Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
Utter words he should know
Scriptures that carve no lines in the snow
I've paid for his words, to hear him
Here he sits in silence
I will queeze what I can, from this fragile old man
A visionary, a sage,
Reader of books, empty on each page
Gone are the lines of which to read between
No shape nor name to bear on us certainty
Far too close but just away enough
To breathe a little deeper
To hope a little louder
Pissed on the bricks that shaped our shelter
I see the clay in them
And I have seen the clay in them
Breathing like an auger,
I spoke to the dreams
Brought back with them, an array of little oddlers
Seemingly, a voice and grain of sand to each
Seemingly, I ignored the breach
Spiteful insights tricklin' in
Set my blood alight
Seamlessly, neighbors made to parasites
Seamlessly, cold was made from warm nights
Grain by grain, the tide is pushed away
I will crawl deep down, outside the light of day
Pull myself away
The shore is lost as deserts are made
Each grain for I have paid
It's so lovely to walk on an empty road
It's not loneliness but a peaceful abode
The winds going slowly
Making your hairs a messy fun
You make the map to walk on
Nothing specific for your attention to lock on
You take your favourite turns
You can open yourself and run
The grass even on your side seems greener
You are not you but someone with a different demeanor
You might go back to the memory lane
But it's so nice that it doesn't give you pain
You can remember your favourite song
You might realise you haven't listened it for so long
You might sigh but it's a sigh of relief
There is no one to give you social anxiety
You can think the things you never think about
You can feel the emotions you were unaware about
It's not tragic
But just magic
You want to be perfect my psychologist said
It was the problem usually left unsaid
It's been years
But I still remember her saying it again and again
I dismissed all thoughts
Because she was actually my teacher and teachers never know it all
But today I sit and am ready to contemplate
I don't think it's late
The problem is still that I don't believe her
Although from I don't want to be perfect
To do I really want to be perfect I have grown some thoughts
But still I am clear as a crystal ball
And I internally never wanted to be perfect is the feeling that stands tall
I realised by now
That I was just wired like that somehow
No one ever told me that being imperfect is good
I was just growing up under their hood
I always thought that's how you get love
I never wanted to join the unwanted club
There were only two statements I usually heard
I am proud of you always sounded warmer than that person is better than you, bud
Each mark lost in exam made me shattered
Because I knew it was deciding how much I mattered
Maybe that is how everyone is wired
And it's funny that nobody is getting tired
I guess the tireds join the unwanted club
And we are not taught to talk about them in this hub
I don't blame anyone
Because choosing this life was already done
But I might not have the pace
That is required to win this rat race
Although standing behind and alone
Means your chances of affection are blown
The problem is that we are not pushed towards self love
We are just pulling ourselves with self bluff
I was never behind perfection
I can say it loud and clear
I was always running behind affection
I mumbled with a tear
I have heard a lot of people explain one sided love
But never heard anyone even talk about one sided friendship
Did you?
Honestly speaking I have been on both ends
I remember ignoring people even when they were ready to loose all for me
I remember being ignored even when I was ready to loose all of me
Did you?
Still think about going back and joining those chords
But what are the odds
Those I ignored have moved on tired of wasting their time
And those on whom I wasted my time never seemed mine
But still I wish for their call
Do you?
I find it weird how we just connect to some
I find it sad when those connections don't care and for them you are not the one
I thought love asked for a lot
but now I think even friendship's demands are not a dot
Do you?
Maybe they asked for so much that I just stayed aloof
Maybe my demands were so much that they considered me fool
Being nice and being friends are different I realised late
Not everyone you like is ready to be a part of your fate
Were you also a one sided friend at one time?
Do you also think that it was worth the time?
What if the efforts were not equal,
It was a friendship you initiated and it will never have a sequel...
