Pretend Artists Night (Patreon)

a friend of mine had a "pretend artists club" and I was able to attend the first meeting where we shared pieces of our art that we have been working on or something brand new. I find when I am prompted to create for a specific reason, I thrive.

One morning while in Ohio with Nalcoah, as I am figuring out the direction my life will take now, I was inspired by a dream for the first few lines and wrote this poem. Which then turned into pouring out my heart into the lines.

My friend Emmy and I collaborated as we figured out both of our biggest fears about the artists' night balanced each other out. So I wrote the poem and she performed it. And I have never heard anything that made me so excited about my own writing or art. She made it come alive in a way I couldn't have dreamed. It was a moment of elation and embarrassment and excitement for my life like I haven't felt in a long long time.

This is the poem :

I shave my head and I look to you.

in my dreams I find you.

I jump and move to you

get out of your way.

get on your level.

learn the right thing for you.

say it the right way for you.

but everything I learned and everything I felt

-seemed in opposition to your learning and your wanting.

years of yearning, years of wanting. unreturned. unwanted.

It was fast and then it was slow

it was fire and then it was sand

it was breath and then it was mucus.

clogging all of our airways and suffocating our words.

all communication and connection - just gulping and drowning.

we were aching for each other evenly,

and then

you know what happened.

I happened.

I started to let you in.

I started to let myself out -

with curious quaint questions.

you started to push me away -

with already assumed answers.

was that was the beginning of the ending.

you wanted it all to be a quest for the ultimate

and I just wanted the honesty of the moment.

and in this way,

it seems best.

you leaving, I mean.

our conversations when we were each wanting and listening for a completely different outcome in life, in movement, in learning,

started to deteriorate us.

you -

thinking I only asked questions to get you to say a certain thing

me -

fumbling with wondering how to speak to you at all.

in this way, is it best?

best.

well, is there such a thing?

or simply always better?

maybe this is better.

better than what we had.

what did we even have at the end?

The past two weeks I have felt everything but better.

screaming, suffocating.

suffocating

suffocating.

suffocating.

that word.

the best thing I have right now to describe the feeling in my body -

in my arms

in my belly

in my head

in my mouth.

suffocating.

strangling…

strangling myself.

don’t start going that way.

don’t go that way.

but I do,

and I fantasize.

strangling

ending.

the hope vanishes.

the fear creeps in stronger than ever.

hopelessness and fear.

fear

fear

fear.

always afraid.

life is too big to face like this.

i’m too much to face like this.

always afraid.

too many decisions.

I want it all.

I want to be it all

I want to do it all

I want to feel it all

I want to be with everyone,

know everyone,

love everyone.

I want to taste everything,

everyone.

go everywhere.

but I also just want the most simple of lives.

a home that isn’t full of depression and aching and sadness

a home with rhythm and smells and textures.

to sit down every day and write out how the same bed feels every morning.

to fall deeply in love with the 16 steps to the bathroom in the middle of the night and the 16 steps back to my bed with my beautiful child.

to feel everything in the things I am actually experiencing.

to carry her down to the living room and marvel in starting the fire together. the simple rhythm of her lighting the match and me taking it to the paper.

to taste the yogurt and the bread and the mango and the carrot and the tea and let every bite and sip radiate my body.

I

get to taste this.

I

get to choose how much focus I put into it.

I determine how much I feel and experience or how little I feel and experience.

I am always experiencing,

but am I always allowing my body to feel  it?

or just going through the motions?

trying to find the next way to make money?

the next thing to be cleaned?

the next text to be sent?

the next day to get through.

but what is now?

now is hearing the sound of the keys as I type, and feeling that slight ache in my left thumb.

now is feeling my damp hair lightly move across my back and how it feels like fingertips resting on my shoulder blades and letting myself love the feeling of fake hands on me.

now is listening to her talk to herself and learning from her,

seeing how safe she is.

now

is acknowledging that I am also safe.

I am safe.

I am safe.

I am safe.

I am breathing

I am breathing

I am breathing.