.  Every day it reveals itself in a new, beautiful and expansive form.  Every day I learn something new about people, about myself and about my important life’s work. One day I will even figure out the words to describe what I’ve learned.  Until then, I’ll just write love poems.

Unconditional
You are the first name I hear upon waking,
The wind dancing in my hair.
When the sun turns gold
And the light feels old,
I hear you once more.

 

Poetry

Too-Personal Plane Poetry Pt. 2

by Purpose and ProseLeave a Comment on Too-Personal Plane Poetry Pt. 2

TOO-PERSONAL PLANE POETRY PT. 2

Uncharted Territories
My hands are explorers,
my fingers chart sea routes along your wrists.
Before, I stood at a distance,
dipping my toes,
but now I adventure into
new uncharted territories.
My eyes, telescopes.
My lips caressing of your shoreline.
I want to travel into international waters.
Where there are no laws.
Where the waves peak.
Where I can taste your salt,
and the roughage of your break.
Desiring to be supported by your body
of water,
Cool my warm, basically naked, skin.