shesfeelingandhealing

[shesfeelingandhealing]

I wasn't prepared for the day I looked in the mirror and saw a woman. I've spent my life feeling like a sort of amorphous being-- a collection of bouncing curls and big eyes and curving lips, but to me they existed independently, like dots of different paint on a canvas. But one day I looked in the mirror and I saw a painting, a mosaic of gleaming lights that converged to form something new. Have I always been here? Or did I just notice?

[shesfeelingandhealing]

in the nighttime, I read my third-grade teacher's old facebook posts. I find articles my boss wrote in her college paper. I excavate the high school basketball stats of my ex-girlfriend. When I am alone in this little cave of my own, I delve deep into the corners of the ghosts I have known in search of their immutable details. Trying to retroactively build intimacy within passing interactions over which I no longer have control. It allows me to round out my vision of them in my head. To try and understand the dark sides of their moon I could not or would not see. It makes me feel less alone to know I was surrounded by people the whole time.

[shesfeelingandhealing]

12/16/23

2023 was one of the hardest years of my life. Everything changed in a flurry of celebration and pain. This year transformed the way I see the world, the way my life looks, the way I see myself. I am capable of so much more than I ever knew. I've seen this to be true. I learned the ability to keep standing while you feel like a shell of a person--or an avalanche. Neither lasts forever. I've seen love in such small special places. Love I didn't know I deserved. The best things that have happened to me this year have been surprises. Life is constantly surprising me. I think I've learned that most. Leave room to be surprised. Don't be so stubborn or so autopiloted that you miss or reject the things you never expected. This year will be over soon. I have big dreams for next year. Huge. I am so excited thinking about all the possibility. All the love and creation that awaits me. Onward.

[shesfeelingandhealing]

10/1/23

I waited with baited breath for the end

my muscles hardened in anticipation of disaster

but it came in the night

quiet and unceremonious

the gentle click of my front door

a creased book cover laid to rest

the end is but a moment

I forgot I knew it well

each final moment begets another

[shesfeelingandhealing]

1/22

i filled the hole in my chest with twigs and tissues paper 

stones

candy wrappers 

teddy bear stuffing 

bits of crushed leaves 

sweet smelling incense 

and caramel candies 

when i feel my chest 

my hand no longer grapse at oblivion 

it squishes into mountains and valleys of wonderful odds and ends 

i miss the way it used to feel 

but this feels good now. 

this fits me now. 

[shesfeelingandhealing]

1/17 (purple baby’s breath)

for women who paint the purple baby’s breath

the color of the sky

who crook their necks to look at trees

and nearly daily cry

who love

like love

is breath is life

a deep and urgent need

who find themselves, in pain or prayer,

quite often on their knees

To women with hearts

of bleeding flesh

and eyes and hands of stone

I love you sister

I see you, too

You’re all I’ve ever known

[shesfeelingandhealing]

12/31

I feel safe in the enormity of the earth and the insignificance of my existence. I am so small I might get crushed beneath the soils that settle with the microscopic shifting of tectonic plates. So minuscule a flower petal might smother me in its heavy shade. 

I am but ashes and to ashes I will return. Each burning pain reminds me of lightings strike. I am struck and I erupt into flames and transform into a new state of matter. No better or worse than before, but equally small. small, small small. I will die and my house will sink into the ground and new life will settle upon it. I will die. 

[shesfeelingandhealing]

11/8/22

I walk through the same park every morning

I have watched the leaves brown and fall 

day

by

day

what a joy it will be to watch them bud come spring 

[shesfeelingandhealing]

11/8/22

i have abandoned this blog for a while pursuing other dreams but I am back and I am heartbroken. just in time for sad girl fall

[shesfeelingandhealing]

12/30/21

no one will protect me like I will protect me

so

I'll grow spines on my back and stones in my eyes

venom on my tongue and fire in my touch

I’ll scorch the earth with my tread

survive of wine and bread

grow eighty feet tall and crush you beneath my weight

I am the divine

I am the godly

I am the unearthly

I am the abomination

I am the shadow behind your eyes

that which your lips dare not form and your mind cannot bear to reckon

Don’t fuck with me.

[shesfeelingandhealing]

12/28/21

Can I slip my hand into yours

Just for tonight? 

Squeeze your fingers between mine like I used to love

and feel you squeeze back?

Will you squeeze back?

Will you look me in the eyes like you used to?

Can you breathe my air and inhale my laughter?

Can I make you laugh?

I know I’ve been gone

I left the tea on the counter until it no longer trembled with the rustle of movement and the waves of heat dissipated into a lukewarm compromise

But tonight

I thought tonight 

While we are suspended in the thick beautiful place before dawn

I can slip into your bed and hold your hand like I used to when we had three eyes and one throat 

[shesfeelingandhealing]

12/27/21

I’m sorry if I overcompensate

I just want to mold your heart into the shape of my hands 

and make sure it will never fit into anyone else’s

I want to control this wildly erratic and unnerving feeling 

When I wrap your arms around me

I want you to squeeze all the air out my lungs and fill them with yours

When I whisper that you are mine 

I mean stick your arm through my rib cage and pump my heart 

Make the blood dance and jump through my veins and keep my toes warm

Every time you smile it strokes my ego 

Makes me feel good baby

Make me feel good baby

Tell me you like 

I’ll use my blood to keep you wet  

[shesfeelingandhealing]

I am a masochist

I will drag my knees across burning coals

to prove I am good enough to make it

Swallow my victory like tears and do it again to prove I

am still

Maybe I deserve the burn

Could I get the same rush without it?

What is there to judge my worthiness by

if not the peeling blisters of my skin

I am proud to martyr myself and claim my holy

I drive my feet to the cross and cry when the blood runs red

But God

it just feels so good  

[shesfeelingandhealing]

thoughts on the death of bell hooks

I think the artist, the creator, is acutely aware of their mortality more than most people. 

The itching human desire to spread your seed, leave behind a trail of your existence is one that plagues the artist, almost to the point of compulsion. Must write, must paint, must create, must create. The desire to put one’s life on paper and make it permanent acknowledges its precarious and ephemeral nature. The desire to make permanent that which is fleeting. 

When I write I am acutely aware that I am dying. With each word I march closer toward death and it makes me create with a feverish urgency. Forces me to filter those big, impossible clouds of emotion into lines and loops that speak a language I can share.

Rest in peace to bell hooks.

[shesfeelingandhealing]

I want to crack your spine slowly

inching my thumb down the column

slip my fingers to the corner of your page and hold you tight between my two hands 

I want to study your marginalia

I put my nose to your face and you smell of 

papyrus, smoky, dusty, profound

a smell I could melt into 

[shesfeelingandhealing]

when it is dark

and I am cold

I crawl into my mother’s arms

sticky

tricky

[shesfeelingandhealing]

in that hazy state before the creator touches the ground

maybe this is where children wait to be brought into this world

and linger while they drift off to sleep

She said kissing is meditative 

and i’m sure this is where she goes 

toes barely grazing the grass

suspending in the thick nothingness that holds our words and keeps them from disappearing when they slipfrombetweenourlips

some call it clouds

i’ll sit in the clouds with you

let our toes graze the grass and our outstretched fingers stroke the craters of the moon

some call it my heart