Tag: music

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 honesty, loneliness, poetry

It All

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

It All It all hides what I know they know that none of us will say, that connections fade like the end of a song, that no matter how much wine we drink and how many laughs we discover, the ache still penetrates once everyone goes back home. Some of us pour another glass, write a fucking poem to keep the room from spinning, some of us sing the same song on repeat until we’ve hit all the stages of grief— pretending we’re not bothered, pretending we’re empowered, falling prey to obsessions that eventually break and that last glass of wine comes back up in perfect cue with the final ringing note and two fingers clutching desperately to this idea that we can erase our transgressions, and live tomorrow like we’re not embarrassed, as if we don’t know this is all wrong, and we’re hurting each other, suffering with mouths shut, fucking ourselves wishing the whole time he’d call and that I could be a better friend and drink less. We never wanted to hurt you. We never wanted to hurt ourselves. But we did it anyway because we didn’t know what to do when the song ended and the produced track fell silent and all we were left with was an empty bottle and an empty bed and no one to tell us what was right.

I used to write all the time, even when I didn’t have a poem in mind. I was a regular at a couple cafes and coffee shops and would set aside blocks of time to make myself at home in their booths, put my feet up, and figure out something to say that day. I can’t write like that anymore, can’t draw inspiration from nothing, concoct a story or rework a random memory into anything with any meaning. These days I only write when I have no choice, when something is going through my mind that I need to get out, and that itch to write is so consuming that I won’t be able to sleep until it’s out.

Today was about obsession. I listened to the same song on repeat all day long. I’m not kidding. This isn’t an exaggeration. I’m not so secretly crushing on the band’s frontman and I can’t get enough of it. The song, “In the End” by Black Veil Brides, is a metal anthem that begs for attention. There’s a reason the video has 49 MILLION views on YouTube. Today I added a couple more hundred to that count. After a day like that, trapped in the grips of passion, the outpouring of emotion, the crying of an entire generation summed up in about 4 minutes, I needed to write a poem. I NEEDED to write a poem. I needed my voice heard too.

Tonight I feel like I could write forever.

–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, poetry, twenty one pilots, writing

This Heart

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

This Heart She wrote her heart into a notebook, writing the beat in her secrets, infusing the lines with jagged tears, the breaks and palpitations of falling with no one to catch you. She hoped her heart would find a home in the pages, hugged by memories cast into words and stored on a shelf. But her heart refused to live only in ink, rebelling in her chest, punching at her lungs and demanding a voice more profound than poetry, screaming in severe chest pains for love.

This poem is inspired by “Before You Start Your Day” by Twenty One Pilots. It’s one of their most melancholy songs and brings me to tears just about every time I hear it. I listened to it on repeat as I wrote this poem. It requires deep introspection, allowing yourself to really feel what’s going on inside. This poem was hard to write but sometimes those are the most important ones to get out.

Sleep well, my friends.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Split

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Split She twisted the earbuds as if turning a key, locking a barrier into place, the separation of outward space and privacy. Music silenced the sounds of elsewhere, shutting out external influence, forcing reflection, introspection on where —who— she wanted to be. She listened to the beats of yesterday with an unfamiliar curiosity, lyrics forgotten, apathetic to digest them again, past desires dissected into fragments of memories sputtering like a radio tuned one channel off. Static. She looked at the other people swarming with headphones glued to their thoughts, blind drones mimicking one another, deaf to sounds outside the brooding melodies, forgetting to free their ears for a few moments and listen to nothing.

I’m a different person today than I was a year ago. I was a different person a year ago than I was two years before that. I’m a stranger to the person I was in high school. Do you ever think about the evolution of your own identity? I certainly do and I wonder if anyone else notices the same changes that I do. I’d like to think they’re changes for the better.

I wish you a top-notch weekend full of yummy food and pumpkin ale. Hey, it’s autumn now.

–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