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[sistersiren]

You Have Been Beautiful This Whole Time

Today's meditation is on joy. That joy is something that comes first and foremost From our Being-state. You could call this God. Those moments when we're filled with bliss and we can't name it But it's there; When we've peeled back the layers so much and we find it: Joy. ** I had a realization the other day that shook me. A thought. The thought was: "Wait, have I been beautiful all along?" I followed the trails of this thought, Looking back on the patterns in my life, I never fully allowed myself to believe "I Am Beautiful." Not entirely sure why, but maybe it seemed dangerous. There was fear there. Fear that someone would prove me wrong. And I'm really not beautiful.

But the other day, I confirmed it. Not just for that day, but every day. Every day I have lived, I have been beautiful. I have been "attractive." I have been desirable.

And now, when I revisit memories, I do a rewrite. I cover the memory with, "I was beautiful then. I am beautiful now. How wonderful to be seen as beautiful." Douse it, bathe it, wash it: I am beautiful.

Baptize your memories in the truth. Look at the vision of yourself that was once Covered in doubt and Baptize it: I am beautiful. ** Today I had a moment with my naked body. Curled and cozy as I was, As if I was in the womb. I couldn't capture this moment with a camera. But through my eyes, I saw something new. A landscape.

I looked at the ridges of my legs, The gentle rise and fall of my tummy, The little translucent hairs in the afternoon sun; And I touched my skin, Caressed it with love and appreciated As I would a work of art hanging in a gallery.

And started laughing... And soon that laughter turned to crying. And I held myself.

I saw my body as a beautiful landscape. I connected my body to the beautiful landscape. I realized my body is a beautiful moving landscape. The waves of my tummy like a lake, The break of it pushing in and out on the shore. I heard the ocean of my breath and believed. I saw birch forests, evergreen dense forests, in my hairs... That this world would lead me and has led me to chop down. The little dimples and creases, Heights and depths, Soft, rough, ridged, sharp, squishy - All the unique details That make this landscape its own. This beautiful landscape.

I laughed with joy at the realization - Thank God I don't have to qualify this body As good, or bad. Like I wouldn't try to qualify, Maim or emaciate, vilify or condemn, Big Sur. It just is. And it is beautiful. Therefore, the landscape, This body, As it is, how it moves, How it creases, and grows, and stretches, It just is. And it's all magnificent.

Then I cried with sorrow at the lateness of this realization, And for the world we've made that looks at bodies And tries to manipulate all of them to be the same; As if all our beautiful landscapes should be the same. Now that's tragic.

But in the crying, there was laughter. In the sorrow, there was joy. And I couldn't tell you if the tears Were mostly of one or the other. But I do know I felt bliss and relief. ** This was my joy today, and I found it In freedom. I found it "in the unlocking and the lift away..." Ah, hmm... "Your love will be safe with me."

Amen.

[sistersiren]

He said, “I’m down with Jesus”

He said, “I’m down with Jesus”

And I replied the same

Then put his teeth on my lips

And we challenged the rain

My fingers found him warm

In the creases of his sweater

His fingers moved some more

Towards the creases of my tether

My legs laid over his own

He cradled me in his palm

Our wild oats had been sewn

To the tune of a psalm

He asked to marry us for the night

And brought me in so close

But knowing my morning flight

I couldn’t take off my clothes

Our little altar we abandoned

And took to the pale dusk

With nothing much to stand on

Save a serendipitous trust

A rush of something sweeter

He painted me the dream

Intertwining our fingers

In the center of the street

Within his little apartment

He reassured me of his pace

Millions in small allotments

Silently asked me for my grace

I mentioned something of wealth

About greatness in garages

And saw a vision for himself

In blurry kind of collages

The time ticked on before us

As we realized this was it

And doing what we must

Had us wishing we were kids

I left him like a cloudburst

With him down on his knees

Dripping with the proud thirst

Of a soldier stripped to bleed

But he took me one last time

Pinning me on the door

In that moment he was mine

And kept us wanting more

Shutting it all behind me

Escaping through the night

He held onto me so tightly

As we whispered goodbye

Maybe it’s as he predicted

And one day we’ll meet again

When we’re both not so afflicted

With the grip of impediments

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Abundance

Honey on my tongue

Tasting so sweet

Has glitter running

Down to my feet

The world wakes warm

A song lifts the air

Everything is golden

And I’m moved to stare

Something catches me

A contrast of color

A child interpreting

The eyes of their mother

The coolness of wind

Slips through the frame

She caresses my cheek

And whispers my name

It is the music

This orchestra plays

These ancestral chords

Transfix my gaze

She is the first flicker

This seed long ago

Life’s first whimper

Beginning to grow

Bursting through earth

A cry from the womb

And so it began

Flooding the flume

A pillar through ages

Her seasons weaving

She offers a dance

That ceases our grieving

So the birds converse

High above my head

I drift in their comfort

And there make my bed

I am nothing but she

Who first gave me breath

This tune in my lungs

Shall not end with death

[sistersiren]

pride and prejudice (2005, dir. joe wright)

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Take Two. Action.

