Category: writing

Posted in desire, dream, fear, heart, hope, introspection, invisibility, journal entry, life, loneliness, love, poetry, story, struggle, writing

Birthday Brunch

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Birthday Brunch

Regardless of my social ineptitude and longing for human connection, it was a delicious (and vegan) brunch at one of my favorite places. I woke up a little sad yesterday and that sadness followed me all morning and into the afternoon. Sometimes eating a roasted apple crepe with peanut butter and drinking a sunburnt white Russian on a sunshiny day does not negate whatever emotion nags in your heart. The sadness waned though in the afternoon, thanks to a massage, some quiet time with a book at a coffee shop, and a dinner out with my parents and brother. A bipolar birthday for sure.

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

Song

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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, poetry, writing

Monotone Sky

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Monotone Sky The color of dusk forgot to fly today, the sky muted as if the pigments of sunset all ran together into muddy water, a monotone emotion consuming the horizon line. My hands clenched the steering wheel, grasping at anything I could hold, I could touch, I could feel in tangible certainty, staring at the gray blue haze beyond the windshield and the numbness of vibrance lost.

Tonight I thought I’d offer a little insight into my writing process. I have a relationship with my notebooks. I can look at each one sitting on my shelf and remember what phase I was going through at the time. That black and tan one with the ripped binding holds the pain of moving away from my best friends after college. The light blue one was filled in a single coffee shop during a period of extreme loneliness while drinking almond milk lattes every day. The pastel swirled one is dedicated to Twenty One Pilots. The zebra striped one holds the heartache of unrequited love. The orange one is when I started facing my demons. I could keep going.

I love holding a pen in my hand and feeling the energy of emotion flow through. I love being able to scribble through thoughts, keeping the record of struggle and indecision tangible. I like that I edit as I go, reminded of the imperfection at every glance. Writing is a messy art and I crave that hand to paper connection. Computers are convenient, but if given the choice I choose a notebook every time.

I hope your weekend was splendid. Sleep well my friends.

Love,

Leanne

Posted in love, poetry, writing

To Take the Chance

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To Take the Chance

I’ve loved and been broken, dated again and been disappointed, and started the process all over again. Putting your heart on the line is exasperating, terrifying, and exciting and sometimes we feed off that exhilaration and put ourselves out there and other times we can think of nothing worse than going on a date. I wish I could say that taking the chance on love is always worth it. I’ve had several experiences where the heartache outweighed the benefit of telling someone that you like them. I just hold on to the hope that one of these days I’ll find that person that is as stoked to take the chance on me as I am for them. In the meantime, I write.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in fear, poetry, writing

Primal Fear

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Primal Fear More likely he was enjoying the weather, or stargazing or waiting for a friend to pick him up or contemplating crickets than anticipating a young woman getting out of her car at night, lingering on the corner between where she parked her car and her apartment, watching as her grip fastened tighter to her purse, sensing her heart freeze in the distrust of a man standing as still as a lion tracking an antelope before the kill. Get inside Get inside Get inside, she chanted in hushed urgency, succumbed to instinct's anxiety, peripheral vision locked on his posture, eyes pinned to the doorknob, imagination planning the scream that would come next. He made no move to harm her. Yet her pulse fired as she crossed the threshold into safety, assuming a lurking lion is always hungry. —Leanne Rebecca

It’s amazing how quickly adrenaline can zap your heartbeat and tense your stomach when instinctual fear kicks in. A single moment of anxiety can linger for hours as the body struggles to let go of that jolt of intensity. I will most likely never know what that man was doing, standing on the corner outside of my apartment building, and I will never be able to explain why I felt such innate distrust, but I am certain of one thing: his presence had a lasting impression on me. Hours later, I’m still afraid to turn off my light and slip into the impending, terror infused dreams awaiting my psyche.

Sleep well, friends.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in poetry, writing

Elemental

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Elemental I thought about going to sleep with the eye makeup still on, convinced that choosing to strip off that layer would rob me of self expression, vanquish the artistic beauty screaming from this morning’s play when no one was around as I spent an hour reworking pigments, trying again and again until obsession and satisfaction married and I fell in love with what I’d created. There’s no denial of vanity, living in reflection, caring what the eyes see blinking behind masks, disposable self-mutilation inflicted again and again with intention, to impress, to cry out these feelings inside that need to escape, to beg to be seen in the irony of hiding. It wasn’t just removing eye liner as I forced the cotton ball across my lid. It was wiping away today’s identity, the me I wanted to be, the words I couldn’t say entrenched in how heavily I caked the black: my lashes coated in heart, a persona crafted by my own hand to detract from the one underneath the smudges, the paint washed away by late night confessions, evidence lost in the sink, another day, another girl forgotten.

