outlierpoetry - Tumblr blog

[outlierpoetry]

Former acquaintances on social media awaken my angry feminism

You got called out by a feminist you wanted to be assuaged everyone obliged, I pushed and I left it alone too conflicted about whether to play; play your game play the game but I'm not ready to play it my way to speak it plainly to show my anger. What I wanted to say: “If there focus of this conversation is on one woman in one conversation and using your discomfort with being called out as rationale for discrediting her report of her experience, then nothing changes.” But then I wanted to soften it because I know you like your respectability politics you said so when I named it so I have nowhere to go. So I learn I stepped out I was heard then I quit.

[outlierpoetry]

Pendulums

Hope is cruel Everything I ever wanted Was something I never had

Hope is crucial Everything I ever wanted Taught me about myself

Potential is cruel Everything I ever imagined Never came to fruition

Potential is a seedling Everything I ever gained Started somewhere

Love is cruel Everything I ever felt Faded away

Love is freedom Everything I ever felt Stretched and fed me

[outlierpoetry]

Deep Quakes

Deep quakes - at first heard only as high-timbre rattles on the shelves, increasing in magnitude and frequency. I built my house here with sober intent, so I am not afraid. Deep friction, heat, noise grinding stone on stone - beginning to vibrate every nerve. Chambers of molten may rupture. I have survived such disturbances before, so I am terrified. I confess: it was I, I rang the rusty bell next to the sleeping ear of the indomitable beast and she stirs again. Scratching, clawing, pounding, pounding, pounding. I dance to her rhythm as the clatter falls to the floor.

[outlierpoetry]

Just be

Time is short, and fast, there’s so much to do The passions, ideas, and dreams of my youth I see it and want it and it needs to be done All the visions and longings I have yet to become Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet All the dreams in the world can happen someday But for now, my love, just be Each step in my story, each moment of truth Need re-examining, it’s what I must do The heartache and missteps, the hauntings and shame Reframe and replay again and again Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet All the healing in the world can happen someday But for now, my love, just be I see it and feel it, the injustice and pain The world crushing those that can’t help themselves Compelled into action, something must be done Yet totally paralyzed when the giants come Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet All the fixing in the world may happen someday But for now, my love, just be Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet All the dreams in the world can happen someday But for now, my love, just be (written when my baby was 6 months old, with a melody, currently adding chords)

[outlierpoetry]

Undone by the undoing

I built it with what I could find shadows found in dusk, shadows cast in twilight comforting and dark, cool and gray, complex and muddy buried, packed down, tightly twined

This structure protected my electric home when I gently and steadily fanned the spark controlled, just enough to feel the heat of existence occasional wind seeps through and flares dangerously

And the light shines from within the walls and shadows and contrast demonstrate the rickety flaws and piecemeal reinforcements tools and shields of self protection have closed in

In generous and gentle company I begin to dismantle the insufficient bunker shedding methods and mechanisms that should expire I free a demon, a churning stream, free a friendship

The dismantled walls can feed the anemic flame allow fresh breezes to fan into real substance casting enough light to build a village alongside, in the open air, free, safe, electric

[outlierpoetry]

The element of water

Rain, cleanse me of hatred and hiding I accept your presence and my cool skin holds you My soul encompasses all who receive your gifts And gratitude fills my consciousness

We need to be fed and softened by you We need to feel you in us We know you We are one in you

Water, you rise around us violently And return us to your body too soon You fill the space humanity is creating As we call on your powerful destruction

We need to make it right with you We need to feel you in us We know you We are one with you

We are dust when you leave us We feel your pulses that sustain You swell in our joy You flow from our pain We know you We are one with you We are one in you

[outlierpoetry]

Static and fading

I want to fight for you but you don’t want to fight for yourself.

So, I will not stay in this futility I cannot stay with you when you choose comfort at all cost.

Your empty promises to look to the horizon are worn thin and I see you.

[outlierpoetry]

Unparching

I see the clouds coming thick, dark, ominous they carry the life giving waters, shade, cool the parched land needs to find the green again. As the storm approaches the trees bend, everything agitates, the noise fills the tense air, branches wilted long ago crack deeply throwing shards and offering truth - naming the deadness. The first torrent kicks up dust and immediately mutes it into mud sheets fall making the air a thick white I pulse into the encompassing embrace, craving sensation, removing protective layers I allow the warmth to lick my skin. The earth softens and cools, the seeming concrete melts back into soil the thunder and lightening move me to tears the storm envelops and frees me I lay on the parched grass and feel it revive my deepest cravings named and answered.

[outlierpoetry]

To the supporters of the status quo.

