abraidoffrostandfelt - Tumblr blog

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

birthdays count time and stand outside of its constraints, as magic marks me happy on Harry Houdini’s 148th

with unfumbled fingers he loosened the rules the shell of beliefs broken delicate cracks decorate the once clear glass reality reforms in his words spoken and i truly do believe that wonders will never cease that no matter how many locks and watery enclosures he clothes and closes himself in he will still breathe all gasps and theatrics warmed water carried in buckets, carrying his body’s heat in drips and puddles on a wooden stage as he stands heaving air in greedy gulps of triumph and we feed upon the  trick and skill of it his heart tripping over itself to the beat of the crowd’s disbelief it brings him back from upside down, from underneath each time, each tour, each city the strength of his mind, his fingers in quiet wonder i am exhaling only to pull the air sharply back, holding it as precious as keys and needles my mouth a careful collection of delicate things all possible paths forward into freedom as he bows choreographed and water flies from his hair in a dance between air and stage the sizzle of lights shattering reality falls from me like a layer of ice and escaped i stand coated in the warm darkness of the theatre’s wings believing

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

Just wanted to make a small announcement that some of my poems have been published as a chapbook. It is called Breadcrumbs and I am so happy with how it has turned out....if you would like to read more about it or pick up a copy (currently 25% off for holiday deals) please follow the link <3

(I have not been posting on here much (combination of life stuff and my phone no longer being compatible)....I am trying to fix these things and hope to be back to posting poetry and pictures soon....)

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

Recent moments of light and motion and green...all paths of healing and remembering.

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

a methodology of getting lost

gone astray, alight darkly glowing, with gleam and glee this is a way of being lost of being freed from the normal path not seeking a way back, she wanders off she wonders herself along, she is ravished away every step on an enchantment encroaching a pull further forward the forest holds both life and death, cradled with equal care, (and none can say who you will meet) hold your name in your mouth, steal your story back— off the pages of tragic authors, try not to forget the whys and wheres and whos that you need let them flutter and fly like feathered things, bread-beckoned birds call them forth and feed them upon your own words —my mother told me i looked like an apple tree, then immediately noticed i was wearing strawberries ....but still mothers know things, hold worlds as they once held you, swirling your own worlds nested inside— an apple tree is wise and fruitful, a sweet tart snap, heavy with metaphor, juicy with it i aspire myself into apples, while acknowledging my otherness more of a tumbled, thoughtful (trying for triumphant) toad i am striving to see similarities i am flocked, flustered, frustrated i am haunted with thoughts of flying off if i weren’t heavy with fear, if i did not feel so rooted here in the way of old trees, (ah, yes, how is a toad like an apple tree? not very) they hold their ground, are held by their ground we make our own forests, surround ourselves in our own sensations, in our own sacredness, shed like leaves into the space around us and step forward, furthered into the forest the secrets shudder and dash off, shy as feral beings and i am hungry, starving, searching them out speak to me in symbols, the obvious the and occult let me feel the shapes, sift them together until they shuffle and settle into some form of sense, of story into the pull of possibility i step deeper, drawn down the layers of leaves left and gone the colors of the past— darker and more vibrant as memory than moment stirred up through the movement, this unexpected dance, rebalancing and forging a path of not knowing where i should be and so running, a flash of me with flourishes and gasps to burst without grace or breath into the clearing next framed in forest, falling from arms into arms, over and down drawn to the ground, gravity somehow stronger than myself unsettled a reminder that some things are everywhere and must be faced i am lost and found i hold my face in my hands, in your hands palms full of stories pressed so close i can whisper into them these outlines, storylines, skins shed and kept, where they lie and lead slip through your fingers neon and velvet, incongruous, out of step, a glint from the quiet filtered shadow of this place a fall with certainty, a thing not of these trees and the clearing can close in, surround us our forms furthered forward filling it which way did the shape shift? the question is unasked, unnoticed we are too involved in creating, cultivating change

