Paths

What if
what if
what if.
I can't know.
Won't know.
Ought need not know.
Does it make a difference in my reality?
In how that memory lands?
How that time felt and what it could mean?
Maybe not.
Maybe it's important to have fewer answers,
we are complex and autonomous and separate entities.
Even with information presented, there's no sure fire way to verify.
What if
it's ok.
What if it was just one lesson, not a reoccurring class?
What if it means nothing either way?
What if I'll never know?

Ships in the night, momentarily passing by.
To learn the lesson of catch and release,
let it go, let it be,
release attachment and be with peace.
Goodbye and hello
hello and goodbye, kind soul.
As you come and as you go,
I'll be here and there.
Maybe we'll cross paths again.

Rumble, Ramble

The rumbling glee
the reluctance and falling face down, free.
Previous versions of me are there
right next to this newest and shiny identity.
She's lovely, she's thrilled, and basking in the glow
of adventures unfolding and moments of not-quite knowing.
Shit. I like you. Shit.
Forward, onward, yes.
Riding the wave, alive and alone.
The glee, this anticipation,
yet seated steady and embracing open ended
situations and people and
me and you and me and you and all of them.

To Know Free

Things to write, things to say, things to do.
The vices I stumble upon cause me to work through
the uncomfortable bits and lasting scars,
even bits where I can't quite identify the cause.
People to see. More and more people to see.
I want to see them all, spend time, and consider you.
But what about me, what about Smee?
The drugs in all the forms that we choose.
Let it strip me down to a bare boned skeleton
before realizing what even happened.
Led them right down the path, hands wide open.
Energy fields, is that all we are?
Yours and mine, I feel you and you feel mine.
Maybe it really is that simple,
not complex and full of logistics.
Simple as just me.
Art and music and sex and honesty.
That's it. What more could there be?
Just a coupla souls, aching to know free.

Laments on this Truth

A little bit freaked out, a bit more grounded.
Sometimes I miss you, but mostly not at all.
Often I can't write exactly what I mean,
can't spell it correctly or use it well.
Feel myself growing ever-so-slowly,
yet I believe myself stuck.
Immovable and convinced of my place.
Back and forth and back and forth,
you're just as unsure as I am.

In these explorations and musings, we're all together.
I've been the abused and the abuser,
knew my role or found it after moving through
the pain, the pleasure, the fear and the love.
All of it exists side by side and next to one another.
I want to be everything and nothing,
everyone to everyone,
nobody to everyone.

It's nice to feel like somebody now and then
a somebody to all of them,
sometimes only in message and other times in the flesh.
Learning parts of myself I didn't know could exist,
the joy of getting to know who the hell I am.
I'm complex and sometimes just so simple,
but not basic. I laugh at the clarification.
The poetics amuse me, after all.

Life is a gamble, a rhyme, something to know.
I know I am 30, ever-so-nearly 31.
Grasping and cawing and thriving and striving
to be the better, the best
version of Alexandriaaaa.
That's my name, my name.
Though I doubt you'd even recognize me anymore.

Digging up that courage and conviction and confidence
that was once long-ago buried.
Digging and digging and digging it up.
Myself, my love, my heart, my flame.
Fan it and fan it and watch it reign,
it speaks of me
and the shit I've been through.
It speaks of my sister and my mother and brother and father.
They're all with me, each and all of them.

It's not burning me alive, it became me.
I became that fire. I'm burning and it doesn't much hurt.
That fire, that fire
it once drew you in.
I'm channeling it, babe. Maybe you'd even be proud.
I don't want to hate you and really I don't, never did.
It's true sometimes, I miss you.
Who I thought I was.
But she wasn't me, I left me long ago.

I'm grateful, it's true, to have loved and knew.
Thank you, thank you, I say.
Thank you, dear love. I wish you the ultimate best.
I'm not afraid, no longer afraid.
It's real, it's free, it's honest.
The flames they rage, but so do I.

