commercialized self-help out altogether
i’m tired of buying products and services
that don’t make me feel any better
- empty promises
i don’t care about perfection
i’d rather roll deep
in the messiness of life
we think we are lost
while our fuller
found and complete selves
are somewhere in the future
we get on our hands and knees
thinking self-improvement will
help us reach them
but this finding ourselves bullshit
is never going to end
i’m tired of putting off living until
i have more information on who i am
i’m a new person every month
always becoming and unbecoming
only to become again
our fuller selves are not off in the future
they’re right here
in the only moment that exists
i don’t need fixing
i will be searching for answers my whole life
not because i’m a half-formed thing
but because i’m brilliant enough to keep growing
everything necessary to live a vivid life
already exists in me
- i am complete simply because i am imperfect
productivity is not how much
work i do in a day
but how well i balance
what i need to stay healthy
- being productive is knowing when to rest
i have to honor my mind and body
if i want to sustain this journey
- life
no one is qualified to decide your worth
you wake up and live your life every day
yours is the only opinion of you
that matters
little poet
it seems like the more words you write
the more you think
it is you writing them
why do you think you’re in control
didn’t the words come spilling
out of you the first time
pouring without permission
and now you’re trying to
make them work for you
but magic doesn’t move like that
your rushing is
suffocating the masterpieces
baking inside you
your job is to
show up for the process
be patient and when it’s time
the universe will use you again
- inspiration
if you tried
and didn’t end up
where you wanted to go
that’s still progress
quiet down i begged my mind
your overthinking is
robbing us of joy
not everything you do has
to be self-improving
you are not a machine
you are a person
without rest
your work can never be full
without play
your mind can never be nourished
- balance
play is when we escape time
if you want to be creative
you need to learn how to
do stuff that has no purpose
art isn’t made by
working all the time
first you’ve got to
go out and live
- the art will come
get out of your own way
get out of your own way
get out of your own way
i’m done trying to
prove myself
to myself
i became confident
once i decided that having fun
was far more important than
my fear of looking silly
- dancing in public
we’ve worked so hard
to be here
we can afford to
slow down and enjoy the view
i’m waking up
from the longest night of my life
it’s been years since i’ve seen the sun
- awakening
you can’t quiet a woman who was born muzzled
i fell from the mouth of my mother’s legs
into the palms of this world
with god herself raging in me
- birth
i paid in blood to be here. i paid with a childhood littered with bigger monsters than you. i’ve been beaten into a silence more times than i’ve been embraced on this earth. you haven’t seen what i’ve seen. my rock bottom went so deep i’m pretty sure it was hell. i spent a decade climbing out of it. my hands blistered. my feet swelled. my mind said i can’t take it anymore. i told my mind you better get yourself together. we came here for joy. and we are going to feel all of it. i’ve been hunted. killed. and walked back to earth. i snapped the neck off every beast that thought it could. and you want to take my seat. the one i built with the story of my life. honey. you won’t fit. i juggle clowns like you. i pick my teeth with fools like you for fun. i have played and slept and danced with bigger devils.
on days you can’t hear yourself
slow down to
let your mind and body
catch up to each other
- stillness
what a relief
to discover that
the aches i thought
were mine alone