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

so many ways to melt

i am wearing the winter’s snow, as earth does, like a cloak over the pause of rest before regrowth, over this skin that i can call my own the air held closer by clouds, scattered, scudding the flash past of the hidden and shown sewn into each moment this is darkness, the sky poked through with stars this is quiet voices, softened and stifled frozen into layers of cold i am breathing into my own patience, longing for the forward step, one foot balanced before the next a circus tightrope in the stretch between trees there are no spotlights in the forest depths, the saturated colors lie beneath the darkness they do not need to be seen to exist i am walking these lines between in as much balance as can be called up, strung together in words i have named all the entities, and they call back and forth to me as feet and ankles flex and soften into steps, into the lift and release, the large and small muscle tensions of holding myself together and if i fall the ground will catch me and if i fall no one will see me how will you know if i fall? am fallen? have lifted myself up, stone struck, stuck by leaves and thorn there is blood in streaks, in rising red a sunset smeared across my skin, blazing and left salted like the ocean, metallic as the earth i exist in the pull between things, in the rush within that welcomes this small break gulping at the air, swallowing itself scarlet savoring this unsecreting, being briefly seen sensed, sensing because there is balance even after falling, even with me alone where no one knows in secret, with secrets, wearing them smooth and thin new blood and old scars, like a map paths to trace and follow, there and back though the destination may not be a forest deep or an ocean peopled full with undisclosed creatures or a city wild and wise in its tower and sprawl those vast places that conspire to cast you small, humbled, eat-me-drink-me-almost-disappeared, before them i prefer my disappearing acts leading into some wonders un-ceased climax with a reveal, a revelation lift the trunk top, pull the curtain aside, open your hand, heart, eyes, mind all at once remember that falling can be part of rising we are waves hold me, as i am, briefly into the spin, the cycle, the rearrange and do not forget to say a quiet warm, wow, beneath your breath, as i change

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

unsupervised

thirty-four years ago there was a broken compass and a first grade child sent into the forest to explore i still explore, a bear likely would not notice the difference of age there are bears in the woods the forest is practically full of them though that is not how the food chain works, apex predators are not densely distributed it must be my stories slipped from memory, it must be my fear, its fur so dense i lose my fingers in it -warm and soft like a mouth, past the sharpness of teeth and far before the stomach right in the pulse of it, and the sensations shift the fear melts into something else and i think maybe the bear got inside of me, shudder slipped, like a shadow through my skin perhaps i am not quite complete in this humanity after all that explains a bit or it doesn’t i can’t decide, and no matter what you think i carry a sense of that bear with me i feed it honey and wind-fall apples, roses (petals and hips, frostbit) the sap of pine trees, if no one  stops me and other bits of the edible wild, the bear devours it all there is fury and abandon and a desire for pinecones but i must draw some lines and i do, because i am not knowledgeable in foraging and have deep fears of poisonings even so i am drawn to the mushrooms, i visit them, admire them, share their space and sparing touch, proximity to their poison being enough and i never ever taste them, they never touch my mouth not even when the bear bits want for them no. i thrive within boundaries -at least the ones i agree to the others i simply step around and cover with leaves so that leaping them is a celebration clear the crimson crunch of fall -feet to earth, heel and dirt i pick up all my favorites, more precious that late blooming flowers this autumn confetti that tells me how intoxicating release can be i open my mouth, red like sugar maples and there could be a roar, barred teeth, the claws just beneath and there is a frog instead green and slick in the slip the cheer, the welcome of it you see the forest is full of frogs as well it all depends on where you look -beyond the trees or beneath the dampness of leaves and frogs are full of stories and shy in certain settings they may be worth the risk of a bear this frog toad telling in which some i have made up almost entirely, and some reside inside of me