I was waiting for my feelings to go numb
I was waiting for that day but I was dumb
I thought that with each day the wound would grow old
I expected that each day would make me cold
But little I realised
And very little I was surprised
With each passing day
My feelings started spreading like a ray
It reached ever nook and corner of my existence
But I was still hoping with persistence
It was so difficult to feel
The reason I thought time would heal
Soon I had a lot of opinions
Surprisingly they made me cry more than onions
Soon the tree of feeling got a strong hold
Now I knew nothing was going to get old
All experiences and incidents
Were giving my wounds new dents
Crying became a constant part of my lifestyle
Funny enough that it was just a more defined form of my old style
I didn't know what to do with so much going on inside
Never realised it would be so much more than what was going outside
Checking and rechecking all emotions
Hide and seek with everything was in motion
Defining the ideas I had was important
Knowing I was right was like a reinforcement
I knew the wounds are not going now
But still adapting raised the question how
Connecting dots was a daily routine
Adulting is much more difficult than being a teen
Sensations, feelings and emotions are always going to be difficult for me
But when I introspect I realise it makes me, me.
Melt in my mouth like poetry
kiss my tears ever so delicately
hold me close to your heart
caress me on those dark nights
cage me in your love like never before
oh darling I still need your love
I still need your love.
“A Simple Thesis Poem”
Why did the chicken cross the road?
The age old question
To make a better life for zirself?
Did zir walk or perhaps run away from the flames that were on the other side?
We never talk about what zir found on the other side, thoroughly
Did this chicken find a message in a bottle telling them it will all be okay?
Or a worn down album from Sting and The Police?
Zir may stop to pick up the classic vinyl if zir found it laying on the busted sidewalk to listen to the poetry in their lyrics
The chicken makes it across the road
To pick up the record
To realize there is no record player to properly enjoy their poetry
Finding an old Gatorade bottle
The flavor Fierce Grape
Maybe purchased at Trader Joes
The Mecca of grocery stores
Thoughts of childhood soccer games
Slightly dramatic
And traumatic running through their brain waves
Zirs thirst no longer quenched
Remembering to be kind to the earth that continues to hold zirself up day and night
Throwing it away in the waste basket adjacent to where they found that fiercely delicious poetry created by the Police
That does not sting
Zir notices a couple holding hands
Within one block their hand lock changes several times
Are they trying to find comfort in how they show affection?
Can they not comfortably hold hands because their love has become less delicious?
Did their love get too close to the sun like Icarus’s wings?
Will their love melt back into each other or into other’s hearts?
We will never know the answers to all these questions
We will never know why the chicken truly crossed the road
What we do know is this
Zir chicken struts across the road to pen poetry for zirself
Zir chooses to share their poetry with everyone else
In time
On zir terms
Not to impress
Or be cohesive
Simply to get through another day
Deciphering messages found in other’s poetry and empty Gatorade bottles…(Panku)
© Elizabeth Sophia Strauss
So many men treating wo/men like shit
it feels like it doesn’t matter even a bit
But that isnt the bad thing about it
Its the matter of course thats the shit
Getting dickpicks without asking
Is the thing thats so blasting
Or be treated like a peace of meat
Doesn’t matter if you take a seat,
jump on the beat
or just stand on your feet.
They always find an opportunity
to catch a sight of your body heat.
Men thinking we cant see them gazing
They really think they are hazing
Their disrespect is just amazing.
Thinking we are dumb enough
To not recognise all the disgusting stuff.
Thats so unfair please remember that shit
Cause u wont be laughing about it
If that once happens to your kid
Never mind if daughter or son
They will be the burned one
It will stick to their memorys like a gum
I wonder what place you are from
there is nothing good you’ve ever done
And the world would be better when you’re gone
So go ask your mom
Where did this asshole behaviour come frome ?
What was the reason ?
Who’s fault
And what is this all about?
-B.I
Stimmen, die zu dir sprechen
Stimmen, die über dich sprechen
Doch wer spricht mit dir
und wer hört dein Schweigen?
Wer liest deine Sätze,
und wer zwischen den Zeilen?