Beautiful and blue, clear and true.
Words and more words, still, like I always have done.
Some like the words, I know I do.
You once loved my brain and many others do, too.
I'm going on and on to places most true.
It's lovely, it's beautiful, I'm honored to know this place, too.

It's ok.

I worry.
I just do.
It's one of the first observations my therapist ever shared.
For such a simple word, it holds so many things.
Carries so many connotations and implications.
I worry that I can't trust myself or my feelings or thoughts.
That I'll die before realizing peace and truth,
that I'll die alone or just exist alone. Really alone.
Even though we are alone, we all are.
That I'll never make the leap with school
and will forever be chained to this desk. Any desk.
I worry that I'll never feel at home,
that I'll never be at ease with the loneliness and fear of existence.
That my words mean little or not at all,
to myself or anyone.
I worry about measuring up,
about finding a purpose.
Surrounding myself with folks who care
and will put it all on the line.
That life has no meaning.
I worry that I can't be in the moment,
that my brain holds me hostage in this place or that.
Just not in the present, as I'd like to be.
That I'm not fun or magnetic or joyful enough.
I worry I'm too serious,
that I'm everything I always feared.
I'm everything and nothing and it's ok.
It's ok. It's really ok.
I worry.
It really is...ok.

I water me

It seems I have the energy to spread myself around a bit
more than I thought.
I've realized how dangerous and limiting it can be
to get stuck in the stories we tell ourselves,
about ourselves.
I spent so much time feeling angry and bitter
about who I wasn't or thought I couldn't be.
But the truth is, those are just untapped facets.
My potential is great, just like anyone.
You can do many things, but not every thing.
I'm smart and witty and courageous and kind
and sometimes silly and real and full of hope.
All these things and more.
Strengths Quest shared the lesson of focusing on strengths
at the top, not all the rest below it.
Harmony. Empathy. Developer. Relator. Restorative.
All of those things and more.

I write to become visible,
to remind myself I exist and have words and vision.
I exist. Just as I am.
I'm growing my own damn garden. I water me.
Planting those seeds and watching 'em sprout.
It's fun, it's real, it's sometimes confusing,
but I'm not scared.
I've survived that controlled burn.
I'm growing my own damn life.
One bit and moment at a time
I evaluate what I like and don't
directions I'd like to sprint
and when it's ok to just be.
To just sit and be right here,
right now.
Just me. Just me. Just me.
So so free.


What the Water Gave Me. Frida Kohlo. 

Even though I struggle still, always will.

Things I took for granted.
Couldn't see the tree you are.
The forest, you see, it grew unwieldy.
You forget and seperate and fantasize
of green, green grasses.
Of laughter and joy beyond compare,
of others that weren't there.
Maybe your dream came true,
even nightmares can, too.
One or both or each other.

Can't say it and won't say it
not to you.
To miss, to miss, to say things
that don't matter anymore.
It fixes nothing,
but my head is clear.
I'm singing and singing to myself
even though I struggle still,
always will.

Love and well wishes through the flags around my heart.
We're bad at predicting happiness, they say.
All along, I knew it had to happen just this way.
Another dollar, another day, another skirt floating by.
We're special because we're not. All the same.
Blood veins and childhood shame and softness within
running around and searching for a will, a reason, a way.
through it, around it, to make sense of it all.

The world isn't really so crazy, neither is love.
It's just that finding it makes you feel faint,
can run a dagger straight through.
Then there's all the ways it might disappoint you.
Expectations and demands and wants and unequal hands.
The only error is getting attached to any of it, they might say.
Attachment is the way and name of the game,
but I'm re-branding what that looks and feels like.

Trying my damnedest to be ethical and fair along the way.
I'm a scientist, you see.
Prodding and probing and swaping and trading variables.
Seeking relief, but finding tidbits and bits in the process.
So damn much to learn and retain and re-train.

Today I put on mascara and captured my hair blowing in the wind.
Captured who I was in that fleeting moment,
sitting here and still here.