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;