Künstliche Lichtstrahlen
- Zittern in beleuchteter Dunkelheit
Death does not invalidate Life. Death does not seek to destroy you. It is not partial or bias to you.
Our Atoms are not our own. They did not belong to us before our birth. They do not belong to us after our death. They return to the Earth and become apart of everything.
Our Mannerisms are carried on by the people who loved us in life. And our spirits I believe live on forever in love.
Death is no more the enemy of Life. Than a period is the end of a sentence. And that's the nice thing about it. Is even after a sentence ends. Another one can keep going. We keep going.
People will envy your strength and success but not the struggle that brought you to it.
I have actually yet to find rest. My Anxiety causes me much pain and distress like a storm that rages with usurping gales. Swirling, Turning, Tossing, displacing what cannot be lost. Costing me negative gain. It makes me fearful and afraid, like trying to clutch sand, only to have the grains slip out of your hands. I cannot find sleep, because all I feel is deracine. Safety is hard to find out there on the rollings seas. My peace is in some far off Rosy fingered dawn. And security and ease of mind are much more memories. It makes me breathe like no matter how much I intake it will not inflate in my lungs. Like my body would much rather pause on this breath, like it means less than to see the rest of the road. All these worries they share the same name. They are called the same as you.
I often have my own moments where I feel like I'm both the storm and the sea that rage all at once. Then a kind soul or comment will come and humble me into nothing more than a paused breath. Reminding me of my place in the shoal of souls that we are. We ebb and flow in and against the direction of all other people. If we all opened our hearts a little more than our egos. I think we could find ourselves in much better places.
I dreamt of a dark and failing world. Where I met an Artist who wept for his wife. "Oft people believe that better is a lingered life. I tell you different now, which of these would you prefer Rotting or Dying. Dead is better."
And later in this dream a giant disembodied hand that blazed and burned, took the man's aisle and turned it upside down. There he was burned and crucified. Leaving only ashes of an artist and a painting of his wife.
“I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me.
I don’t need you to love me, I love me.
But I want you to know that you could know me,
If you change your mind.” – Rebecca Sugar’s “Steven Universe” (2019)
This is a simple message. But one of the most powerful ones you could and can ever learn. There are many of us who desperately need(ed) this. The message is this. There is nothing wrong with you and who you are. The person you are is worthy of love, respect, and kindness. Not only externally, like from friends, family, and other peers. But also, Internally, from one’s own heart and from the self. I know there are many people who have internalized dysphoria. And they’re restless, tossing, turning and struggling.
The problem is not inborn. It’s developed over a life time. A life time of expectations, and experiences that have lead them to believe that the person they are is not normal, or natural. (For whatever reason, be it the body, blood, mind or spirit or anything else for that matter) And therefore unworthy of grace, love and kindness. However, this is the thing that is not normal. Despite this it has become the standard. A lie, A fatal flaw that now reigns over lives. A single idea of confirming normality. Do not dehumanize your spirit. You do not have to justify your existence. We are not extensions of a society. Strike that reverse it. Society is an extension of us. And if you have felt in any way; ignored, harmed, slandered, disenfranchised or have been left with any other negative emotion, you are not at fault, you are not to blame. You have not committed a failure. It is the collective idea of “Us” that has failed you.
A Simple Message, A Thesis, A Conversation.
You are worthy of love.
We try and clean ourselves from the messes we made yesterday only to make ourselves dirty today.
If a single grain of rice can tip the scale then a single act of kindness can change the spirit.
If you have a limited world you become content with mediocre often times worthless things.
You are not a finished product. And no you will never be. You have to remember you often sow seeds you'll never see.
It's midnight. And you have fallen asleep on the couch. I got the chance of feeling the warmth of your hair again. My love, I am sorry. I will love you for all the days I am blessed with. It is your absence I will ache with. It is with great pride I can say I have loved, and loved honestly.
