Category: Music

Posted in confidence, dreams, fear, inspiration, introspection, invisibility, life, loneliness, Music, poetry, story, struggle, writing

Song

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

SongSometimes on a Friday night, even when you’re tired and worn, and even when it’s late and no one else in your house is awake, you still find inspiration. You’re not sure from where, because your brain is dead and your back is sore and you’re slightly sad for no reason and way too sober. You find a poem in the nothing and that’s pretty cool.

One of these days I’m going to assemble all of the commentary I’ve written on here. I bet I’ll find many poems hidden there too amidst the blocks of unrefined text.

By the way, apparently my last post was my 500th poem. I got a notification on my phone shortly after I published it. Cheers to 501 poems on She’s in Prison. Thanks for sticking around for the journey.

Goodnight.

—Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, Music, poetry

This Heart that Beats

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

I wish I knew how to write myself a love letter, wish my arms could wrap around my heart, cradle the weight in my palms and breathe the electricity of the beat, feel the strum of my guitar beneath my fingers, let fly the fear held captive in unbroken tears, and trust that I am beautiful, write that I am beautiful that it doesn’t matter that he couldn’t see it and he couldn’t see it and he couldn’t see it. I love that I don’t want to pretend that I don’t miss him, heart zipped up, mended as if it had never cracked. I’m mismatched, stitched by time, how some days it disappears and others feel like years, losing moments to old emotions, the fool caught in yesterday, picking at old scabs. I wish I could forgive the girl that fell. I want to tell her that I love her and that she should never regret the size of her own heart, her capacity to admire, her courage to feel, her strength to invite him to see her art, even if he couldn’t see it, and he couldn’t see it, and he couldn’t see it. I want to write myself a love letter, sing my worth, guitar in hand and trust that I am beautiful. —Leanne Rebecca

I ran out of time today to do everything that I wanted to do. I need to remember that it doesn’t make me a failure, but that my life is full.

Tonight I’m listening to acoustic Sleeping with Sirens and Grizfolk. I want to lose myself in the lyrics like I did yesterday at Warped Tour, closing my eyes and feeling the music of each band, letting it grab hold of my soul and claim a part of me, even for just a second.

I discovered a band called Onward Etc. If there’s one thing you’ll take away from this blog post, it’s to listen to them and find your own poem in their lyrics.

Good night loves.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in Music, poetry

The Biggest Disappointment

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

The Biggest Disappointment He never knew the real me— the first year too nervous to say the wrong thing, the second pretending to be something else so he would see me as whatever it was he wanted that wasn’t me, trapped in someone else’s poetry, obsessed with this image, starving my integrity, my body, to play a game he didn’t want to play until I pushed and pulled so hard that I lost the one person that understood that words are not just words, ever, lost, before he even heard me.

We all make mistakes. Some carry a little more weight than others and the consequences rain harder. There’s no trick to overcoming mistakes, except maybe to let go of regret.

I went to a Matt and Kim concert last night. They have this one song called “Now” that sums it up perfectly:

I know that things aren’t perfect
But lets make tonight worth it
Stand up right here take a bow
And we will all ride this thing down
Now

All we can do is move forward and accept our imperfections, accept our mistakes, and try with all our might to not make the same ones again. No guarantees though, and that’s ok. For now, make the most of today.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, Music, poetry

Misfit in a Typecast World

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Misfit in a Typecast World I stood in line outside the venue breathing the exhaust of smokers’ lungs, coughing, unsure how to navigate the polluted air. No one else seemed bothered, accustomed to clouds following their groups -- stereotyped— punk kids that started smoking at age 13 because everyone else was doing it. The room already smelled of sweat even though the first band hadn’t started yet, leftovers from the last show, grunge encrusted walls, corners on posters curling in the humidity, a hotbox of male testosterone building as the space in front of the stage filled. I was the only one in the room without a facial piercing or gauged ears, at home in Kate Spade earrings, cheeks pinked with Pinot Noir, not dressed in head to toe black or a band t-shirt. I leaned against the wall, collecting the scene in future nostalgia of the time I took myself to a local band’s show, a misfit in a typecast world, the preppy girl alone in the corner that knew every word, every single song, and danced harder than the guy with spikes instead of a face

Don’t put yourself in a box.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

About This I Am Right

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

About This I am Right I knead my thumb into my palm, pausing at each callus, the evidence of effort, the roughness of imperfections, of making a fool of myself in trying. My hands aren’t soft, they bleed in the cold air, they sting against my tears, they tire, they fail and the holding on hurts more. My hands aren’t soft, and the calluses scrape, but if you let me let go, I promise you’re making a mistake. Of this I am right.

