Always remember lost, so that you don’t take for granted found.
infj
Flight path
I look out my office window
working too late, again
The half-moon is round
with a glowing halo —
I know it’s pollution but
my heart sees fairy dust
or the happily ever after
romance of a bedtime story
And next to the bright moon
with its fringe of murky light
soars a large airplane
with its lights flashing
and I can hear its engine
even with my windows closed
(it’s hot outside, otherwise —
you know darn well —
I would open them!)
The plane’s lights —
red, green, white orbs
of unsightly technological safety —
are ruining the beautiful night sky
and distracting me from
my dusty fairy-tale moon
Yet maybe
at last
I realize
what’s been
obscuring
my poetic vision
I always seem to focus
on that beautiful moon
and the romantic dark sky
but ignore the 737 monstrous
hunk of metallic civilization
hurling itself through the night,
followed by a second aircraft
and then a third and fourth,
as if the airport is shooing
all her noisy little children
out of the house to play —
And even though that airplane
is hideous and loud
and aerial anti-serenity —
it’s life.
And what is poetry —
if not life?
Perhaps it carries
newlywed lovers
who were finally married
after COVID cancellations,
leaving on the honeymoon
they saved up years for —
and in that plane
is just as much fairy tale
as that beautiful-ugly
dust veiling the moon.
Forty-four
i vomit confusion & butterflies
i sweat fear and i bleed dread
i fall deaf from society’s lies
i gag on metallic tastes of pain
i run from the reek of regret
i save my minutes & lose my hours
i dance on the minefield of mind
i freeze my worries for later
i breathe a reverie’d ether of beauty
i drown in fantasy too deep
i love on the edges of souls
i sleep on the shores of night
i glow at the sight of each morning
i delight in the sunshine of pleasure
i plant my seeds in thankfulness
i get high on nature’s magnificence
i stare in reverence at trees
i cherish each blissful breeze
i open every window i can
i invite every light to play
i adore every cloud in the sky
i welcome each raindrop & tear
i memorize every flower’s aura
i read old books & withering leaves
i paint myself with colors of truth
i polish the bright side’s halo
i chase angels & occasionally devils
i pray from within & without
i armor myself with art
i question my body and listen
i dream my heart’s inside-out
i work until i’m exhausted
i let go of some things & not others
i giggle breathlessly ’til i cry
i hug without asking why
i nourish my spirit with poetry
i cover my journals with ink
i drink my wisdom from teacups
i inhale wild mists of wonder
i hem my madness with sanity
i tick, i zig, i zag, and i tock
i err on the side of risk
i ride wayward shooting stars
i flow with the river of time
Charged
suddenly my life feels
like the air before a storm
silent, searching, charged
an imminent disaster
with destructive beauty
bright sun here and now
dark clouds at my horizon
electrified waiting
a whirlwind of stillness
it’s building, billowing
but to i know not where
and possibly to nothing
no body to forecast
whether or whether not
my future lies ahead
feeling ghosts in the wind
restlessness & anticipation
i dread this storm
but somehow
more than that
i welcome it, ache for it
oh i sorely need to become
sodden, grounded
struggle bedraggled
so i can revive
regrow vibrant —
dead branches torn away
old beliefs ripped from roots
worry whipped to shreds
powerful bolts striking
stronger than anything
i can create myself
blind me — enflame my entire sky
i want to look at the world anew
and that starts
with my own vision
i’m ready
for a new version
my being has become torrential
yet minimal — nearly imperceptible
not yet in a crisis, still
i’m bordering one, circling it
crying out for that flash point
beckoning it, to break —
to shatter my former self
and my current nothingness
into a mended calm
risen from the storm
rain, gales, hail —
i don’t care
just let it come
i need to be reborn
from the wild remains
of my inner tempests —
no, i do not want to die
but only to live again
Mind own secrets
Frustration is nothing more than letting your own mind bully you.
The chaos-harmony of life
I swing like a kid
and fall like an adult;
cry tears of gratitude
and pray in smiles;
hug and love, and later
hide under the covers—
wildly and humbly living
from dawn to the stars,
and ever back again
Everywhichway
Sometimes I feel like I’m going nowhere, in opposite directions.
Selves-realization
i am so many people
it’s impossible to be myself
but i can almost always
be at least one of myselves
Windblown
The veil concealing truth gets windswept in the wee hours, revealing all to the silence of the night.
Chasing the past
Chasing the past, I stumbled into the future.
P.S. Thanks to Rebecca for letting me know that this quote was used in the television show Being Erica. In the episode “Plenty of Fish,”
SOCial anxIETY
You can’t spell social anxiety without society.
Internal listening
If you can’t get quiet enough to hear yourself, your life is too loud.
Pierced flight
thorns and stings
and those such things
just make stronger
our angel wings
P.S. Thank you to everyone who has written letting me know that Katya Elise Henry got a tattoo of this poem. Honestly, I didn’t know who she was and had to look it up. But that’s pretty cool, and a nice tattoo.