that's mrs. mediocrity to you

.

it all goes

in stages

and phases

.

to bloom

means embracing

each

one

.

.

.

and you wear them on your heart
like a badge or a pin
or a reminder to remember

you expose them
to the elements

harden them off

rub them raw

until they weave
their own shield of shadow
and eventually
stop hurting
when they’re touched

.

.

.

where the colors are verbs and the mountains are writers

i found my heart by the shore on a beach tired of shifting

and there were feathers sounding of owl

and bruises charting moons to hold you quiet

and whispers weaving stories of forgiveness

boulder cradled by sky

bare-boned and ever spine-proud

marked by nothing but hour

and eye

.

.

.

we want things to be black and white and the world is made of color. we don’t even get shades of grey to choose from, we get red and purple, orange and blue, green and yellow. we get the full spectrum, an elusive rainbow made of light and still, all those colors are never enough.

my garden is thirsty. i’m thirsty. we’re all thirsty for something, always. we’re all here beneath the same blue sky, the same night stars, the same tired sun, and the world spins round the way it always has. we think we know better. we refuse to see the forest for the trees because the trees refuse to acknowledge our presence.

i step outside at night and listen. i look up at the stars and there are no answers, only questions. i know the names of some of the constellations, but others i’ve forgotten. i don’t bother relearning them because i’m tired of naming things. some of them don’t even exist anymore, even though i can see them. a name seems so irrelevant.

gravity holds me in place and keeps me silent and makes me laugh with the cage of its promise.

i’m not a tree because i’ve never grown roots. every tree out there has made that decision. but i’m the one carrying water. and i have no idea what that means.

we thought shoes were a good invention. and guns. and cars to carry us to other places. we think we are smarter than ourselves.

this is a prayer and i don’t pray. this is a mantra that needs no chant. this is the morning a flower will open.

we are not seeds but we know how to hold them.

we plant hope and beg for rain.

the sky is grey, the sky is blue, the sky is orange.

all of these things are true.

or false.

depending on the day.

.

.

.

my breath caught in the net of my throat
and the dance of a butterfly
held my tongue

and there was nothing to say except
wish you were here

and no camera
can take a photo as real
as my heart
pounding

or the taste of adrenaline in my
never-better peanut butter sandwich

or the way i couldn’t move
for fear my body would take wing

or the truth of never wanting
to come down

.

.

.

.

where we shall fly

matters not

.

it is always enough

to have wings

.

.

.

.

amaryllis in

glorious

mixed-up

confusion

.

the lesson here

is bloom

when you want to

.

.

.

June 30. Another year half-gone, and I thought, the other day, about those words—the ones that pick us, or we them, back in January.

And I know the word finishing came up, somewhere in my mind’s conversation with itself, and I smiled because I did finish a few things, but there is always so much left undone. And there has been learning. So much learning, and that is never finished, and I smiled again at the lesson in that short sentence.

But a new word popped into my head when I was thinking about this year: economy. And I settled right into that one, like my favorite old sweater, the one with the stain and the pills and the ragged edges that can always be found thrown over the back of a chair.

Economy.

Of motion. Time. Emotion. Energy. The paring down to what actually matters, and the rearranging of what’s left in my hand.

Choosing what’s precious and letting the rest slip through my fingers. Working hard to make the changes that allow me to do that. Practicing economy, in all its definitions, trying again and again to get it right.

The Year of Economy.

I kind of like that.

It’s also been the year of crazy and the year of letting go and the year of holding on and the year of finishing and learning and also, the year of watching, but underneath everything else, in proper-noun form, it’s been economy all along.

I’m looking to balance the scales, even as I understand that they will always be falling to one side or the other, day-by-day, hour by hour. Sometimes up, sometimes down, almost never right in the middle. I’m saving up pennies though, because once in a while, you just need a tiny bit of help to tip things in the other direction.

I’m saving.

Myself and my time and anyone/anything else I can.

Which isn’t much on a day-to-day basis, but I’m guessing, or at least I’m hoping, that it will all add up in the end.

.

.

.

.

the sun glows

and you shine

in hidden corners

.

.

.

.

planted by birds

lit by mother nature

beloved by me

.

.

.