I wrote this poem in response to the shadow who shows up for me in many faces and ultimately within my own self-doubt, who tries to shut down my unique voice.

Don’t ever listen to anyone
who tries to tell you your poem is not a real poem—
that it might be better off kept inside a journal
or rewritten as an essay.
‘Cause maybe what you have to say
is bigger than what will ever fit
into their pretty little prepackaged idea of what a poem is.
Maybe your poem doesn’t want to curl its hair
and shave its legs and put on deodorant
so it will smell more poem-like to stuffy professor types
who only live in third person.
Maybe your poem wants to be a nun belly dancer
who turns into a stream of purple
that spills out over the stars
and eats black holes for breakfast.
Maybe your poem is the wild card kind
that likes to leap from one blue yonder to another—
that would die of boredom
if it had to spend its whole life in philosophical quandary
or romantic blithering
or on a political mission with no sense of humor
or dilly-dallying allowed.
So don’t listen to cynical pseudo anarchists
who tell you what you have to say has been said before—
reducing your poems to common rhetoric,
your thoughts and feelings to assembly line parts,
the same for everyone.
‘Cause words change colors,
carry the DNA of each one’s experience.
And maybe it’s not so much the words,
but the alchemy of your speaking them out loud
right here and now that is the real poem.
Maybe it’s the way you say suckle or witch or breath
that lights a candle in the back row.
So don’t listen to needling know-it-alls who only throw shadows—
to the liar behind the lover
who says you think too much
or the friend who says you’re not thinking clearly
or the mother who only wants you to be happy…
‘Cause if you listen long enough,
those words will cut your hands off,
and teach you how to hold pens in between your teeth.
‘Cause if you let them dare you out on limbs
you couldn’t have braved alone,
those words will turn on you,
take over your life,
make you face the thing you fear the most—
that you just may be
a writer.

It’s a deep practice and one of my biggest life lessons to keep my heart open when I feel abandoned or like things have been “taken away” from me. The tendency is to feel like a victim and close myself off from the world. The opportunity is to remember that I am always the creator of my experience and to allow the pain of loss to change me, to completely transform my life into something new. The most difficult situations are when my mental and emotional bodies are not in sync with my soul/spirit body. If I can tap into that higher intelligence within me I am able to feel once again how cared for and loved I am. I see a glimpse of the open door just ahead of the one that has been shut.

Don’t ever feel ashamed for being dumped.
For being the one who held on longest to that human dream of true love.
All this time you thought your insecurity, your emotional turbulence
meant there was something wrong with you,
that if you could just love yourself more
you could rise above the doubt creeping in.
But the truth is your brave heart simply couldn’t stop opening,
couldn’t stop surrendering.
Only the depth of your surrender, of your offering
was more than what he or she could offer in return.
The truth is your temporary low self esteem
was your wise emotional body communicating with you
that there was no longer a mutual flow of energy,
that your life force was being sucked into a vacuum.
And so you feel depleted, weary,
dipping into the lower vibrations of your being.
But it isn’t because you are confused.
No. You are actually very clear and aligned with your soul.
It isn’t that your heart, your feelings have started lying to you.
You’ve simply continued to open and are pressing up against the edge
of another’s willingness to open with you.
You are not asking for too much.
You are sending out an invitation so beautiful all of life is holding its breath.
So don’t settle for things between the two of you staying the same,
or worse, moving further away from your true heart’s desires,
telling yourself you’re being adventurous, experimental
by agreeing to have an open relationship.
The truth is we are moving into more expansive realms of relating, of loving,
but must we go about our evolution in such a brutal way-
pouring gasoline on our hearts to burn our illusions of separation?
Isn’t this humanity again trying to use our will to speed up the process?
Why are we so quick to accept concepts over our own body’s knowing?
Choosing to run like everyone else rather than move at our own body’s rhythm.
If you are not breathing deeply in life, in love
then your are moving too fast.
If you can’t feel your rib cage expanding on each inhale,
then there isn’t enough room in your body, in your relationship for your great big heart.
You have told yourself a lie along the way,
thinking that to be in relationship with someone so firey or free-spirited
you would have to be patient-you would have to compromise.
And it doesn’t matter how old you are.
Whether you are 22, 42 or 72 your heart wants passion. Your heart wants magic.
Your heart wants to see the ravishing beauty of its awesome love in physical form.
And when you create this love of your life, and only when,
you will know him or her with your whole being
because he or she has been within you all along.
And you won’t have to compromise or be afraid to surrender or make promises for life.
There simply will be no choice-because the two of you are one.
So don’t try to find him or here in a noisy bar,
but rather stay close to that powerful quiet inside of you
and you will know the substitutions who come to distract you,
who come to help you get clearer
as easily as your skin can tell 100% cotton from polyester.

And if you are unsure, when it is offered, say yes to love.
Say yes like there’s nothing wrong with you.
Say yes until you know what you want and what you don’t want.
Say yes until your whole being screams a resounding “No!”-
until your addiction to anything less falls off like overripe fruit.
Because that’s when you begin to live in love every moment-
that’s when all you create is love.
And if New Age philosophy
tells you that love between two people is an illusion,
give up on philosophy,
but don’t give up on love.

We are currently living in a time of dissolving the Doing Self and awakening the Being Self. For me writing with pen and paper rather than on computer is a meditation which facilitates this process.

I write poetry because I do not belong
to the list on my desk of things that must be done,
to numbers on the clock
or expectations I have set for myself.
Because I do not belong to the plans I have made
or the people I have made them with.
I write because I want to re-member my self at midnight-
the part of me that isn’t anybody’s girlfriend, mother, daughter, friend or teacher.
Because I want to not know what day it is,
what house I live in or who will be sleeping next to me in the bed.
I write poetry to be in confrontation
and conversation with the mystery that I am and we are,
free of past and future, free or intelligence and experience-
to save myself from the person I thought I was a moment ago
whose actions are predictable and uninspired-
to fight for the faithless child who believes in nothing,
whose perceptions sparkle with spontaneous metamorphis.
I write to face my fear of silence and empty space-
of wasting time and life passing me by
as I like on the couch underneath a blue blanket with a wolf on it
digging up lost pieces of soul with a black felt tipped pen.
Incidentally for months the stores stopped carrying them
because customers preferred the gels instead.
But yesterday on a whim I decided to check again
and there they were on the shelf
and I bought 3 boxes-60 pens in all.
So yes, I write poetry to express my loathing for gel pens
and my love for felt tips, even though they don’t look as slick or last as long-
to be an advocate for the ordinary and less efficient-
for things that are good enough in their original version.
I write poetry in resistance of a world shaped by advertised images,
in defiance of daylight and its constant linear striving for success.
I write in spite of speed and noise-of cell phones, tivo and the internet-
of the adrenaline pull of abbreviation and sensationalism.
I write like an old crow laughing on the telephone wire at cars flying by-
like an old woman crossing the street at a crowded stop sign
so traffic is halted in both directions.
I feel the impatience of the drivers inside of me,
tapping their fingers angrily on the wheel,
wanting to step on the gas and run her over for moving sooooo slow.
I write poetry to find the voice of the little girl
who used to wander off into the woods for hours,
humming, having tea with fairies.
She likes when it rains
‘cause that means we get to spend the whole day together,
popping bubblewrap, wearing fuzzy footies,
eating cookie dough and crying our eyes out.
One of her tears lands on the page.
I draw an arrow pointing to it with the words, “Tear Here”
and trace the pen carefully around it.
It’s the most important part of the poem.
It’s why I write.