Heart of my mind
Beats hard

Solidified shell of engrained thought
How to let go and loosen
What years of practice have formed

I’ve forged fear
Now to forgive

Constantly checking, pulling up and minimizing
My feelings,
My real doubt
And perceptions of your personhood.

I look to you to be the one
Who doesn’t disappoint my heart,
Who comprehends my mind,

But time and again
It seems you are more comfortable with the safety of straight hair
Simple, seemingly uncomplicated.

It was in vain that I tried to suppress the free curl of my soul
The spirals that I now allow to dance, allow to alight,
Static sparks of inspiration, underscored only by the shadow of a question,
Light laced with shades of fear,
And I, comfortably alone, silently speaking my doubt to the empty space
Wondering what man could ever match me -

The Burden of Proof – Thoughts on a StormyValentine’s Day

This Valentines day has unexpectedly provided me with significant opportunity to think about expectations, not because I am questioning my own but because I am playing silent observer to those of others. It’s snowing like mad outside and a pink heart shaped balloon, lost by someone’s Valentine, just flew by my window. This is one day out of three hundred and sixty five that is designated especially important to those who are in love. I am not at all sorry to say that I just don’t get it.

Why do we weigh down love with the burden of expressing it in a mere twenty four hours? Love is not a chore nor is it something that needs to be proved. We spend so much time “shouldering” each other that we forget that we are all connected and that love is what binds us! It’s a beautiful reality and one to be remembered and trusted not on one day a year, but everyday.

I spent this afternoon with my mom, a person whom I love not for what she does for me or for how she it, but for the person she is independent of me. In comparison with the more elaborate Valentine’s day plans of certain people in my life, my spontaneous and laid back afternoon spent cuddled in the empty movie theater with my mother would seem loserish and pathetic. There was no elaborate display of affection designed to prove that we think only of each other – rather there was an effortless coming together of two people’s lives for a few hours and a equally effortless parting of ways. That is what love is, being fully your own person, so much so that you allow others to be fully themselves, without the pressure of your desire burdening them.

I am sitting here, typing away at my computer, watching the city outside my window and feeling love course through my form, fully realized in my writing. In this moment, I want nothing from anyone and expect nothing. I have fallen in love with others and I have fallen in love with myself, to the eventual realization that the latter kind of love is the more lasting.

So on this year’s Valentines day, there will be no mournful bemoaning of my single status, but another day spent living my life and inviting others to live their own irrespective of my actions or what I think they should do. It’s quite liberating and I find that in allowing and letting go I have more energy than ever before to find any ol kind of love I like, literary, motherly, romantic, poetic, you name it.

What a beautiful day.

Through fiery fog flutters and flies
The most resilient of spirits -
My soul

I think of you now,
My feathered wings of black and blue

Healed by a four beat cadence
Hoof on hard earth
Or beats of my heart
and your head on my shoulder

Cradles for my gentle essence
Hope for the healing of my bruised wings

Younger Than the Sun...

Sometimes my mind jumps into the past, landing on a specific point in time, thrown backwards by a certain song or by passing by a certain old place.

The present moment finds me sitting at my desk, highlighting passages on Foucault as my roommate argues with her father in the background. I am here and simultaneously, I have been transported by Van Morrison’s whining rendition of Into the Mystic, back in time to the summer in between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. It was my first show season with Ham, and I was spending a great deal of my time on my own thanks to my parent’s preoccupation with their divorce. I wore overalls non stop that summer and spent most evenings whipping around the New Hampshire seacoast in the passenger seat of crazy Anna’s Toyota corolla, trying parrot bay and Hawaiian punch and thinking myself dangerous, smoking pot and wondering weather or not I was high…in essence, feeling my freedom. It's funny how songs can move from the present moment, inciting specific emotions and oftentimes glossing over intricacies felt, focusing on one overall sentiment that we've associated with a specific time in our lives. God knows I wasn't all smiles and joyous rebelliousness during my Van Morrison summer, but i remember myself as such. Perhaps it is better that way.

And when that fog horn blows I will be coming home
And when that fog horn blows I want to hear it
I dont have to fear it
I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
Then magnificently we will float into the mystic