Tag: poetry

Posted in heart, poetry

As Emo as the Moon

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

As Emo as the Moon I thought I’d write about the moon, relate the spectrum of stasis to its phases, as anorexic as its crescent thaw, unhinged in the glow of its full peak. I thought I’d write about him, the waiting game of lust’s impatience, aging though his silent draw, intoxicated in obsession’s keep. But as I sing the moon’s luminosity, its brilliance heating in a fever’s stage, I rethink love’s blind fall, and reclaim this heart, this shadowed heap. The moon will rise tomorrow night and I will scale the expanse of darkened sky, my shoes untied from desire’s draw, free, swept through stars by poetry. —Leanne Rebecca

Today someone said to me that the light in my eyes has returned. It struck me (in a good way) to hear that. I know the moment that it came back. It was the moment I decided to stop dating.

For three years I’ve bounced from date to date from guy to guy, crashing and burning over and over and over again, convinced in the end that I was incapable of sustaining a romantic relationship, that I was somehow less than, unworthy. The more I dated the more I lost myself.

About a month ago I called it quits, not from exasperation, but from a deep desire to explore my own heart, discover what I love and feed my passions with as much attention as they deserve. For the first time in three years all the pressure is gone and I’m rediscovering the girl I once was, a girl unafraid to sing her spirit, that dances in the car like no one is watching.

I never thought I’d say that the best decision I ever made for myself was to stop dating, after all, we all want to find true love and everyone says the only way to find it is to put yourself out there. But if there’s one lesson I can take away from this last month of soul searching it’s that there’s no hurry.

Take care of yourselves my loves!

–Leanne

Posted in heart, poetry, trust

Get There

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Get There I held on to where I was going like a baby clutching a necklace, grasping at what dangled in my face, fixated, as if my peripheral vision fogged. I only saw that one thing I wanted, that one person, that one boy, and no matter how much people yelled to let go, my heart clung, comforted by an autopilot grip. I didn’t understand why anyone would peel my fingers away from that one thing I wanted, until it was gone, my empty hands opened, understanding at last the only way to get there, was to walk away from it all. —Leanne Rebecca

It’s been a hot minute since I wrote a poem. Lots of life has happened in the past couple weeks and I’ve barely been able to catch my breath. I’ve had to let many ideas die in the wind, barely able to find the time to eat dinner, let alone write anything. I wish time could pause sometimes.

Side note: everything right now is inspired by Paramore.

Good night!

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in eyes, poetry

Eye Exam

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Eye Exam I can’t write this poem, this convoluted examination of what’s beyond the skies of my eyes and how once a year my ophthalmologist dilates the irises and looks inside at the expanse of everything hidden in their mystery. I can imagine what she sees, the complexity, the rivers and valleys of me converged in a universe of inescapable honesty, can’t hide a thing with that bright light probing my secrets, tracing the timeline of tears bled in the year since my last exam. —Leanne Rebecca

A lot can happen in a year and no matter how much we try to hide, the crux of it all lives in our eyes, the maps of our story glistening despite the cover of night, a single cast of starlight uncovering the truth.

Much Love,

Leanne

Posted in childhood, poetry

The End of Summer

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

The End of Summer This isn’t working, trying to write this poem about the end of summer, the innocence walked and lost, the giggles of kissing a boy on the cheek underneath the playground slide, holding hands in secret, when sundresses were sweet, bad haircuts were accepted, expected, and no one cared if ice cream dripped down elbows. I don’t want to be that poet that’s trapped in childhood, recounting expected images, accept that nothing about growing up in a suburban middle class family was unique. We all caught fireflies in jars at dusk and walked through neighborhoods to the pool, jumped off swing sets and drew lines in mulch to see who landed further. In my head I’m still the girl with sun kissed cheeks, freckles of youth dotting my nose, craving popsicles, casting my arms out in a T and twirling until I’m so dizzy my laugh cramps in my stomach, but it’s the end of the summer and there’s a weird emptiness beneath my heart. Nothing’s the same as it used to be. —Leanne Rebecca

Nostalgia central.

Posted in loneliness, poetry, truth

Wake Me Up

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Wake Me Up The crumbs of yesterday aren’t moving, irritating this space with hyper-stillness: the trash on the kitchen table, yoga mat rolled out on the floor, electric guitar left plugged in, the empty beer bottle and the peanut butter jar on the counter. The ghosts of the girl I was yesterday haunt the room with whispers of what I couldn’t find today: an identity. —Leanne Rebecca

This is the type of poetry I write when I’m listening to Wake Me Up When September Ends on repeat. I spent all night learning it on the guitar and the melancholy of it has infiltrated my entire body. A weird place to be right now.

