I'm full of it 😅

My heart is full of grace

for what I have, and been given

As those are two different things

What I have is what I choose to keep

What I've been given is by, of, and from love

My heart is full of hunger

for what I am to learn

So much to see and do

Seeking discomfort like a junkie

Yet anxious because of fleeting, slippery time

The newness of knowledge and unasked for wisdom

like holes in a blanket of complacency and self righteousness

My heart is full of discontentment

for everything I've told myself I need

but don’t have yet

Yearning and obsession with the idea that what I need will save me from who I am

like holding onto sand so tight that it's a palmful of nothing by the time I'm ready to open up

My heart is full of grief

for all I have lost

Versions of myself I miss like I would an old dear friend

Corners and drawers in a room that no longer exists

Except in the squiggly creases of long term memory

My heart is full of hope

that is largely little; sometimes large and sometimes little

Ultimately at the core is a forever optimist hiding behind the ruse of self-deprecation and self-pity 

Hope that I will endure, I must endure 

Ready to do the work

The work that is work enough

The end of the tunnel famously brims bright

Another one about pain ✌️

What's a reasonable amount to bleed?

I bet it is too much if you pass out from it?

Is it too much if standing up feels like work?

It's a chore isn't it? Being a woman with lady parts

It is exhausting, mentally & physically

A bright Sunday morning that's supposed to feel open and euphoric and free

Made inconvenient and messy and uncomfortable

Parts that can't be dismantled, pain that can’t be shared

It's a lonely cross to bear

Tuning in 🎵

I wasn't trying to be polite

When I said that you sang without rhythm

You just don't wait for the song to flow like I do

You rewrite the rules for how music should feel

I confess it is not rare I mean to be mean but,

I like when you sing when you see I'm blue

Tuneless and a little stupid, I still sense the melody

Tuning out I could be, tired too

I rewrite the rules when it comes to tuning into you

Joy 🧲

The sway of the sycamore tree's delicate branches

The calm nap face of a dreaming stray dog

The jarringly bright reflection of the sun on a car's dash

Giggling children with half-chewed food in their mouths

A realist sees math, and feels joy

An optimist sees music, and feels joy

A romantic sees poetry, and feels joy 

Math or music or poetry,

Joy is the state most naturally met,

The means to the end matter as much as

  fish bones do to a vegan

  being tidy does to an emotionally fragile hoarder

  a WiFi router to a marine biologist in a submarine

  two dental kits in a ventriloquist's travel bag

Punchline is Inside

I bite my tongue the instant the doctor's assistant punches holes into 7 crisp report printouts

I bite now, that's my thing

If knuckle nails is to wolverine

Unbidden masochistic biting is to me, I'm wolver-rani

My teeth, it is the one good thing I got from my father

The very same set of even molars, aesthetic incisors and sharp canines

And how I choose to care for it is to not

Barring the nighttime brushing routine

There is daily jhanjhanahat they must endure

In the form of cold water and hot oatmilk chai

But enough about crowns bound to jaws

I didn't come out of my writer's block for this

What I did want to write about is the philosophical undertone of teeth clenching and what it means about control, or the lack of it

About wanting to keep your head (and jaw) above water because life is not consistently kind

About being a drama queen, with crowns plural, who seeks sympathy in oatmilk chai because dairy is apparently not my friend, and supposedly never was

I wanted to write to not wallow in glorious 'woe is me'

But to wander though a thoughtscape of words that I don’t hold back

Certainly not through clenched teeth, but lay free and untethered

And endless jabs of the keys later, feel like a return to safe place much like home

A home I left behind years ago

A home I wasn't born in

But many versions of me were