“When you are trapped in a nightmare,
your motivation to awaken
will be so much greater
than that if someone caught up
in a relatively pleasant dream.”
— Eckhart Tolle
When I realized the storm was inevitable,
I made it my medicine.
Took two snowflakes on the tongue
in the morning, two snowflakes
on the tongue by noon.
There were no side effects.
Only sound effects. Reverb added
to my life span, an echo that asked—
What part of your life‘s record is skipping?
Which wound is on repeat?
Have you done everything you can?
to break out of that groove?
By nighttime I was intimate with
the difference between tying my laces,
and tuning the string section of my shoes,
made a symphony of walking away from
everything that did not want my life to sing.
Felt a love for myself, so consistent
metronomes tried to copyright my heartbeat.
Finally understood I am the conductor of my own life,
and will be even after I die.
I, like the trees, will decide what I become:
Porch swing? Church pew? An envelope
that must be licked to be closed?
Kinky choice, but I didn’t close.
I opened and opened until I could imagine
the pain was the sensation of my spirit
not breaking, that my mind was a parachute
that could always open in time,
That I could wear my heart
on my sleeve and never grow
out of that shirt.
That every falling leaf is a tiny kite
with a string, too small to see, held
by the part of me in charge
of making beauty
out of grief.
~ from You Better Be Lightning (Button Poetry, 2021)
