Mostly Existential
Mostly Existential
Reality Check
Home Alone
Sometimes the loneliness feels so loud
It’s like your chest could pop
Sending goosebumps up the backs of your legs
And a weight that defies gravity
Clamping down on your throat
This is when you light a candle, burn incense, blast your music, play a movie, drink some tea
In severe cases, you might need a small bowl or a strong hazy IPA or even an assorted tequila drink of random cocktail-like ingredients in your house
Just to keep the demons at bay
And when it all thunders a little too strongly
You remind yourself -
What would I rather be doing anyway?
it’s hard to imagine
it’s hard to imagine
a genocide a world away
that 11 wildfires started
from the only moisture we got in july
that humans go go go
destroy destroy destroy
do do do
that my nervous system is screaming at me
“it’s all going up in flames!”
it’s hard to imagine
with a smooth rock solar-power-heated at my back
and my hair dripping onto my sun-kissed thighs
where the water rushes by
commanding me to “shhhhh”
to let go
to let nothing stop me
to tell me it’s ok to always be going somewhere
it’s hard to imagine
the flowers crying for help
their phloem filled with speeding car exhaust dust
choking from a winter half as cold
half as long
half as deep
as usual
it’s hard to imagine
life being anything more than just this moment
that the universe demands this harmony,
a presence so deep that you are taken out of yourself,
your misgivings
your worries
your fears
and instead a part of everything,
a key piece to the most perfect puzzle
it’s hard to imagine
that there are people who never get to experience this
it’s hard to imagine
my luck in getting to experience this
every single day
The Fate of the Water Babies
every ounce of water
that flows through our sacred rivers
is doomed
every splash, every drip
will end up as
dried powder, caked dirt
no tears to weep
in some hell-bent arroyo
never to reunite with
her sister, the sea
left stranded with the other droplets
screaming for a miracle
apocalyptic, one might say
these serene ripples
rushing softly
roiling whitewater
the sun’s reflection on the eddies
this perfect, constant flow of motion
is fated for
cracked lips, crumbling
soaked up by the sand
with nothing to nourish
the water we love so deeply,
but have to let go
is doomed
Quarter Life Crisis
With every year that passes,
The fear of the one that got away
Increases exponentially
Were any of my great loves
My greatest love?
How many more great loves
Until I run out of time?
Maybe there’s supposed to be multiple,
Loves that taste different and
Transform you in unique ways
Until hopefully the timing is right
For “the one”?
Maybe it’s supposed to be bits and pieces of those you love
And you learn to just accept the remaining parts of them
And not ask for anything more
Maybe it comes after heartbreak
Maybe you are stolen away from your partner
By “the one”
Or, maybe for you, it’s just not supposed to be
Dead Meat
When you catcall a woman
Or yell “hey sexy!”
Or say “niiice legs”
I can feel your eyes
See your mouth
Turning my body into
Parts to be bargained with
Or conquered
Like a rotisserie chicken
Dead meat with edible
Thighs, breasts, lips
You sexualize me
Instead of humanize me
You don’t compliment my fashion sense
Or the way my shoes touch the ground
You swipe aside
My fears and dreams
Trauma and love
My body is not something created just for you to admire
But everything else about me is a choice
And usually something interesting enough
To start a conversation
Instead when you yell after, over
A being you do not care to know
You don’t see me
As a woman with a soul
You feast on my body
Like it is all that is there
You turn me from a being of light and fervor
To lifeless shapes for you to enjoy
I would never
Take a stranger’s clothes off with my imagination
And legitimize that thought by saying “nice ass”
Because human to human
I know you are more than a body with a good butt
Who happened to walk past me on the street
I do not feel the need to dehumanize you
Into solely your parts that you were more or less born with
When you catcall a woman
Or yell “hey sexy!”
Or say “niiice legs”
You take away my humanness
Without even a second thought
As you view me as meat
I view you as beast
You removed the possibility of this interaction
Being human to human
Your sexism destroys your own soul
Did your mother never teach you that some thoughts should be kept to yourself?
Give & Take
Animals only take what they need to take
And give only what they have to give
It’s not being minimalistic
It’s not selfishness
It’s eternity
They understand this balance
Between all beings
And respect their place in it
To live on
The destruction of our actions
Is not unfamiliar to this universe
Resilience and transformation
Unfathomable by the human generation
It will be our elimination
By the end of this fight
Because some take what they must take and give only what they can give
But it is the ones that
Take all they can and give as little as they can give
That don’t live to see how the universe
Will never end
Some beings were meant to grieve
Others to balance with a flourish
Others to gain power and lose it
The enlightenment of balance
Is a never-ending journey