A bobber above the water
The skipping line bounces back and tugs at my toe
A hook pierced to flesh and breathing
Breathing up and down
Bubbles floating to the surface—
There must be life beneath the water
My consciousness is lying beneath my breasts
Safe for the moment in that small crevice
The wind picks up
And I’m grabbing at skin where no one thinks I’ll hide it
I’m on the verge of losing
A hook punctures my ankle now
This terror of letting go—
It slips away on its own accord
Submerged here and alone
Save my arms that keep me afloat
And it’s staring at me
Disappearing to new depths, reappearing all around my body
This has nothing to do with survival
Reactionary cells in my spine
Something so painful, I’m conscious again—
Awake in anger
And resentment - as if I could impart emotion
On the water
Everyone is so strong, aren’t they—
We are doggy paddling for the soul
If only to keep it above the surface
If only to save it from below
Which is my better half?
This fear is a dark place
The reins of some far off boat, sound
That pierces and holds, voices pulling to themselves
Stringing me along here
And I’m floating now—
It feels easy
On my back like I am
A line straight down through my liver
Laden with giving in
consuming, forgetting—
This is where time flies by so fast
you thought you had not one thought.
Memories are scattered here
You sleep until your muscles atrophy.
shhh, go to sleep
This woman came into the library the other day and told me my spirit animal is the sloth. Then she pulled out a book full of pictures of sloths she cut out of magazines.
(Source: sallyg94)
This is the heat that seeks the flaw in everything
and loves the flaw.
Nothing is heavier than its spirit,
nothing more landlocked than the body within it.
Its daylilies grow overnight, our lawns
bare, then falsely gay, then bare again. Imagine
your mind wandering without its logic,
your body the sides of a riverbed giving in …
In it, no world can survive
having more than its neighbors;
in it, the pressure to become forever less in the pressure
to take forevermore
to get there. Oh
let it touch you …
The porch is sharply lit - little box of the body -
and the hammock swings out easily over its edge.
Beyond, the hot ferns bed, and fireflies gauze
the fat tobacco slums,
the crickets boring holes into the heat the crickets fill.
Rock out into that dark and back to where
the blind moths circle, circle,
back and forth from the bone-white house to the creepers unbraiding.
Nothing will catch you.
Nothing will let you go.
We call it blossoming -
the spirit breaks from you and you remain.
-Jorie Graham
Juice or tea and sugar
if passion needs more caffeine
or carbohydrates to sustain itself or cause pleasure.
A feeling low down in the belly, aching and stifled from the throat when not expressed.
Lies like a cloak over the body - festers and swells
Viruses spring up in lymph nodes and mosquitoes breed in stagnant waters and not speaking is the only cause of illness
And I am lowly in my passion.
Tacking feelings to ideas, relying on sex passion
Sex that stimulates so bad it draws something out and makes
creation again - this pull during an orgasm where we lap up, fall back, and cycle
My daughter wakes up in the middle of the night crying as if she’d had a bad dream and that dream has made an impression, one that will make her look away and remember something terrifying or wonderful, it doesn’t matter, in a conversation on her first date or sharing a joint with strangers, answering questions about herself that she will never have all the answers to because so much of herself has been forgotten or could never be explained. And then she’ll realize all this and find herself in knowing that finding yourself is arbitrary.
“ …anyone who attempts to do both, to adjust to his group and at the same time pursue his individual goal, becomes neurotic. ”
Carl Jung
There are people I don’t agree with, people I fantasize arguing with. What does this say about me? But more importantly, why have I been trying to please these people?
I stopped writing when I had panic attacks
I stopped writing when I met my boyfriend
I stopped writing when I graduated from college
I stopped writing when I had a baby.
I had so many excuses-
I don’t have time to write anymore I don’t even have time to read Writing creatively is such an egotistical thing Who cares what I have to say
And then I lost my train of thought
Other people’s thoughts become my thoughts
I feel disconnected
I cannot articulate what I mean anymore
My conversations are dry
I rarely have stimulating conversations