Biting our fingers in the car

Shift not to hit my nails

Lips and tips and moving stars

Still worried that you might bail

Taking and grazing your perfect teeth

Until we said it was too much

Feeling the skin down to my feet

Laughing at the jack off stuff

The moon is full and lights the street

My battery never died

The glass is coated in both our heat

All the things we would’ve tried

Two hours or so of breath to please

We wanted us satisfied

Slow time taken to touch and tease

Generous, good, sanctified

The look of your eyes closed to me

As you move your mouth over mine

Your hands take free to torturing

As my brain debates the drawing line

My arm reached out as you went to leave

‘I’ll miss you’ was what I defined

My shoulder arched released the sleeve

The anxious truth I keep confined

How much is too much honesty

With the courtroom of my mind

What is right and what is frightening

The language I cannot find

The hope I hold is still a game

Bouncing between wrong and right

The future I feel I cannot claim

Yet it ties me ever so tight

To wait feels strange down in my gut

The decision seems out of my hands

Who in this thing can we leave it up

This incision a contraband

But bleeding is something I left behind

I’m too sewn up now to leak

Yet opening stitches to let them unwind

Could never make me weak

[sistersiren]

why do they always

feel the need

to hide me?

[sistersiren]

All of Us Lovers, Romancing

It was by accident I had come to observe two sets of lovers on Signal Hill canoodling. I thought I just meant to nap and read with a grand view in front of me.

I got my view indeed.

But the couples were a bit more of an intrigue, you see. One beneath the sun, the other beneath a tree, both bathing. And embracing. And kissing. And reaching. Touching one another tenderly. Looking so similarly.

“But, what about me?”

And in that moment of lonely, I looked beyond them at the glittering. The vast divinity. I realized I was embracing. I was kissing. I was reaching.

This landscape in front of me. Arms stretching wide, holding me. The cranes, the clouds, Long Beach and the sea. It was always there, offering. And so I curled up atop its vista and breathed.

This book in my hands. Arms stretching wide, holding me. Fitzgerald, the French Riviera, Dick Divers and Rosemary. It was always there, offering. And so I nuzzled my nose in its chest and breathed.

These are my lovers. We are touching each other tenderly. Giving and receiving. We are romancing.

“But, Christ, will it ever be enough for me?”

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he’s fading out...

and I should let him.

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your lack of remorse

- your indifference -

that’s what still hurts.

[sistersiren]

Self Defense

Blood down my fingers

Blood down my mouth

Falling to the floor

Was the only way out

My body gave in

Though I reassured her

“You’re okay” “you’re okay”

She could not concur

She heard the sirens

In the side of her head

Then everything crumpled

When she saw the red

A thousand dreams

Came through in a flash

A million conversations

As she collapsed

I woke up wet

And covered in fear

Blood in my throat

Ringing in my ear

Face to the floor

Hard under my cheek

Cold and alone

I couldn’t speak

I had failed again

Overcome by the sight

I cried half naked

In the middle of the night

My body is mine

Yet she is also her own

My primal subconscious

Protects her throne

Yet I’m bruised and battered

And still so alone

What did she do

But break up my bones

[sistersiren]

Within Me, Without Me

I should know better than to go back there

In the quiet light of night

That place where there might be answers

Whether I’m wrong or I’m right

Some days I find the pleasure

Others I find my pain

I’m just doing my best alone out here

Giving my missing home a name

Love has been the ghost in front of me

Shadow boxing all my life

Sneaking past me with a whisper

In a forest full of light

I’ve felt its wind upon my neck

The hairs standing up on end

With a sucker punch to the sweet spot

Will I break or will I bend

She’s within me and without me

When he’s dancing miles away

I’ve had it but never felt it

Or been enough for it to stay

Can you look me in the eyes now

Can you say it face to face

That all you did was use me

To fill your empty space

It’s getting easier as time goes on

It was just as they had said

The feelings are foreign to me now

Or they’re finally gone and dead

But the memories still linger on

They’re not things that you just feel

Though you may not have loved me then

I know that those are real

[sistersiren]

Ziegfeld Girl, 1920s.

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David Seidner, Ballet, 1979.

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Berenice’s tresses, 1878; Ambrogio Borghi exhibited in the Exposition Universelle in Paris.