Good night.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in heart, poetry

A Letter to My Daughter

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

A Letter to My Daughter One day you will look in the mirror and see only flaws, black smudged underneath your eyes, wisps of frizz curling around your ears, a voice too soft, unheard, a spirit too broken to scream and you will doubt your worth. It is in that moment dear child that you will crave hands to wrap your shoulders in assurance, binding fear with everlasting embrace. It is in that moment that tears will break, that an urge to smash that mirror will radiate from limb to limb and the last pearls of innocence will sever from your soul. Your sobs will soften, blinking devastation into stillness, and you will rise, turn back towards that glass and see yourself, not the flaws smudged across freckled cheeks, but the blush of a heartbeat allowing the ribs to feel, to heal, to ache with the strength of facing tomorrow. I’ll be there for you, dear child, but you’ll be there for yourself too. —Leanne Rebecca

Posted in dreams, poetry

The Drive Home

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

The Drive Home Windows down in the summertime and my hair is raping my face, stuck to my tinted Chapstick, catching streaks of light as it rages in freedom’s right. Old school Greenday comes on the radio. I listen to the guitar chords, the strumming, ascertaining whether or not I can play it. Am I good enough? I think about how the volume is so loud I’d never be able to hold a conversation in the car, realize maybe I don’t want to, that I like this, just me, my blushed cheeks and dreams of becoming a rock star. —Leanne Rebecca

Soak up the sunshine. My only advice for the moment.

Love,

Leanne

Posted in poetry

Introspection

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Introspection When nighttime cries behind your eyes and shadows chase the moon across the hollow sky, I find a tree and walk a limb and listen to the fear inside, tomorrow’s death and yesterday’s hush, the dust of the past the blush of desire, close my hand around this heart on fire, the pulsating rush of creative expression, and let the rise of passion consume my soul in sanity’s demise, an obsession of unpredictable intention begging the question do I trust myself enough to fly? —Leanne Rebecca

Do you trust yourself?

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Monotone Sky

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

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 art, poetry, story

Flicker

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Flicker This candle will burn until the wax evaporates. I empty the wine in this glass, catch what’s left of me in its wake before the flame desiccates. I will write by the flicker of this light until the fire dies as intoxication spreads like smoke through my blood, the energy of blushed cheeks burning in need to capture the story of this moment before it’s too late to remember. —Leanne Rebecca

Honestly, I didn’t plan on writing today, but I lit a candle on my bedside table and couldn’t help myself. This one’s different, pointless almost, just a moment of life scribed with a glass of wine.

Good night.

–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 dream, poetry

Cover of Dusk

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Cover of Dusk I imagined their story as I walked by their house: a couple in their early thirties one year old daughter asleep in her room the dinner party winding down inside glasses of chardonnay clinking pearl necklaces and red lipstick smudges how they’d all been friends since college. I slowed my pace as the haze of their perfection tightened in my throat, prey to the outsider’s perception: a brick walkway leading to their front door trimmed rose bushes silhouettes mingling in light cast shadows through their windows. A mosquito bit my arm, the signal to lengthen my stride, move past fantasies of someone else’s family, stop obsessing over picket white fences, the bad date I went on the night before, that it would be years, before finding that dream for myself. I walked on, cheeks soaking up the sweat and tears beading on my skin in the humidity, thankful at least for the setting sun, the cover of dusk to mask this headspace so no one would have to know that seeing their daughter’s swing hanging on a tree in their front yard made me cry.

Posted in introspection, poetry, writing

One Morning

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

One Morning I found the real poem in the silence, the moment between songs that sits in the lungs like held breath. I could write about the shape of the clouds, the gray cascading over the awakened sun as I drove to work that morning. Could write about the internal reaction to the scene, the music speaking to me, me singing, the release at the final beat. But I don’t need to write it; analyze the living of it with overwrought introspection, forcing words to rehash something no one else witnessed. Instead, I move on. —Leanne Rebecca

