A Palmful of Short Poems: Valentine's Day Edition
A Palmful of Short Poems: Valentine's Day Edition
A verse for each of your fingers.
Welcome back, and a warm hello to the newcomers.
This week’s post is an examination of love to honor Valentine’s Day.
Not the version of love the media sells us, where we feel pressure to get things just right.
The Valentine’s Day I celebrate is about something more kind, something more focused on appreciation of imperfection.
I spent a long time struggling to find myself lovable.
In the recent years, I’ve worked hard to turn that ship around, and in celebration of self-care and self-love, I share with you poems I wrote about self-acceptance.
Suggested listening: “Slow Trees” by The Lizzy Co Show
On eating disorder recovery:
Spent a long time bending metal,
Chain mail happens one ring at a time.
Slinky body armor so cool against my skin, just
Doesn’t fit the curvy new body that I’m in.
Guess it’s time to head back to the blacksmith,
I suppose it’s time to melt it down.
Small rings puddle, pool, and fuse inside the crucible,
Pull as thin as thread and form my beautiful new gown.
On making new friends and getting invited to parties:
Having one of those days
Where I wanna be Claire Danes
In Romeo+Juliet,
Wear fairy wings to a party,
Catch Leo’s eye through a fishtank,
My glance is a net.
On staring down old rules made by shitty ex-boyfriends:
Forbidden apples
Crunch between my teeth.
Some women hunger
Monstrously.
On realizing I’ve been awesome this whole time, it was just the depression talking:
Storm began across the lake,
Thunder told me so.
I was rowing peacefully,
Thought I had more time
To head for home.
Raindrops don’t scare this sailor,
Only some clouds hold floods.
Hurricanes start slow.
Rugged arms rowed hard,
Found myself outsmarted.
Gasped a last and prayed.
But wait.
How am I alive?
How did I get up this high?
How did I learn to climb?
On finding my creative niche:
The moment of creation
Is an explosion,
It isn’t sustainable.
Need a place to hide?
Pie eyes, heart of a child,
You can live in the city,
Run to the woods to get wild.
Log cabins have windows,
But God holds a needle,
He’s got thread for me,
He’ll sew up some curtains
If we ask real sweet.
Thank you for reading and listening.
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All my best,
I enjoyed those. I used to have days I wanted to be Claire Danes too.
My so called life hey?
I've just revisited these, more slowly this time, with your song playing. There's so much hope and strength in those notes. Thank you so much for your gorgeous art and vulnerability. All these poems are lush and potent, to borrow two adjectives a mystic once used to describe my own poetry and lift me up to where I could love myself, just as appropriate now as they were then. I know for sure you really have been awesome this whole time. So glad you can see that too.
"Bringing it all into the conversation 'cause you're so interesting to me and you're listening to me! And everything you say is so fascinating and when you let me in on these little bits of your history it's like the pieces of a puzzle falling into place [...] all these added facets of your past or passions or intentions and it adds this whole new dimension, and did I mention, I wanna talk with you? [...] And at the end of it all, when you feel like nobody gets you, just remember that I do, and I'll never not want to talk with you." -RK