Day Dreaming, And I’m Thinking Of You.

poetry is not a luxury. Words, As Fruit #38

Can I wax with you? Poetic in style, steeped in truth, and divinely situated for the situation…

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if you are looking for an escape, please know you will not find it here.

if you are looking for a mirror, or window, or a door, wrapped beneath skin, 
nestled between muscle and bone, held by heart, and mind 
you have found yourself in the right place.

if you are looking to look away, 
to get away to some island void of others 
and so also without an eye, 
as in the ‘I’ that is seen when looking at you, and me, and earth, 
and this collective being
I will not, cannot be your vacation from you, 
from truth because, as Jimmy said, 
wherever you go, wherever you look, there will still, and always be you. 

if you are looking for you, 
the you that is in union, and unison 
I can walk with you there, 
hand in hand, we can expand toward the edges of multitudes, 
and multiplicities, pieces, and parts, 
and peaces and history bound up in silenced and buried bodies 
and stories more true than most have the courage to hold 
and the backbone to carry. 

if you want to escape the dark 
I will not be the light that chases the darkness away.

no. 

i am the light that invites you to see what lies within the shadows,
between the crevices, 
beneath the cracks,
and under the folds of the dog eared corners. 

if you are looking for saving 
you are not looking for me, 
or anyone else.
though, yes, you may think, sometimes desperately, that you are.  

but still. 
no.

what you are looking for, 
searching, and yearning for 
is a lifeline, like heritage, lineage, and family. 

what you are looking for is the ‘I’ that sits, stands and lays, 
nestled and held.
 
what you are looking for is intimacy. 

if you are looking to escape this world 
I am not your “away”.
 
I am your ‘come hither’, ‘come look’, ‘come see’ 
what is around you, what is inside you, 
waiting, not for your escape, 
but for your remembering.

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“In the forefront of our move toward change, there is only poetry to hint at possibility made real. Our poems formulate the implications of ourselves, what we feel within and dare make real (or bring in accordance with), our fears, our hopes, our most cherished terrors.

For living within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. Kept around as unavoidable adjuncts or pleasant pastimes, feelings were expected to kneel to thought as women were expected to kneel to men. But women have survived. As poets. And there are no new pains. We have felt them all already. We have hidden that fact in the same place where we have hidden our power.”

― Audre Lorde, Poetry Is Not A Luxury