Even Un-prescribed Burns

"During each burn, non-native plants are removed, allowing prairie plants more nutrients and room to grow. Prairie plants can survive fires since they have deep roots and grow from a point underground. A prescribed burn is a crucial component in prairie restoration."

Shop Locks

The china shop that I am.
You meandered around, seeing all the nice things
the broken bits
and confusing spectacles.
Saw and wanted the finest pieces,
held them near for a time or two.
Never to stay for long.
Maybe not a bull,
but unaware of the impact of a swinging bag.
I let it exist,
believed it to be true,
strong enough.
But I am a china shop.
A beautiful, packed shop.
The fragility and openness I no longer dismay.
It's ok, maybe you didn't know.
Never met one like me.
I left the door wide open, didn't believe in locks.

You helped me locate the key,
thank you.
The brokenness isn't so bad,
the bittersweet of the pain is tolerable for now.
Now I have a padlock
and duplicate keys.
To keep it all more secure and stable and able.
Thank you, my lost love.
You taught me to take the good with the bad,
to know faith and heartache.
Broke some pieces along the way,
but there is more to see, more to share.
The lessons are important, I suppose.
The lock on this china shop
will keep me safe.
It'll be ok.
One day soon I'll forgive the carelessness,
the jaded conventions of friendship
and proclamations of fidelity.
My lock is working just fine
and the glue is stronger than a gorilla, too.
Thank you for teaching me how to beautifully break.
I'm still here, you see.
Standing and breaking and irreversibly shaken.
Can't look away from the truth that I am.
A lovely, open china shop.

Do you know love?

"...good love has nothing to do with what they are or what we harvest from them. Good love is the way in which we love them — it’s us loving their very being, us loving their essence, us loving their ups and downs and imperfections and dumb complaints and irritations and short-comings and differences, for fucks sake, us loving their decisions — each day.

We fail to realize that the answer to “why?”, in true love, is something more like “because I choose to.”

Source: https://medium.com/@krisgage/most-of-what-we-think-of-as-love-is-bullshit-a745b3b999a

"They all want to jump your bones," she said.
"I can't share my bones right now." 

Less volatile, less awake

I'm drawn in by topics and things many others avoid. Feelings and realness and vulnerability. I'm not for everyone. There are complexities and frustrations and beauties beyond comprehension that I possess. I spent so many years feeling ashamed, of who I am, of what I'm capable of or not. The silence and lack of responsiveness exacerbated the worst truths I believed of myself. No more. Looking through fresh lenses and stripped back realities. Taking it less personal and listening to what is. Anxious and avoidant were never a sound pairing, of course not. Free of chains and unspoken truths.

And this.

“And you tried to change, didn’t you? Closed your mouth more. Tried to be softer, prettier, less volatile, less awake… You can’t make homes out of human beings. Someone should have already told you that. And if he wants to leave, then let him leave. You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.” -Warsan Shire

For now

For now, I'm just Eeyore.
For now, I'm just breathing.
Going through the motions
Watching shows and eating frozen uncrustables.
Planning for more productive and easier days.
But for now, I'm just here. Existing.

A Tube of Golden Glue

In one hand, a box of tissues.
In the other, golden glue.
Back and forth and back and forth
Healing and tearing
Tearing and healing.

Stronger than I knew.
I close up the remaining fragments in a locket.
I've learned to protect myself
Something I never knew how to do.
Gave away the whole of me, so willingly.

Reeling it back in.
Now knowing others don't treat you the way you treat them.
Ethical love is maybe a farce
All those tears and words were never enough
Please stop, please stop. Make it stop.

Made the mistake of thinking you saw me
Even though I never saw me.
For so long have wanted others to fill in the gaps,
Now I feel the shattered reality of how inaccurate that could be.
These lessons I hadn't yet learned are here to stay.

Each moment, each day I love you a bit less.
See the reality ignored for years and years and years.
I wanted you to be what I thought I needed you to be.
Not seeing that all along,
the only damn person I needed to see was me.

Gravestones and Love Letters

We died, you see. Where there once was love, now there is death. Gravestones adorn places that once were sites of joy and spoke of love. Now they are buried or soon shall be.

I'm not ashamed to weep at these stones, I would feel amiss had I not. For I loved you, I loved us. I love what we were and could have been. The capacity to grow it and build it over time now corresponds with the strength it takes to see it for what it became. To not put out the fire on the few remaining visible smoldering bits. Grieve it all, bid it a much due farewell. One day may I reflect fondly and utter wise kindnesses at the buried boxes that once we were. For now, I hold just myself a bit more near. Goodbye, my love.

Dear Heart

Dear Heart-
I've been writing to others when I should have been writing to you. You're the one here with me, after all. You never left.

I'm sorry for all the times I abandoned you, discarded you, allowed you to be battered by others, or abused you myself. You never wavered, though you've might've been right to do so.

I swear I'm learning. Can you feel it? Through all the struggle and aches, I pray you feel the growth. Slow and steady and steadfast.

I commit to you, this day and on. I see you. I will do my best to honor you, knowing you have so much to give and share, but that you deserve so much goodness and respect in return. To feel appreciated and loved by myself and others.

I am as I am, we are as we are. Areas that feel deficient need not be sources of shame or anguish, but rather boundless spaces for change. From what feels like ruins, we shall construct new strongholds and beauties.

I am that tree. I've lost a branch and must prune and tend to the open wounds, but still I stand. My trunk and other branches remain, growing and blooming.

I wonder, do trees cry when they lose a branch?

All my deepest love and appreciation,
Alex

Rhythm

A few things occur to me. This time is so valuable because I reflect on my need to know stability by myself and to just grieve. Grieve things and losses I never did. See those events and traumas and losses as in the past and not a direct determinant of who I am today or will become. I feel good and reflective and safe. All by myself. I feel a peace with the rhythm of it all.

Some Days I Write Cool Shit.

From 11/20/17.

It's wonderful how and when teachers and lessons present themselves. I'm sure they're always there, just waiting to be seen and then taken up.

"One thing that awakens people to change is trauma." -Ram Dass

Sometimes you realize the world is smiling. Maybe it only seems to smile when you do. Today the colors are brighter, the sky more beautiful, my eyes are wider to take it all in. I acknowledge it won't last, but that doesn't make me sad. I'm grateful for it all the same.

The journey reveals itself in the most quiet, yet fascinating ways. In the midst of much grief and anguish, it's hard to recall that you'll breathe again and smiles will make their way back to your face and you become a stranger to the heartache and distress. Then you go back again and forget the happiness. Back and forth and back and forth. Exhaustion and energy, vitality, wisdom and stupidity. We're always a bit of each and you can't fully know one without reflection on the other. One magnifies the other.

Dumbledore and trees and Ram Dass. Those are my teachers today.

I am grateful for moments of relief and perspective, for freedom and the language to speak and eyes to take it in.