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

some scars we choose and some choose us

finding my way back to belonging in this body, maybe a new tattoo will help, maybe a swim what more do i want than to stand waist-deep in ocean, to feel the pull of the sea, trying to swallow me to find my footing over and over again, a tenuous sand-stone-shell grip to say i love you, and i want you —and no, not yet all in one breath one heartbeat, one dream, one lifeline, thrown over a pier, stretched between small ships, placed into the spaces between words, maybe in a bottle to try to balance time and place and the ideas that race across my windswept mind all the clouds and clearings, all the collected trinkets and thoughts that when arranged just so, create a sense of home to be vulnerable in the small softness of myself to let that happen to allow and acknowledge the juxtaposition of volume and vastness, the celebration of smallness the wild freedom of insignificance i hold these things about myself they cling to me, like seaweed and the wet fabric of my swimsuit i am wearing physical truths in the cold slap of ocean water, stirred up by the air, into the air it pulls me into its arms and pushes me away, just as hard i am learning to be more fluid with change and chance and happenstance, to taste the salt and sweet and what lies between bitter and tart and delicious to be in the rush of what is to find the balance of acceptance and acquiescence and still play an active role in my own reality, naming it as i wish, because this is a way to shape and reshape experience swirling with power and powerlessness and i am in over my head, spun about and fog-led the fish have eaten all my breadcrumbs leaving the path soggy and unclear a splash in the face, a whisper in my ear, we are not meant to go back so give yourself to being here, this i take as solemn truth swallow it whole before anything beneath can do the same to me i gave my breadcrumbs willingly and vow my toes, each and every, be mine to keep to carry me out, slow and salty, into the shallows and sand i find myself given back to gravity and the wrecks and wonders of dry land take me heavy with flaws and the flow of change upon us all tucked into the tide, cover me with comfort, with perspective, with ideas we pass the words back and forth, in cycles these are things i need, to say, to hear -it is what it is, it is what we feel it is, what is possible this is playful, purposeful we are all transforming dress me up in purpose, i am feeding myself on all the flavors of possibility i can still feel the swirls of sea about my hips, the tug of the lifeline of words i am home, no matter how that is redefined, held, holding a promise and a reminder that this body is temporary and mine, as it is and as it once was and as it becomes i claim agency in living in and through it, through time, in how i create my experience, my sense of land and skin and ocean love and want and bottles of words

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

no lifeguard please, an exploration in preferring to swim at my own risk

a small warning: i like the water cold and deep and too dark to see my feet and i am sensitive, and i am particular, and i am too often overly articulate also i am scared of being sick, much more scared of sickness than sharks another warning: you are not allowed to be sorry for me consider it forbidden, strictly so -not now, not then, not in the-who-knows of what is yet to come no i’m sorrys- none- you are not permitted to speak them i want your words used differently -there will be no mourning over maybes you must see me as i am, here decorated in my flaws and celebrate every messy step raw and real, mistakes missteps right along and i will not be sorry for any of what brought this body-self to here scarred and marked, and problematic ongoing what gets torn and reformed along the path i cannot exist in a different form than this and i crave imperfections and acceptance, welcome them like water that pushes me toward surface, that wants me to float i want happiness to have me as is, as am, as may one day be -muddy up the dirt that once was me though, not yet take your time with me i do not exaggerate to say i am worth the wait, the work, the blood-skin-nerves, the energetic space you may offer me, i may offer you and you must not refuse this is a reach underwater, my arms beneath surface outstretched, reflecting all the lights of rising moon and sinking sun and holding space for the unseen below, in the way that water touches so much all at once in the stretches of shore to shore and sunlight to sea-floor there is talk of sharks and change i cannot hear over the stirring waves though, it holds presence and in response, i swim out deeper over my head and fully here sharks and change both bringing necessary fear real and unseen and mirrored in many things the flash of cloud, the splatter-jump of fish, the sudden cold current shift the gentle plunge, under into cover me with water, i want it saltier than my tears so when it beads into reflective droplets, as it drips and dries it is an offering, a cleansing this adventure in not being eaten my self left whole and thinking the under and aboves of having surfaces the layers of submersion and re-emerging my face in ocean, mouth touching water, at the edge of almost, almost, almost surfacing a want of air and shared time another fear swimming past more teeth, less time the tick and tock of a neverland croc and we have no time! -no time, no time- i am in a loop, get ashore, stop repeating don’t say it and you don’t, you celebrate what is your easy laughter, a life saver lift then the scent of rain then rain itself

