Stranger Things

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In these strange days
I can’t help but wonder stranger things
I’ve heard it said that life here on this earth is a graduate class for the soul
You see, we are not bodies with a soul
We are, instead, souls with bodies
We have chosen to walk and talk and hurt and love
We have made an agreement with Oneness
To take a fraction of what we are
And condense down into this biological machine called a body
We have chosen to leave Oneness to become one
Single
Alone amongst others who are also alone
I can’t help but wonder what we are meant to learn 
What don’t we already know through our original experience of Oneness
Maybe it’s the simple act of experiencing the finite 
A contrast to already being so familiar with the infinite 
What an existence we must lead in Oneness 
To allow us to be so curious that we willingly come to THIS place
Full of fear and uncertainty 
Cruelty and chaos 
But also kindness and compassion 
And love
Love with all its grit and glamour 
Its risk and reward 
How brave are we to give up the infinite NOW of Oneness 
For the finite uncertainty of Earth time
Where those around us that we learn to love and cherish are
Too, bound by the limits of a linear existence 
Where love and loss are the rhythms of life’s tides upon this world
Such contrast and contradiction 
I suppose there’s beauty in it
Oh, to be able to know now what I will know after
To be able to answer with certainty what it was all for
The good and the bad
To know how good of a human I was
Where I helped
Where I hurt
Where I healed
Will I miss this experience when it’s over
Will I choose to return again
Will you
I think about all of the various mythologies of life and death
I think about how more than one thing can be true at once
How time and experience is such a strange soup
So as the world becomes more and more outlandish 
As long held collective truths seem on the verge of collapse 
The undeniable feeling that something new is being birthed
Through this terror on the back of a desperate hope
I can’t help but ponder stranger things 
And my place within it all

-gws

Sometimes a Woman is an Island

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Sometimes
A woman is an island
Steadfast amid the violence
Of salt water and storm cloud
Eyes ever focused 
Where the sky caresses the sea
Kissed all over by the ebb and flow of waves
Dancing with moontides
Volcanic at times
Worn and weathered and wiser
As beautiful at sunrise as sunset
As much a force as nature herself

-gws

Nevermind

Nevermind
You see
You were never mine
Not the way I needed you to be
You were an illusion
A twenty-four and seven hologram
Insubstantial and incapable
Pinocchio with a nose job
A foundation full of rot
On which we placed our house
And when the floor fell out
You did not reach for me
Did not treat my scrapes
Nor bandage my wounds
You told me to walk it off
Toughen up
It wasn't that big a deal
Not everything was about me
YOU were the one who was injured here
Look at what I did to YOUR floor
Look at what I did to YOUR life
And I believed I was the weak spot
The salt in the wound of us

Nevermind
You see
You were never mine
You simply made me believe
In an us without a we
Told me that was how it was supposed to be
My every need an inconvenience
My efforts doomed to fall short
A fat lazy black bitch
Who just wouldn't listen
Who just wouldn't drown my sense of self in your ego
And join you in your fortress of delusions

Nevermind
You see
You were never mine
And now I belong to me
After taking too long to see
I needed to be worth more to me
Than I was ever worth to you

-gws

I Want to Be THAT Kind of Woman

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I love watching the women with fire in their veins
The girls with Punky Brewster profiles
They enter with energy so big the room feels small
Laughs that ring out above the rest - distinctive and full bellied
They refuse to be shamed by the PTA moms
Not allowing their messy edges to take away from their contributions
They embody the revolutionary girl that Nikita Gill wrote rules for
Standing up for themselves and others
Accepting no excuses for bad behavior
They are often truth tellers slicing through mass delusions
Magic makers manifesting dreams into reality
Only ever competing with themselves
Chin high and eyes sharp
They are goddess and girl
Witch and woman
Scorching or blessing the ground they walk
In equal measure
Giving no fucks and taking no shit
As they say "yes, and" or "hell, no"
Fierce and joyous and unapologetically free

-gws

Let Me

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Let me 
Write leading lines of poetry for you to follow
Tell stories that map the shape of a life for you to drag your finger along
Lay down relief lines that loop and dance in the shape of words

Let me expound through exposition about
The glory of the light and the shadow 
Playing tag across the ground on a late summer day

Let me create a charcuterie board
Where you may sample experiences
Bitter rejection
Sweet elation
Effervescent joy
Bilious sorrow
Buttery new love
Spicy lust

Let me fold words like origami 
Creating complex and beautiful things
Out of the simplest pieces 
Strung together in a garland
Every angle leading to an experience
Every plane representing a feeling

Let me be a mirror
That you may recognize
Something familiar in my lines
So that you know that you are not alone
In the experience that is living
But that we walk in parallel 
Submerged in this infinite sea of stars

-gws