Ashes and Dew

I tried to write a poem today

Summer 2021

I tried to write a poem today

but my thoughts came in sentences.

I don’t buy in to the cliché

that the best poems come from suffering

But despair does necessitate

the most precise language

as it calls out to the universe,

Someone understand this

the most decisive words

and the most beautiful

Will you look at it now?

And maybe it’s my great granddaughter finding my old notebook, or

an angel peering over my shoulder –

I need to get the words right.

I tried to write a poem today

(a few times)

It was bland; I feel too content

I wanted to dance, and sing a song

and I did

chanawrites

June 20, 2021

poems & prose

poem, poetry
partial heartbreak

Summer 2021

Let’s play darts, he said, do something fun

We were standing in the humid dark, outside my car at the park

We were sitting on the swings, I told him how dreamy he was

Out of anxiety I cried, and he came up to me

He pushed me backwards on the swing and I said don’t, I’m feeling sick, but he

quickly pulled me into his arms and hugged me close

He gives the best hugs

He holds me and puts his chin on my head and kisses it, I love that

I have to pull away because I love it so much

I pull away and put my hands on his arms and smile at him

I tell him it makes no sense to leave

And he finally loosens out of his nervousness, and tells me to give him more emotion, not a statistic

Which I love

Ask me to give you more emotion!

Ask me to give you everything!

I have love I’m afraid to give

You say you’ll work for this relationship, sacrifice

How do I know that unless we try?

He thinks I’m playing him, he feels played

I would never play him

It confuses me

When I fear I’m not feeling it, I pull away; I would never play.

Do I love him just because he’s “right?”

Because I feel he’ll take care of me and us?

These are good things, though

But not the reason I love him

My heart is his

Love is an action

It’s showing up

It’s taking care of someone when they’re sick

It’s listening

It’s the changes I make for him and me, it’s being a better person

It’s a desire strong enough to follow through on

We talked, he told me what more he wants from me

He told me after we broke up

After the devastating fights

After he locked me out of his house

Screaming

Ask him on more dates

Come with him and his family /every/ time

I feel like that’s not the real problem

What else? Tell me

I’m scared to re-enter this relationship

I feel partial heartbreak everyday

And hold on to the part that’s not broken

chanawrites

June 15, 2021

poems & prose

breakup, journal
Courtesy of an etymology dictionary

Spring 2021

Discourse is a current. We fluctuate to and fro.
A question: torturous. We pause to pose the problem.

We seek,
query,
acquire,
conquer:
The problem is resolved.

Resolution: re-solution. A flask, a river. Resolute is loose and flowing.
In parts, the question dissolves to leave the truth.

Durable, shelter, trust, a tree.

A query: re-solve the tree? Inside is matter, mother. Substance, nature, origin.

Arise, increase
Creation
A crescendo. The moon.

Chant, canter, cantare, sing
A tone is a stretching, a tuning tightening of string
Keys are clef’d.
Split, or adhered to, like clay?
Adhered is hesitation, indecision, irresolute.
Pliant like clay I’m weak.

Feint: hesitating; deceitful and pretending
When faint I am lacking in spirit; I am deceiving myself,
captive

Let’s pose a question. You can cleave it, or cleave to it.

I was betrothed to a question,
we stood never increasing
Irresolute,
No way to truth
in hesitation

chanawrites

February 23, 2021

poems & prose

etymology, poem, wordplay
I want to be grounded

1/18/21

I realized that I’m spending too much time in the virtual world. My body wants to stretch and be more grounded and plant a garden and read a book. I cried when thinking about how I miss my sister and how I wasn’t a good sister to her. We were closer when we were younger, but in the last years I’ve been selfish and even envious. I cried about a lot of things. My hair looked fuzzy and too short in the mirror; I felt like I needed to respect myself more; I remembered for a flash the feeling of finding a way to be alive and beautiful in this world. To live honestly and when I’m struggling, grapple or make art of it. Instead of distracting myself by consuming or browsing online. I tried to heal. I thought, maybe I will not make a big conscious discovery, but I am letting my brain and self heal; I just have to stay with it. It felt comforting to think that healing could happen naturally and not have to be a complex problem solved by my ego. I felt healing as I kept myself calm and told myself it was ok, even as I kept sobbing, my face all clenched as I grabbed a kleenex again and again. I felt pathetic in my parents’ basement with a sweatshirt and a blanket on my shoulders. Remembering the reason I stopped and cried “why” at the world: none of it, money success etc, seemed to matter, and I saw nowhere to go. I cried also about being alone. And when thinking of N and how I loved him and wanted him to be there. Thought about how for so much of my life I’ve felt like I was watching and not really a part, even as a kid. Planning and analyzing. Doing what others want. I felt like I did when I was a kid. I was just living.

chanawrites

January 18, 2021

stream of consciousness

grounded, growth, healing, journal
orientation

6/2/22

Dante’s hell on construction paper
soaring past dorm room doors
what a theme
our mascot was the phoenix
naively thought it apt
like burning it all up
and sealing my tomb
may be turning me into more
as if I would have a place
in the new damp fluff of bird on the ground
(as if it wouldn’t take almost a decade to even say this)
as if the new creature
wouldn’t need nurturing
from everything I took for granted

chanawrites

January 17, 2021

poems & prose

I tried to write a poem today

Summer 2021

partial heartbreak

Summer 2021

Courtesy of an etymology dictionary

Spring 2021

I want to be grounded

1/18/21

orientation

6/2/22