There are some poems that hurt to write. I read through them and exhale. This one hurt, but I remember they’re just words and I’m stronger than their verse.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

Speechless

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Speechless My wit atrophies into a freshly erased chalkboard, smeared with dust, remnants of brain activity dragged into a blur. I listen to what you say but cannot speak in return. I taste the chalk of words caked in my closed mouth, too dry to write them with sound. By the time I find a pen to transcribe my silence, you’ve left. I hit repeat on the same song 9 times while working on this post last night. Every play hit me harder than the last, a compounding obsession culminated in the fact that I’m talking about it right now. Maybe it means something and maybe it doesn’t. All I know is that today is Friday.

Sometimes I talk about the days of the week because I don’t know what else to say but most of the time I talk about the days of the week because their existence seems just as important as anything else. Wow, it’s Friday. Find a song you love and listen to it 9 times in a row.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

Visibility

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Visibility Someone must have seen me sitting there, spitting cherry seeds into a plastic baggie, shoes off, cross legged, and glistening in the thickness of St. Louis humidity. I laid down on the quilt protecting my clothes from grass stains and pulled a book from my purse. I estimated I could read about a chapter before the next band started their set. I tuned out the cacophony of intoxicated friends, the thousands of couples and families and besties camped out on the lawn of the amphitheater. I muted their chatter as if dialing down the volume in my car, driving my attention anywhere I wanted, sneaking peaks at the sky over the rim of my book, not caring how many people didn’t see me lying there, alone at a concert at peace with my own ego, so nonchalant in my solitude, that the issue of visibility floated away with every lyric and every movement and every heartbeat of freedom screamed from the silence of no one beside me.

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

Party Trick

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Party Trick It was the way he played the guitar, his eyes closing, savoring the notes like peanut butter cups, pleasure singing in his fingertips licked to perfection in the bliss of the moment. I noticed how she’d stare, as intoxicated with his passion as he was with that instrument, a recognizable love that softened both their faces, she watching his pleasure in equal measure. She appreciated his elemental connection, accepted his attention diverted to his potential, chasing what could be, the greater than, the something more that guided his dedication. He loved that guitar, an infatuation that trumped her presence, his undeniable glory that blinded her from accepting that maybe she deserved someone who’d let her sing along. I’ve been thinking about love lately–if you couldn’t tell from most of the poems decorating the past several months on here–and in thinking about love I’ve been thinking about the “one.” Who is that person that we fall for and why? Why do we rarely end up with the person we grew up describing as our ideal partner? Why does unrequited love exist? You’d think if you feel that strong of a pull towards someone that they’d feel it back. It’s chemistry, right? Pure biology. But for whatever reason, it doesn’t always work that way, but maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason.

This poem goes out to my friend Cameron.

Have a great weekend!

–Leanne Rebecca

 

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

Dissonance

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Dissonance It’s sexy- the tension in his voice that infuses each note with dichotomy— masterful but not easeful, as if he’s lamenting inner conflict in gravel-laden imperfection. I’m drawn to the impurity lacing his words like a birth mark—unique to him, a signature interrupting the underlying smoothness of his skin. It turns me on, the dissonance of his poetry, the fluidity of his screaming, the crying of his passion. I listen again, falling into imagination’s cloud— who is the boy that owns that voice, that aches his story on the radio?

I’ve been on a Ghost Town kick lately. I first discovered the band about a year ago, listened a little, but for whatever reason wasn’t hooked. However a few weeks ago one of my friends made me a playlist with their song “Acid” on it. It’s a track I admittedly repeat over and over again as I’m driving. You could call me obsessed. The vocals draw me in almost like junk food. I just want more!! It got me thinking, what is it about certain songs or certain voices that attract different ears? For me, it’s the grit, the pain behind the sound. I’d always rather listen to something messy that throws emotion in your face than something perfected with stereotypical beauty. We all have our own preferences though, and mine certainly change with the seasons.

Happy Saturday!

