It seems just as essential to face the height of mountains,
as it is essential to face the vastness and expansiveness of open plains.
It seems just as essential to face the difficulties of life with courage,
as it seems essential to face the variety and width of experiences with an open mind.

If I could let go of the fear that anything is impermanent, I'd be living a fuller truth. 
Existence, in its entirety, is impermanent. Nothing ever stays the same. I'm knee-deep now, in the ocean. Waves are crashing at my thighs. I'm walking, just barely rocking. My eyes are on the horizon and I am breathing. Walking. Rocking. Breathing. Walking. Rocking.

I don't fold myself in half
Not for anyone, not anymore.
I stand up tall, I reach the ceiling
and if it intimidates,
I just smile and wave.
Goodbye!

I grew accustomed to changing my tune
Just to try to hear someone else's.
But I don't sing anyone else's songs
Not anyone's, not anymore.
I don't beg you "hold open the door"
I'm holding open my own door,
Not for you, not for anyone,
Not anymore.

Wake up.
Stare into space.
Write.
Write some more.
Write until my hand hurts.
Make coffee.
Sit still and breathe.
Children.
Move my body for a long time.
Move my body a little bit longer.
Children again.
Eat food.
Children.
Shower.
Sit still again.
Write some more.
Play some notes.
Stare into space.
Children.
Children.
Children.
Listen to music.
Stare into space.
Think about you.
Write some more.
Stare into space.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Sleep.
Repeat.

I don't know what I'm doing with my life, but somehow I think I've found the tip of my inner peace iceberg.

Let it 
Let it start
Find the twisted
It begins

Hold it
Hold it
Hold it steady
Find the open
It recedes

Let it 
Let it go
Wait for time
Hear a voice
Within

Sit with
Sit with
Sit and
Be
Still

In making as much as possible-writing, playing, singing-I feel a stronger connection to my experience of life, because in making something, I am bearing witness to my own life. I am observing, feeling, experiencing, and then sinking into a moment via a medium such as words or crayons or notes or movements in order to fully experience that moment. I can later look back on what I made and see that self-made representation of the moment through already changed lenses. In making as much as possible, I am learning about what I feel and how I feel and why I feel. And in my deepening understanding of myself, I am seeing the beauty of every angle and every color and every sound and every breath.

Patterns and habits chip away
at the edges I knew
long before I knew you.

Expectations carve out 
the narrowest of spaces
where I can't fit, you can't fit
it's all too big, too constricted.

Every time the walls come closing in
I writhe and gnarl until I
am broken free again,
and back to higher ground,
I am found I am found.

When my heart begins to slip,
and grip the fresh and fragile ground,
I look around and 
I am small again, I am nothing,
I am not.
I am not for you; for I am infinite.

Except when he smiled....when he smiled, he looked like a goofy, joyful little boy.

"Even 1am"

And I am ravished. I have no words.

And now he was doing this to me. And he couldn't look away.

He knew exactly what he was doing to me, with just his eyes. Finally the door shut and I crumbled to the floor in a heap, and didn't move for minutes.

He let me drift away, not without storms, but still I drifted away. 

I felt like the whole world was collapsing in on me. I felt tremendous amounts of guilt. I couldn't look him in the eye. And I couldn't feel my body. I was numb and breaking all at once.

When neither of us were speaking, he just waited and looked.

I asked him how that went for him, and his eyes dropped to the floor.

I faced out the window and vibrated with rage, wanting to tear the roof off the car.

I got on the train at 3am and cried for hours.

I didn't care I didn't care I didn't care.

I raged harder. I cried more. I got sicker. 

I said "Not at my expense" and walked away. My phone died on the train. I cried on the train all the way back. The couple across from me on the train spoke too loudly about everything. 

He knocked on the door and came in as soon as I opened it.

He just hugged me and held my hand.

I didn't care. I wanted to be left alone. I was lost.

The universe cracked.

I felt like I was falling and flying at the same time. He pulled away but kept his hands on my arms and watched me.

I wanted him to experience what I had experienced. He wouldn't look at me anymore. He always looked down or at his hands, or out the window.

I cried every time he left. I didn't cry the last time he left.

I went home and stared out the window at a tree. I saw him in the tree. I could feel him still. I could feel his eyes on me, looking through me.

I could feel her sorrow.



And he thanked me in advance for respecting his wishes.



And I still see him in my dreams.

Every time I think you're gone
you come back to me in my sleep,
haunting me, smearing grays and blues
across my eyes, all over my world.
But at least for you I no longer weep.

So lie still and breathe in the dawn
watch the world around you flow
into new patterns and unrecognizable
shapes and practice tolerating
with a discerning eye
the ways in which
the earth meets the sky.