[outlierpoetry]

It crumbled

My clay cup held the living water I would drink and breathe gratitude But trauma left cracks And the water would drain before It could be carried to my lips As the vessel started to crumble Like the feet of the babylonian prophetic dream I cupped the fragments and the water in my hands The shards in my throat told me what had changed.

I let the water drain, the clay dried The vessel crumbled to dust The water from my tears was not sufficient To reconstitute the material into anything pliable In a soft breeze, it scattered as ashes.

I’ve been frozen here ever since. Paralyzed, lost, yet unable to even grieve A loss of a person that was always with me, A faith that was through me, An energy that motivated my ways and connections But it’s all I know, my culture, my history.

[outlierpoetry]

What if I didn't judge it?

Under the lies of the past, I disappear. Evaporate maybe, hide and see a soul, drained and longing, waiting to implode or explode.

I’ve wasted my life pursuing a lie But, perhaps simply a cloaked truth after all ‘But what if,’ she said ‘you didn’t judge it.’

What if the hunger is the truth. The void, the cavernous, empty ache And my attempts to satiate have been real and necessary to my narrative and what lies ahead is unveiled: Not a deity, they evaporate. Not a peace, it evades. Not perfection, it’s a myth. Not an answer, the question changes. Not any satiation, I would shrivel without the chase. Not one perfect love, each facet demands its own companion.

(And what if I didn’t judge it, judge my attempts to fill it, and what if I didn’t judge it, maybe I could learn.)

[outlierpoetry]

Ebb and flow

Ebb and flow, flow and ebb.

Perpetual, predictable, engaging.

It is in the air, evaporating into a dream. It is in the surf, sinking into the earth.

Ebb, flow, flow, ebb.

As the moon pulls, and the moon pushes.

Sea level is rising slowly the shoreline is changing. Tomorrow, reinforce the levees, or build a ship. Today, shed the boots, fearlessly gaze, feet at the waterline the cool air, the glossy sand, the sweet gentle nothingness under the moonrise.

Enjoy every drop of inspiration. Draw a labyrinth in the sand, walk the sacred maze slowly. Write one act at a time, sketch ships and harbors in dreams, take comfort in mystery.

Ebb and flow, flow and ebb.

Ebb, flow, flow, ebb.

[outlierpoetry]

Piercing light

I love piercing light - consistently destructively liberatingly liminal.

[outlierpoetry]

Should

Should is an oppression. Submit or fight. A mechanical loop that doesn't give flesh to life. A dichotomy of choices of responses. and this heart does not conform well to expectation. So fighting keeps the power structure alive. So I'll quietly slip away leave expectation to fight itself.

[outlierpoetry]

Becoming

When I was young I laid in a rainy tent all of the unknowns I felt the future, dark a cusp, the preparing right before becoming.

And again at salty sunrise sitting on missionary stairs contemplating the forevers offering my unedited self declaring her sufficient.

Evocative like aroma, these tender spaces, such rare synapses sent me to old air clear as today’s holding close stepping far, present in owning who I am.

[outlierpoetry]

Pyro life

There exist magic portals. Upon entry, everything looks sharper everything can breathe for a moment standing amidst truth, truth that opens peels back exposes something names something that moves us toward the other And there's room to be flesh, there's room to be drunk and flawed there's room to be unapologetically dark if there is darkness that can't be held in other worlds without hiding or minimizing identity And eyes found there, voices found there are other-worldly Joining a stream of liberation of owning intersecting liminalities pushing pushing pushing Radical theology Post structuralist philosophy Art for existential survival Intersectionality Because the world crushes us separates us from one another. What if occasionally we're magically found?

[outlierpoetry]

Submission

It’s not blind obedience but deferring as they build the structures of the world. the priorities the language the mission the outskirts It’s not blind obedience but deferring your personhood. They build the structure. the emotional depth the entertainment the community the patterns the tolerances the tastes the sounds It’s not blind obedience. The priorities. what is afforded what is not afforded and whose influences are heard It’s not blind obedience. The language. “I’m uncomfortable” “You’re too sensitive” “It’s unjust” “It’s fine [I’ll never hear you].” It’s not blind obedience. The mission. big sweeping dreams that have no room to expand but by their own pen and you are to help and be satisfied or quiet It’s not blind obedience. The outskirts. “Can we?” “No, I’m uncomfortable [so, never].” It’s not blind obedience. Defer your personhood. shrink smaller to keep him unthreatened in his fragility It’s not blind obedience but deferring as they build the structures of the world. the priorities the language the mission the outskirts It’s not blind obedience but deferring your personhood.