outlierpoetry

You got called out by a feminist you wanted to be assuaged everyone obliged, I pushed and I left it alone too conflicted about whether to play; play your game play the game but I'm not ready to play it my way to speak it plainly to show my anger. What I wanted to say: “If there focus of this conversation is on one woman in one conversation and using your discomfort with being called out as rationale for discrediting her report of her experience, then nothing changes.” But then I wanted to soften it because I know you like your respectability politics you said so when I named it so I have nowhere to go. So I learn I stepped out I was heard then I quit.

Love is freedom Everything I ever felt Stretched and fed me

Deep quakes - at first heard only as high-timbre rattles on the shelves, increasing in magnitude and frequency. I built my house here with sober intent, so I am not afraid. Deep friction, heat, noise grinding stone on stone - beginning to vibrate every nerve. Chambers of molten may rupture. I have survived such disturbances before, so I am terrified. I confess: it was I, I rang the rusty bell next to the sleeping ear of the indomitable beast and she stirs again. Scratching, clawing, pounding, pounding, pounding. I dance to her rhythm as the clatter falls to the floor.

Time is short, and fast, there’s so much to do The passions, ideas, and dreams of my youth I see it and want it and it needs to be done All the visions and longings I have yet to become Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet All the dreams in the world can happen someday But for now, my love, just be Each step in my story, each moment of truth Need re-examining, it’s what I must do The heartache and missteps, the hauntings and shame Reframe and replay again and again Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet All the healing in the world can happen someday But for now, my love, just be I see it and feel it, the injustice and pain The world crushing those that can’t help themselves Compelled into action, something must be done Yet totally paralyzed when the giants come Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet All the fixing in the world may happen someday But for now, my love, just be Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet Just be, just be, she whispers so sweet All the dreams in the world can happen someday But for now, my love, just be (written when my baby was 6 months old, with a melody, currently adding chords)

The dismantled walls can feed the anemic flame allow fresh breezes to fan into real substance casting enough light to build a village alongside, in the open air, free, safe, electric

We are dust when you leave us We feel your pulses that sustain You swell in our joy You flow from our pain We know you We are one with you We are one in you

Your empty promises to look to the horizon are worn thin and I see you.

I see the clouds coming thick, dark, ominous they carry the life giving waters, shade, cool the parched land needs to find the green again. As the storm approaches the trees bend, everything agitates, the noise fills the tense air, branches wilted long ago crack deeply throwing shards and offering truth - naming the deadness. The first torrent kicks up dust and immediately mutes it into mud sheets fall making the air a thick white I pulse into the encompassing embrace, craving sensation, removing protective layers I allow the warmth to lick my skin. The earth softens and cools, the seeming concrete melts back into soil the thunder and lightening move me to tears the storm envelops and frees me I lay on the parched grass and feel it revive my deepest cravings named and answered.

To the supporters of the status quo.

I’ve been frozen here ever since. Paralyzed, lost, yet unable to even grieve A loss of a person that was always with me, A faith that was through me, An energy that motivated my ways and connections But it’s all I know, my culture, my history.

(And what if I didn’t judge it, judge my attempts to fill it, and what if I didn’t judge it, maybe I could learn.)

Ebb, flow, flow, ebb.

I love piercing light - consistently destructively liberatingly liminal.

Should is an oppression. Submit or fight. A mechanical loop that doesn't give flesh to life. A dichotomy of choices of responses. and this heart does not conform well to expectation. So fighting keeps the power structure alive. So I'll quietly slip away leave expectation to fight itself.

Evocative like aroma, these tender spaces, such rare synapses sent me to old air clear as today’s holding close stepping far, present in owning who I am.

There exist magic portals. Upon entry, everything looks sharper everything can breathe for a moment standing amidst truth, truth that opens peels back exposes something names something that moves us toward the other And there's room to be flesh, there's room to be drunk and flawed there's room to be unapologetically dark if there is darkness that can't be held in other worlds without hiding or minimizing identity And eyes found there, voices found there are other-worldly Joining a stream of liberation of owning intersecting liminalities pushing pushing pushing Radical theology Post structuralist philosophy Art for existential survival Intersectionality Because the world crushes us separates us from one another. What if occasionally we're magically found?

It’s not blind obedience but deferring as they build the structures of the world. the priorities the language the mission the outskirts It’s not blind obedience but deferring your personhood. They build the structure. the emotional depth the entertainment the community the patterns the tolerances the tastes the sounds It’s not blind obedience. The priorities. what is afforded what is not afforded and whose influences are heard It’s not blind obedience. The language. “I’m uncomfortable” “You’re too sensitive” “It’s unjust” “It’s fine [I’ll never hear you].” It’s not blind obedience. The mission. big sweeping dreams that have no room to expand but by their own pen and you are to help and be satisfied or quiet It’s not blind obedience. The outskirts. “Can we?” “No, I’m uncomfortable [so, never].” It’s not blind obedience. Defer your personhood. shrink smaller to keep him unthreatened in his fragility It’s not blind obedience but deferring as they build the structures of the world. the priorities the language the mission the outskirts It’s not blind obedience but deferring your personhood.