It’s almost 2 in the morning and my eyes are burning from keeping them open too long. I didn’t sleep much last night either. I have this frustrating urge to keep fighting, to push a little longer. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a poem this late, or early, depending on how you see it, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to get these words out. I needed to try. I just need to keep trying.

Good night now,

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in poetry, writing

Terrible Idea

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Terrible Idea There wasn’t an objective at the start, just desire— just pieces misaligned and confused by too many rhymes. I didn’t know whether or not it was a terrible idea, whether or not the pieces would come together, but I had to try. I took a leap of faith, jumped into the air before I knew what type of landing I’d fall to. Turns out the pieces cracked further when I hit the ground, a conflict of concrete and bone, and a lot of words that hurt.

This was not the poem that I set out to write tonight. In fact I’m feeling a little blocked.

This might be a no no to admit, but I’m not even sure what it’s about, not really. It’s a mashup of several story lines, as if all my demons of the past 3 years are fighting for attention but none of them are winning. This isn’t supposed to be a sad poem, just a reflection.

Our lives are composed of the intertwining of faith and falling. No matter where you are in that process, I hope you are at peace.

Love,

Leanne Rebecca

Posted in love, poetry, writing

Integrity

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She succumbed to influence, forgetting to trust her heart, realizing she’d never trusted her heart, not with as much zeal as it deserved. She let them tell her how her heart should beat, how many clicks in a minute it should feel, which minutes deserved her soul and which she needed to let go. They told her when her heart was wrong and when her heart was weak and she believed them and tried to reshape its lines. One day, after all the breaks her veins twisted in knots, confused, she realized she’d lost her beat, breathing someone else’s thinking. In that moment, she was free to fall, but with integrity, to fall poetically, trusting she’d fly.

I’m no stranger to crying. I cry during ASPCA commercials. I cried at the end of the newest Cinderella movie. I cry when they name the winner of The Voice. Rarely, however, does poetry make me cry. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

I usually write poetry as a response to crying whereas few poems have truly moved me to tears. Today as I was sitting at my desk, listening to Pandora like any other Monday at the office, Tom Petty’s song Free Fallin came on and I needed to write this poem, didn’t have a choice.

I reread what I wrote, and suddenly, my throat started tightening. Something about this poem makes me cry, even as I look at it now. I guess it’s because this poem is my heart.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Flutter

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Flutter She’d grown addicted to disintegrating, disappearing in bits like a withering sand castle, eroding away until someone would come along and pack her back together, subsisting in transience, never at peace with integrity, a master at sabotaging her own strength, artful almost, fluttering into pieces with the grace of fluidity, falling again and again in perfect rhythm.

It feels like it’s been awhile since I’ve been on here. Every time I’ve tried to write a poem in the last several days I end up cranking out about 2 lines and then “finishing” the poem with several words of profanity before closing my notebook and filling up a glass of wine. There isn’t more to the story. Writing is rarely glamorous.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Chance

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Chance She convinced him with one look to take a chance on her lips, a sideways glance entrancing hands to wrap around waists and necks, to slip out of the strobe lights and into dark corners. He wrapped his attention around her mystery, a girl so soft-spoken she almost blended into the wall paint, emerging from invisibility, catching the corner of his eye, her downturned lashes faltering his control. He needed to know her. She fed on his intrigue, a vampire preying on his intoxication, his involuntary lust to touch, falling trap to her game, her mastery of magnetism. But he was just a number, a nameless mannequin to satisfy a night’s play, a symbol of her fear to take a chance on love.

I just moved into a new apartment. I feel like I’m starting a new life, starting over, taking ownership of the aspects of my life I didn’t own before. I asked my roommate tonight what her advice to you all would be if she could impart one piece of wisdom. By happenstance, she said “take a chance.”

Beautiful.

–Leanne Rebecca