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

Houdini’s birthday which wasn’t his birthday, but was, and is because so much can continue when it is carried forward by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

consensual illusion of allusion to the belief in magic

Harry- in the shadow of the wonderwheel wait, has that been written, spoken? was it by me? about me? it is something i think so frequently that it has substance holds its own space in sand and sudden sound brought back in a veil of stockings and salt air and sun-drawn-sweat dotted across sweet Bess nested in shade, she tastes of spun sugar and silk with sand sifting through her fingers she spins story upon story casting the stage for our meeting made more softly sensational, more friendly fashioned into the history, the remembering- for parents, news, biographies she is fast on her tiptoes and her tongue forever thinking us up and forward into the splash, into the headlines, into the sea plunging into publicity, from city to city she tells me in whispers, in giggles impossible not to smile for of, about some acid dress school-stage accidental mess she is magnetic in feigned and literal innocence the story spilled all over her, she draws me in with it, with her a hand clasped dash through the hallways like a maze and i am amazed it is not the grit of sawdust and singsong performance that i recall, though it is a gift time slips and i can easily follow along with her humming the tune, the uncanny harmony of how it all happened and the many storied ways we said that it did and they ring with their own truths the tune of their telling familiar the unknown number of times until it echos back to when it never was a shared stage, my brother, the way she fit into every small space like a glove, peel the silk back a metamorphic snap and the ocean of applause drags us happy along giddy and beach-blessed, our future cast in the roar of waves we take a bow to empty shells and the tumble of sea smoothed stones this is practice and she did not laugh she took me serious beyond my own twinkling sincerity the tide comes in in a rush and i am over my head even on dry sand the stars spin like the amusement rides beyond the boardwalk i want the wheel to lift us closer to them though we are them and i lift her mouth to mine and in the presence of oaths and promises, we shine our cheeks slapped into roses we stand shaking in the suddenness of falling into our future

Bess- back to the beach of beginnings the wheel turns round in the lighted lift and lope the gentle loop of years illuminated, transformed we are transforming your arms, with names rising from the ashes, wrapped around me and we shine into each other electrically i leap into your lift, from the trunk-trick as if weighing nothing my metamorphosis-wings unseen -trade places with me behind the curtain, beneath the surface- i had never been asked anything with more mystery and assurance each spirit about me shouted, and the rest of my life leaped onward, and started startled by the yes that echos in every bit of me and i mean it, that yes i want you small time circus as much as someday broadway stage and all the betweens the touch stone coming homes of back to Coney Island, shade and shine the energetic spark of starting startling, how we stand on this beach of becoming how we became over and over, become me, Harry the dark, sudden start, three seconds as we switch our spaces and trade our names into story, into books, into synonymous sayings name someone magic and they pull you back out of history and into words where i want you still even through the red glow and the pronounced farewells, some version of me seance-spoke on a someday storm dressed roof that’s too far forward- fall back, to an ocean splashing against an uncanny beach catch my eye while electricity burns and dazzles and i don’t even miss the stars as i lean on your shoulder, speak into your elfin ears saying this future is ours hold me so close i can feel us both humming a shared tune, as secrets slip and you call me Rosabel with your lovely liars lips and we both believe

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

merry make me, a way of speaking

it was an opening, an expanse it is vast, and unfolding all around us between pages, between lines i thought i saw, felt, heard you it was a flash of memory, or something made up, thought up, from damp earth and forest floor bright from the murk gone green into the glow and drift of spring when everything is new and sudden and feeding the exuberance of it in the mix, in the beating pulse of thunder the kind you can feel radiate through the earth, and the floor boards all the blood of a heartbeat, and sap awoken and grown sticky, in celebration my fingers all tack and pitch so that you do not want to hold my hand beware of being caught up in me standing alone in the rain fed mud, i am wearing almost an armor of green maple spinners abound, we are freshly fallen they dust my shoulders, nest in my hair i am attracting rabbits i am messy in all this newness song and fur and seeds the air gone wild, all a shock of green, shade upon shade everything is breathing  and nothing is subtle and i am so often striving for subtlety, beneath all these layers of me if you pluck up courage to ask, if you lift the greens with conscious care, with curiosity, with patience i do have other colors though you will be required to sort the sundries of my pockets plentiful with rocks and shells and acorns you will need to wade through the rambles of my stories for the paths and the truths there will be laughter before you find that i feel like old leaves and new flowers and taste of pine trees those are revelations left to later, to the fumbling of fall, because autumns have always been times of opening into new flavors of what can be though the older i find myself the less i can cling to patterns, and the more i can sense them i am still woven into the past, the present, my dreams i am healing through and into something yet to be defined my meanings are all my own you may give me grounding with your voice but do not think that you can capture me with your words you may hold me, temporary, fleeting a flutter in your palm if you can handle how sticky i am but holding is not taming and it is timely, the rabbits are circling and choices must be made perhaps i will turn back into a toad and hop away perhaps i will keep telling you from which i came the right kiss may help me stay though it is unknown if my mouth be sticky as my hands are you wary of the risk? most are and it is always a choice i am promising no glamor stay, stay, stay safe i am speaking to both of us this is not a demand, this is not compelling i am wishing all around us, through seeds and rabbits and sap rushing into slow motion a merriment of mouths found and pressed in a pause, like flowers between pages