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

Exiled

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Exiled He walked next to me, a foot between our bodies, a distance that only grew to divert obstacles in the middle of the sidewalk— trees, trash cans, mail receptacles. He’d point out a café he liked over there and I’d say I’d never been, a suggestion. We chatted about work and food addictions, ebbing in and out of the serious stuff, family and insecurities, teetering the line of divulging too much, choosing to trust in the other, mostly. And then he hugged me and he left, the sight of his back stabbing me, exiling me into invisibility, just a glare from the setting sun, dissolved into nighttime.

This one’s inspired by “Invisible” by Hunter Hayes.

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

To Listen

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

To Listen I skipped every other song, brushing aside the lyrics scribed in MP3s, at my ear’s whim to dismiss whichever ones I wanted. I was walking outside, so I needed beats, the kind compounded with stimulants, adrenaline, to spark my shoes to rebound off the concrete as if springing from a trampoline— I was trying to get a workout after all. I turned the corner onto my street, readying my hands to pause the music, to wipe my sweat and recede back into my house, subjected to an atmospheric beige, a poetically devoid space, a television two napping parents and a microwave. I reached the door, but I couldn’t go in, stopped, as if someone had grabbed my shoulders and yanked them backwards, pleading with my instincts to yield. I sat down on the porch swing, sinking into the darkness of pause, listening more intently to the words rapped in my headphones, and for a moment, I let the stillness rest, let my sweat dry on its own, and waited until the song reached its end before I went inside.

‘I hear your music and I’m listening. Thank you for sharing a part of your soul in your art.’ That’s what I’d say if I could tell anyone who has ever written a song how much I appreciate their work and their passion.

Posted in art, Music, poetry, twenty one pilots, writing

Quiet

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Quiet It’s the stillness that scares me, when time collects in a jar and thoughts settle like dust, caking every blink, every swallow, every breath with extra weight, a heaviness that enslaves the body like an anchor strapped to an ankle, chained, trapped ruminating in one room inside the mind, consumed by the freedom to think, suffocating in the privilege of thought, the torture hidden in the violence of quiet.

The last couple days have been action packed. For one, it was my birthday on Thursday. Secondly, I went on my first business trip. In other words, I grew up a little in the past 48 hours. I like keeping myself busy because it allows for optimum productivity and fun, sticking by the cliche of living every day like it’s my last. But every once and awhile I’m forced into solitude–the three hours I hung out in the airport yesterday and the subsequent three hours on the plane. It’s those moments, when I’m by myself, that the world feels big , and I’m invisible, just an ant in the crowd. Sure, quiet can feel calming at times, like when I curl up with a notebook and spill my feelings, but that’s the kind of quiescence I choose, the kind of quiet that begs for reflection. I wish I could remember to savor that sensation of stillness and learn to live devoid of loneliness. My company should be enough.

This one’s inspired by “Car Radio” by Twenty One Pilots. Quiet is violent.

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

Two

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Two

It’s Twenty One Pilots’ Saturday on She’s in Prison and I’m officially running out of TOP songs to steal the titles from (gasp!). This one’s about options, aptly titled after the song “Two.” We’re all faced with options, some tough, some not. The dilemma isn’t the option but rather the choice that goes with it. Sometimes choosing seems impossible.

Have a great Saturday!

http://youtu.be/SQTSKC7jPH0

Posted in art, Music, poetry, twenty one pilots, writing

Forest

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Forest

Hello! I realize it’s been a few more days than normal since my last poem. I admit I’ve been feeling a little out of sorts when it comes to writing–not writer’s block necessarily, but more of a needed break to simply breathe. I also realize that as such I skipped yet another Twenty One Pilots inspired piece for my Saturday series. Ooops. To make up for it I’m posting it today. I think this poem is a little more like the stuff I wrote in the early days of She’s in Prison and less like the ones as of late. Regardless, thank you for stopping by for a little verse on this lovely day.

Check out Twenty One Pilots’ version of “Forest” too if you have a second. I’m feeling particularly stoked about TOP at the moment because I just purchased tickets (literally 5 minutes ago) to an upcoming show this summer. WOOHOOOOO!

Happy Easter. Happy Sunday. Happy Passover. Happy day.

http://youtu.be/vCet_eeSItM

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

Precarious

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Precarious

The word of the day is ‘precarious.’ I caught myself relying on its beauty multiple times this morning, so clearly, I needed to write a poem based upon it. This one’s inspired by “Basically, I” by Robert Delong. I discovered his music a little less than a year ago and I remain a fan. He’s a cool dude, too. Thanks for taking a break from your Sunday to stop by for a little poetry.