Posted in growing up, love, poetry

Self

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Self In third grade they made us write acrostic poems set to our names, assigning adjectives like “artistic,” to our letters, falling on generic phrases: “L-loves animals.” We wrote “I am” poems in education’s attempt to encourage self-reflection, “I am a daughter, a friend, a sister.” I am me. I hated poetry, misled by an eight year old’s agony to sit at a table and reflect on breathing, trapped in the command to notice when I inhaled and exhaled. I hated that mirror, the image of thinking deeply, of trying to understand the origins of feeling. I was a child of possibility, of adventure, of laying patches of moss carpet in our backyard treehouse, unconfined by reality, unwilling to understand the structures of my own personality, imagining space and time all my own, free from this idea of pausing, of judging myself through writing. In high school I disappeared, swallowed by sweatshirts, sucked inward as if a black hole swirled in my brain, afraid to talk, afraid to look past the layers of dust settled between me and all the other desks in class, bottling in silence, getting by, imploding alone. I collected those years in journals, verses and verses of history, the days of invisibility caught in tangibility, the me never seen exploding in newfound creativity, through discovery, soul awakened in the days of university, speaking and hearing a voice with something to say, people listening, through feeling through feeling finally feeling, a new me, a poet.

In second grade I thought I was going to grow up to become a librarian. In fourth grade I saw a documentary about a cave diving marine biologist and decided I’d become a scientist, a dream that lasted until my senior year in high school when I realized I didn’t in fact like studying biology at all. Never through all those years did I think I’d grow up to be a poet. It’s a passion I fell into through taking a chance, one that took coaxing to start, but one I will never regret.

I’ve written a lot about heartbreak lately, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Poetry is the outlet that lets me heal, my real true love. No matter where my heart drifts or cracks, it will always have a home in words. Thank you for listening and letting me sing.

Love,

Leanne Rebecca

Posted in honesty, hope, poetry

Cynical

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Cynical I wished on eyelashes until my eyes had been cried bare, fantasies drained and replaced by a brittle heart, desiccated to sawdust, the shell of trust withered with each tear lost. An errant eyelash fell to my cheek this morning. I caressed it onto my fingertip and considered the magic once bestowed to its freedom, magic as betraying as the hope that someday those wishes would come true. I let the eyelash fall to the floor, without the whispers of tomorrow enchanting its flight, brushing its absence against my skirt, forgetting the wish were ever an option.

I used to wish the same thing every time I found an eyelash on my cheek. I’d pucker my lips and let a puff of air carry my wish to the wind, where it waited, caught in stasis, never rising to fruition. I whispered the same words in my head for years, believing that if I wanted it badly enough that some force would hear me and that the one thing I always wanted would manifest.

It’s not that I believe in magic or superstition or the power of wishing on a shooting star, but I believed that having that much faith in something for that long would carry me through, that if I never gave up that somehow planets would align.

I can’t say right now that my wish won’t come true since I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ve found it more and more difficult to place faith in unrequited fantasy. I don’t like letting my eyelashes fall to the floor unacknowledged, effusing cynicism and defeat as dust coats the lash on the fall to the ground.

I refuse to give up, but it’s hard not to.

Tonight I’m obsessed with the Breaking Benjamin song “Ashes of Eden” from their new album. I’ve been obsessed with it since the second I heard it. The lyrics haunt me and I’m overwhelmed with a sense of melancholy. I feel the emotion in his voice as deeply as my own. I encourage you to listen and let it wash over you. Close your eyes and sing.

Ashes Of Eden

Will the faithful be rewarded
When we come to the end
Will I miss the final warning
From the lie that I have lived
Is there anybody calling
I can see the soul within
And I am not worthy
I am not worthy of this

Are you with me after all
Why can’t I hear you
Are you with me through it all
Then why can’t I feel you
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Because there’s nothing left at all
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Until the Ashes of Eden fall

Will the darkness fall upon me
When the air is growing thin
Will the light begin to pull me
To its everlasting will
I can hear the voices haunting
There is nothing left to fear
And I am still calling
I am still calling to you

Are you with me after all
Why can’t I hear you
Are you with me through it all
Then why can’t I feel you
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Because there’s nothing left at all
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Until the Ashes of Eden fall

(Don’t let go)
Why can’t I hear you
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Because there’s nothing left at all
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Until the Ashes of Eden fall
Heaven above me, take my hand (Stay with me, don’t let me go)
Shine until there’s nothing left but you
Heaven above me, take my hand (Stay with me, don’t let me go)
Shine until there’s nothing left but you

Good night, friends.
Love,
Leanne Rebecca