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

new hair....new season....blossoming along with what is

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

Houdini’s birthday, which wasn’t his birthday, but was, and is because so much can continue when it is carried forward

brush the curtain aside the heavy velvet folded crimson over and into itself, there is glass, a shimmer in the once gas lights water contained upon this long ago stage and more a man, a memory—in wool and metal, wet and reversed he is the magician, he is the hanged man, the king of wands, and cup upon cup upon cup of water piled up in stocks and stacks and saucers safely contained in milk cans and chambers, splashing over with danger river water rushing against your lips a drink of thirst, a drink of success, my glass raised to flow, to fullness drunk enough to swallow our fears and vitamins, and medicine, and competition alive and don’t forget the needles and thread wash them down, deliciously, a glint in the glass, in the secret glow of your mouth into your body, along with your body while you give the whole house their wish allowing them to worry over and again that you will drown asleep under the tunes, as time ticks away and gasp after gasp escapes the audience’s dry mouths, wishing after wanting you watery, with the stage lights reflecting and you are wet and removed, right side up, and all at once improved breathing in gasps, a mess of triumph as if you are feeding upon their applause, their shock, like electricity and you shine, illuminated out of the shadows dancing about your edges, the crinkles dancing about your eyes this is what i remember and your hands in a rush of cards and coins, buttons, ties the quick click of small mechanisms, the perfect slip of a key, fitting quietly how everything can fall into place its place, a place the fast rush of the narrows beyond the stage the hollows of theatres that you have filled how they hold you, how you haunt them because no one is forgetting the feeling of your being your life still being mapped, traced back, marveled at and that is magic—how do you do that? your ability to go on inhabiting i hear you in the fret and force, where the handcuffs fall with nuance and knowing and the skillful turn of pick and phrase a dance of fingers, with no fumbling and i have to say that i love how your wrists look unadorned, unlocked free by their own practiced means, blood and tendons and pulse held within tender skin because this is physical— grit and groan and come into your own a sigh sighs seeping through submerged crates, a flooding of sighs and you must escape before you get in over your head and beyond your breath another sigh a semblance of strength within this stretch of time rabbits cradled in your arms, the velvet of their ears so near your precision joints, arms unveiled because you want us to think what you want nothing hidden, nothing held back the labyrinth of corridors from upside down to dressing room, your damp footprints pressing a path the truths, your stories, both scattered and stretched in print, spoken through your stillness i think of exponential handcuffs, seances spread like tea parties, hung from my heels surety, your mouth under the water of an icy bathtub, your mouth under the water of an icy river, salt air in the wonderwheel lifting you up from sand and city, an illuminated island of dreams beyond dreams will wonders never cease? it is all still you, your name given in exchange at the ask of magician cards turned over and palmed velvet curtains, velvet rabbits Harry, here and now a magical habit

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

i found an old dress....antiques abounding and i am pretending to be from the past

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

Streams of light, streams of water....and joy and hopefulness, and small quiet celebrations...these things still happen and i would be remiss not to observe them, not to mark and note and revel within what i am able to

