The Common Room
Poetry | Essays | Photography
Sometimes
the natural world, indifferent and immense;
the sea not needing to know my depths,
the trees seasonally meeting with death,
the creatures innocent of our despair.
The Second Straw
And across the ground
lie all the things
once mistaken
for belonging.
Who Feels It?
Today’s Fire Report
the three least dramatic nouns in this life, quietly holding the roof up while everything else becomes a coordinated collapse.
Night Blight
so deep into the night
the birds forget their names,
the night birds tangled with the bats,
winged things stitched into my hair,
your mouth still near my ear,
Your Silhouette
first, the silhouette.
Then the eternal.
Then the laugh—
startlingly sweet—
then the strange friendship
which had no proper name
and entered everything.
The Apple Of The Eye Is Usually Bruised
And still we lift it to our mouths.
And we call the rot a blessing.
And still, we bite near the bruise
and let the sweetness lie to us.
My Life Without Its Art
I told my love: I cannot stay alive
without my stories fastened to my eyes,
without my stories waking in my hands.
The world extends its help in measured spoons.
I only want my art. I want what’s mine.
Protecting What Is Mine
I guess I really miss being myself. None of it feels like me. It feels like doable, bearable, and helpful. I don’t want to sugar coat it. The worlds changed and it’s not geared toward being a woman, or even human… maybe it never was or will be.
After Us
I’m tired. Yet, I’m still determined. I don’t believe this is our ceiling.
There has to be something better waiting for the ones who come after us.
Love Letter to Earth-Bound Creatives
Do not fear their reaction to you. It is not worth folding yourself into something so small that you fail to exist. Find the other strange ones who are still trying. Then go home, close the door, and return to your works and love.
FREEDOM
Freedom won by turning the mirror
to watch the thing behind me—
to finally walk into its own proportions,
survive its own weather,
wear its impossible shape—
and all without my hands to fix it.
Small Update
Life is short. Most people are understandably focused on their own lives, goals, and priorities.
TO BIND TO FINISH
So the water holds it all,
So the working does not fall,
Sealed by hand and sealed by art,
Sealed by what came from my part.
Vanishing
A white vessel split upon the dark,
its flawless halves made sacred
only after the fracture.
Poem: Anyway
Tin stars.
Empty bottles.
Poem: The Night Falls
when the promised dawn
forgets how to come
Part Two: The Weight of Accumulated Silence
Likability was never a reliable measure of goodness. It was sometimes simply nothing more than a sign of how much had been suppressed. What becomes possible, slowly, is disappointing others without disappearing in the process.
The Courage to Be Unlikable
Releasing the need for approval requires allowing others their disappointment, risking being misread, accepting that integrity may cost belonging. It doesn't reject connection. It denies the hidden contracts of self-denial that connections sometimes ask for.