A car just came by and illuminated her face for nothing more than a breathe but in that moment I saw her. In her a beauty that has never before been rivaled or matched. My heart paced faster and my eyes watered and all I wanted was to have my hand on her face.
I would take clouds of grey, and rainy days if it meant she was my sunshine’s ray. I would take all the thorns of those briar rose if it meant she was the one I could love and hold.
She is my delight, my joy, she is my comfort, my piece of mind. She is all the things that are good and Devine.
I love her.
Not even Poetry within all it's meter and form, within all it's unstructured beauty, can adequately capture you.
Night after Night I lie awake. Eyes closed; Mind spinning with Fractured Verses.
You are like the flowers that bloom and blossom. Even their leaves scatter to the wind.
A gentle breeze rustles the trees. A Streetlight’s light casts yellow over green leaves. Your head on my Shoulder. Mine in your hair. In a backyard. On a trampoline.
Chasing the Sun
Following its tail
Moving towards the firey sky
It’s all I can every do
•
Dark and red
Loud and soft colours
Float above the ombred horizon
It’s so far away
•
I’m so high
Up in the clouds where borders don’t exist in dotted lines
No man can say this is my land and this where I stay
Put down the weapons
•
Trees and roads and city
They don’t have names up here
The cloud casting shadows don’t discriminate
When everyone thinks they have control
They have none
•
Pin pricks like on a dream board is my home
They stand out in lines and strips and blocks
Underneath the airplane wing
My family and my cat and my friends
Sleep
Underneath the airplane wing
•
Grids and lines are houses
Lit up with the bright joy of a welcome home
I’ve forgotten about the sinking feeling in my stomach
I can’t remember when my ears weren’t popped
•
Stars anchored to the ground
Thin out into the blackness of land
Leaving the dense city behind
Underneath the plane wing
•
Turning and tilting
Sinking and swooping
It was the wrong place
Too small to make a safe landing
To far to house my bed
To high to reach down and touch the glimmering city lights
•
I don’t live in the city
I breathe the city
I take it in when the sky glows orange
When the free stars
Dance
Far and away
Stealing the warmth from each other
To stay alive another day
•
Into the clouds
I’m enveloped
Inside the whipped cream sky
Nothing but a hazy grey ocean
The blinking plane light
Reflects off the fluff surrounding it
•
There’s my city
I can see the invisible dots of my parents
Waiting for me inside the airport
My little sister
Bouncing on the balls of her feet
Jittering and shaking with excitement
•
I can barely see the fading green property lines
Small winding roads
A house with sleeping and unsleeping people
But I am still awake
Cutting quick and deep
Sharp melodies
Sassy tones
At times smoother than cream
In a rich cup of coffee
•
Notes, unseen
Cascade down the blank page
Of a musicians mind
Spilling out clear and sweet
Softer than snow blanketing a bungalow
•
Chords, a medium to be measured with infinity
Spinning eigth notes like cotton on a spindle
Pricking your eardrums with phat, coordinated rhythms
Low and as thick as molasses
Higher than the moon
•
Fuzzy, soft and neat brushes lightly caresss the snare
Chunk, Chunk, Chunk the constant thrum of the guitar
Propelling the group as the bulky anchor, the bass
Crystal tones, loud and bossy, the trumpet commands
The saxophone pleads mournfully to be heard, like a lost colour in an intarsia pattern
Mother (warning: trauma)
I killed another houseplant this week,
Adding to the toll of a plant mom with mommy and daddy issues.
A lotus drowning in their own mud,
A failed parenthood out of parental trauma.
Moths of a heart full of holes
With the aphids of the dirt,
Eating away at me and the beings I tried to patch myself with.
Dappled sunlight streams through the trees. The filtered light warms the skin I bare to nature, clothes haphazardly shed and forgotten, a bread crumb trail leading to the blue lake. Wading into the water, I wash away the dirt and sweat dried to my skin- cleansing away my sins better than any baptism could ever hope to achieve.
- salvation.