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

bring me wary to the woods, warm my frozen fingers over reminding words

half of the forest was haunted that’s what we used to say think know looking back though it was all haunted i am thinking, knowing, telling you that we carried the haunting with us into the forest, from it in our pockets, laced into our shoes, wrapped around the slightness of our fingers it follows in dappled darkness and brightest noontide i can almost touch it back into the silver slip of moon the curve and crease of your smile i can sense it in  the subtle slide, set aside for later for keeps, to play over when i need a lifeline, a draw into dream and sleep, a wayward way back into before a touchstone, my hand reaching the softness, the baby-fat, the smallness of a curve a step too soft to write itself into story even with its existence as sure as my own dropping to my knees in the forest unseen i am not memorizing this path or identifying plants i am not calling them by name or marking my way i am almost lost, even though at certain angles, ordinary reminders of houses remain visible in the sunlit beyond i am not seeing further than this circle of trees my focus frozen into these subtle boundaries we are not deep enough, so i must keep my layers on and i do — though in my mind i am dressed in air and light alone there are rules, and they echo as i ignore them over and again, go within, and court the lostness if we make friends you will shed what makes you scary and scared, like leaves and coats and the petals of apple trees cycles softer than snow, falling slow i am here wearing a costume, this fabric that consumes the reality of my skin yet any fairytale witch knows it is impossible to hide what lies within layers upon layers with velvet cloaks and still we glow and so i hold the forest as it holds me both haunted and dear because nature is full of dualities and i have never identified as a single way forward so let my imperfections and my complexity be my beauty if such a term exists in such a way that i can claim it this is a test like once when we found the very edge, where the haunting began, joined hands and together stepped over under, through like a dance as if the moment were choreographed and so the question is, did you shiver? did you listen to the winter woods? the way their whispering comes down to us like a forest snow, feather ice, touch me gentle through the razor air the rub and rattle of wind, rushes between their branches grown closer to cloud than to our reach and it is eerie when, in the middle of that music, the air beneath is all stillness against us and in the contrast we watch the woods work their way through feeling what we cannot standing grounded, ankle deep in ice i wonder what you feel think know as i radiate the snowy cold, rose apple cheeks, sugar bright we are searching out our spirits in this seance of pines hold my hands beneath their greenery and there is the sense of presences and pulses a surround of sleeping trees, still exchanging stories underneath us and i keep stutter stumble falling just from standing my balance questions itself, toes catch, roots hold, my knees bend back to falling in the forest and i find myself breathless at the bottom swallowed in the earthen corridors of countless rabbit holes trying to track my way back in the absence of a magnet pulling north the snow helps though i still get my footsteps confused within the web of other creatures’ they ramble on and i weave my way out earth grass snow, numb fingers attempting to hold on, my hands in your hands and did you look back? do not break the circle now here nothing can touch us the forest fingers unforgotten stayed into the roar and ramble of air beyond our backs there is no going back and i speak this protection over us and into the snow pressed tracks this surround, this orbit of others the ones leading into the past, the future forward and back, rocking gently heal to toe, they appear around us the rabbit deer robin-red-breast onward our paths, pulses, hearts marked held and haunted, we gather ourselves into this here and focus forward, melting away what remains of fear, of trembling have i ever told shown you how my teeth chatter-rattle? i need to stop holding it, let the energy fly in raindrops and forward floods, gently into mist and fog we see only what is ours,   and i am missing my daydreams, my moreness, my you then and now, at once so speak the spooky stories into my truths the ones that can pull this place back give me the shivers safely, scare away the fear so that even when the thaw is upon us the forest is all still here i am repeating myself do you remember? did you swallow the answers? you cannot pass further unless you speak them right i can wait, am waiting, have been here, wary and warm, amused unassuming, all by myself i do so dislike tests extra credit if you know my name if you remember if you spit the answers into the secret snow and don’t burn your fingers touching too much truth sizzle-crackle-fire-glow and this keeps becoming something different so i breathe life into the change rearrange what i can, transform, emerge wanting more

by, earthboundpixie

[abraidoffrostandfelt]

Stepping into 41 with all the glow of someone who did not need to spend their birthday meeting with a surgeon this year....40 was a year of huge healing and I am so happy to cross the threshold into a new one...here’s to differences, as I continue to accept mine and do my best to love my body through its flaws and failings and continue finding what is lovely in inhabiting this time and space....this is me—sparkliest cake, brightest hair, aging and changing and all...this is how I rep moving forward...this is how I process and move forward and thrive