Respect, Apologize, Thank, Forgive

{Photo Credit: The Ballerina Project}

Dear Body,
Sorry for the rigorous maltreatment.
Dear Brain,
Sorry for the tactless pity. 
Dear Heart,
Sorry for the extensive distrust. 

Dear Soul,
Thank you for the resilience. 

My Lips are Chapped, and My Heart is Full.

Truth be Told:

The way you look at me is how I always imagined you would.

My friends, assuredly unaware of the irony, all jokingly remark,

"It's a sign of the apocalypse."

But I've been thinking and maybe they're right, 

this just might be the beginning of the end;

for my entire existence has been spent preparing to reflect light into those eyes 

your eyes, yearning for the resultant ocular exclamation,

and now I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. 

The only thing I know for certain- 

in this moment I get to seek answers to these existential questions

while basking in the radiant validation of my hopes 

emanating from the warmth of your stare.

Reflections on Thresholds

Eighteen

I'm too young for this.

It isn't right

for if I continue myself I shall loose in the fight

Somehow you got a hold of a simple skiff of skin

then proceeded to burrow your way in.

So deeply entangled in treachery

dysfunction, disgrace and calamity

feel more like sanity

I cannot believe I let this happen.

Disgraced the very name that I use to lace up my heart.

Blood drips down my bodice

spreading its sickly warm grin across my face.

Drenched in hot desire

STOP

I should've never lit a fire too large for my small hands to extinguish,

I'd need your help.

That's what scares me-making me cower in my thoughts. 

{Photo Credit: The Ballerina Project}

Twenty-One

Woman, I promise that if you stick this out you are going to find a way to take all those broken, charred pieces of who you were- who you think you ought to be that have been left in your hands by ex lovers, and use the charcoal to draw a beautiful picture, or a map, or a graph, or a story on the ceiling of your heart. You're going to find in all that misery, and sorrow valuable tools to create a love far more fulfilling than you've ever known possible, an unconditional, insatiable love of self.

One day you're going to lie down naked on the floor of your soul, look up and marvel at the beauty that became of what you once ascertained to be nothing but destroyed parts of you.

Then something amazing is going to happen. Someone on their journey through life will stumble aimlessly, and likely unintentionally into where you're lying vulnerable, exposed, but the first thing he notices won't be your nudity- Oh No! he'll be chin up head back completely immersed, and astounded by the immense beauty above him, walking forwards unaware of his increasingly close proximity to you. You'll probably hear him come in, it won't disturb you, you're eyes will remain peeled on what's overhead. And when he takes his 229th step into the room his foot brushing skin instead of tile, he'll look down upon your confidently vulnerable form laying there emitting waves of joyous relaxation. He'll quickly look back up, then immediately back down, and in that second he'll fall in love with every piece of you that was, every piece of you that is. You'll calmly, but sweetly invite him to join you, and by the time he lies belly up, his body adjacent to yours, and looks back he will have already fallen in love with every piece of you that will ever be. 

Simple, because he felt the awe-inspiring power of your self-love before he even knew your name.

What I Need to Hear From You

You need to know I bless you to let go.

 I bless you to move on. 

You need to know that I no longer want to hold you down,

 en-cage you in my insecurities.

I release you to roar with all your might,

 no matter how much I fear the sound.

 I bless you to be you, 

to fight for your dreams, 

to run with your ambition, to love without condition. 

I want you to know that you are enough, 

you have always been enough. 

You need to know that I hope for your success. 

I believe in your potential. 

Know that no matter where you are in life 

you can always find a home in my soul. 

I will always love you,

 the way I express that love may change

but I love you,

 regardless of time, or distance. 

I will never forget what has passed,

 but I will also never stop being excited for what the future holds.

 I look forward to reading the rest of your story

 and I release you to write it 

with all the wild vigor you have bottled in your soul, 

one-two-three, go!

Instead of What I Said.

{Photo Credit: The Ballerina Project}

12.31.13

There's something sacred about going to war,
                                                      the way it somehow makes you appreciate things
                                                                                                          like butter more.
The chaos, you crave it- that's the thing...
first times lead to "just one more time"
and the hands on the clock of your heart develop arthritis
                                       -from all the holding on-
grantee, they'll stop ticking long before you realize.
They say as people we become like those we surround ourselves with;
         I never used to believe them...
but for the first time in four hundred and fifty eight days,
today
I asked someone other than me, "how are you doing?" 

You don't have to surround yourself with people to become like them;
O' no.
You can distance your self, on the most remote island
                                                                             in the middle of the Ocean,
but- as long as you surround your thoughts with someone
                                                                      and hang your soul up on their fears
their polluted waves of influence can still reach your shores.
For years I thought they were in pursuit of happiness,
but they're not.
They're searching for assurance-
                                                looking for a place where they will feel adequate.
Woman! you can't keep attempting to be that place:
    *letting them inhabit your being and pierce your soul with their self loathing
    *throwing off your self so that they can have a place of refuge...
No-
the only solution to their emptiness:
for them to seek out adequacy within the place where they are at.
within their minds,

                           their bodies,

the vessels that transport their souls through life-

if they feel inadequate there

 they won't feel adequate anywhere.

-Jots for Jays-

kindred spirit- everything i tried so desperately to forge in relations with others- 

you just popped into my life. a fierce alliteration, of my otherwise alienated soul. 

Daring enough to be an illustration... a personification, of natures caring grace- 

a daily reminder of how completely beautifully, life is out of my control. 

thanks for that J. 

-Adrianna

Slow Dancing

 

we were a fire hazard

somewhere between here and there

our wires got crossed

and we became an

 elegantly twisted pending disaster-

we could only slow dance in a burning room so long

before our lungs were filled with smoke,

the roof caved in,

and we collapsed.

 

when I wake up everything has changed,

I can breath again-

 

 you are the only one who will ever truly understand- value

what I lost in the fire,

for you too rock-stepped

 to the beautifully tragic chaos-

 

 

slowly I begin to accept talking to anyone else about it

doesn't really help.

I won't see the same relief,

or mirrored pain,

in anyone's eyes but yours.