cozy minimalism, life, travel
Magnolias itch to bloom –
A day or two they’ll stay
Till petals float from branch to grass
To shrivel and decay.
Pink and white – presented,
Ornamented on gnarled twigs,
Till mischief breathes on fragile stems
And loosens all the rigs.
The flowers do not comprehend;
The love for them’s not fleeting
And April fools, impatient, long
For next spring’s short, sweet meeting.
I do not know my self yet.
Do you not know it too?
Defining dreams pours cement in my shoes
That makes it hard to move.
I chisel at my ankles.
I wiggle my toes loose
And slip away with shallow scrapes
That wandering heals anew.
I swim in wordless waters.
I run through salt-flecked air.
I channel why and wonder how
And if I’ll find me – where?
When priers ask, “What do you do?”
I’d like to tell them true.
I do my best –
Fulfilled, bereft.
I change.
And how ‘bout you?
I’ve been shedding bits of myself lately-
Discarding layers
Like pilled sweaters and torn jeans in a heap on the floor,
Too careless to aim for the hamper
And call them as they are-
Pieces in need of care and mending.
Sometimes I’ll pick part of me back up and wear it again,
Beyond acceptable condition of wearability.
A muddy thought.
A wrinkled smile.
A stained mindset.
And it just doesn’t look right somehow.
And then I realize that I packed away the appropriate wearables months ago,
Vacuum sealed in a Small Space Bag
In a plastic bin from Target.
I open the bin
And see the love, friends, hobbies, memories, and plans shriveled up like raisins packed for space rations.
I open the bag and they puff up into grapes again,
Turned with the chemical perfume of storage.
I wash my wearables
And extra spin so they look their best.
I slide into a brightly colored memory,
A cotton blend of calm and nostalgia that allows room to breathe.
I am me once again,
Happy thoughts folded in the drawers
where I can reach them,
The hamper and floor – empty,
Ready to collect me
When I am over worn.
I take a sip of watered down whiskey.
Honey sweetness coats my tongue
And climbs my palate walls,
like a spell of rain on rewind.
Ginger heat slides down my throat
And spreads across my chest,
A fermented shield beneath my skin.
Spiced warmth seeps into my armor
And I am fortified with soothing calm.
The sensation of the aftertaste follows,
A pleasant burn that lingers.
Thoughts relax and the world warps,
Viewed through a curved lens.
Apprehensions subside, the words easy to find,
And the impossible is a matter of effort.
Synapses twinkle,
Transmissions fire,
And there are too many ideas to write down.
I hardly know this me,
This artist whose craft comes easy
Temporarily.
And I think perhaps I owe this burst
To the sips of watered down whiskey.
My mind is a deconsecrated cathedral turned into hipster apartments full of whimsy, mismatched decor, and white-washed walls.
The Madonna weeps over a modern record player with the Abbey Road B-side scratching on repeat in a studio kitchen,
Majestic in her broken panes of stained glass, cemented together with black composite.
She is beautiful and her suffering-an art.
She is womanhood and childhood and loss.
Taken for granted,
Rent-stabilized cost of losing a savior
for location location location.
The stations of the cross taken down,
Their shadows left behind beneath un-frescoed white walls to make room for mass-produced art from Target.
My creativity, removed from its sepulcher during construction, is haunting the rooms, evicting the mundane tenants who are satisfied with the status quo.
The times they are a changin’,
Rearranging priorities and preferences,
The colors-more vibrant, the words-more bold.
I write on the walls with lipstick and crayon, like Harold in his purple world
With a grown-up twist.
Unformed and malleable,
Full of possibility and light,
I grow and glow.
I illuminate past the confines of the bulbs in the IKEA pendant fixtures,
A mixture of grace and insanity come to life in a way that finally pulls the room together.
Free to curate slowly with care,
My soul revived with abundant self-worth and self-love,
Absolutely enough
and ready to take on the neighborhood market – Upscale and laid back with an unbeatable view of the future.
I grip my grasp on happiness with a firm hold,
finally bold
And recognize that “can” is a word in my vocabulary again.
Survival does not depend on compromising on dreams and
Split seams can always be mended.
Everything will extend beyond fine.
Unraveled thread, re-wound.
Possibility abounding.
I am me. I am she.
I am mine.
In my dream, I married a mountain.
And sprouted up from its rocky terrain as grass and trees and wildflowers,
Contouring its stony face with sparkling waterfalls and trickling streams.
I was the flora and the fauna and the dirt.
I was the beautiful parts of earth – on the mountainside.
The birds, the insects, the goats, and the sheep;
I was the fish in the streams – the moss on the trees.
All sprouted from me –
and all for the love of the mountain.
The mountain gave little in return except the surface on which to grow,
And in my dream I grew weary of creating beauty alone.
The grass grew brown, the flowers wilted, and the animals grew hungry.
The mountain’s sorrow built and a storm brewed and lashed with heavy rains.
The mountain shook with great sobs and my land began to shift and slide.
Down – down – down the mountainside.
Buried in the mountain’s grief,
Concealed in soaking rubble,
A heap of beauty on the ground
Torn apart and strewn around.
That is until the storm clouds parted and the heavy rains ceased.
Quenched with sun and released from the mountain,
I gathered my debris.
My twigs, my leaves, my petals and seeds
My bones and blood and the survivors of the fall.
And reworked it all into something new.
And then I awoke to you.
cozy does it 