Tag: strength

Posted in heart, poetry

A Letter to My Daughter

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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 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 desire, love, poetry

If We’d Never Met

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

If We’d Never Met I thought about you this week, flashback tripped by a song you told me to listen to months ago. I wonder if I purged these memories, cleansed of you and your ghost, would I lose the strength built in their wake. Could I trade this newfound backbone for a life without the ache buried in the rings of my frame, forgetting the moment my heart sped, falling faster than the warning of the break? Would I give up discovering the complexity of love, a depth unlocked as my desire awakened hearing my voice for the first time, vulnerable, flawed, scared, alive in exchange for freedom? —Leanne Rebecca

I looked at the clock around 9:45 tonight and thought, man, I’m going to get to bed early, finally get a decent amount of sleep to kickstart my Monday without watering eyes and sluggish limbs. But then the itch began, the compulsion tingling behind my forehead, radiating to my fingertips, the cusp of a poem aching to spill out. So here we are, an hour later, an hour of sleep lost to creative whims.

Good night, my friends.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in beauty, poetry, truth

Empowerment

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Empowerment It’s the neck of a guitar worked by painted nails, edges worn, life’s living evidenced in imperfection. It’s wind dried hair flying across sun blushed cheeks, car windows down, driving 80 on the highway, music so loud the engine’s silent. It’s doing another set of 10 dead lifts as that man watches again, hovering like a wasp across the room, obsessive eyes flickering with a stinger’s bite. It’s sweat soaking the back, snaking down the collarbone, stinging the eyes and blinking through it, not letting 90 degree heat or parched lungs win. It’s crying with zeal, the passion of explosion, admitting truth in tears, relinquishing all control and letting it out, saying it all, feeling it all, the bravery of vulnerability. —Leanne Rebecca

Empowerment is writing a poem instead of falling apart. Empowerment is writing a poem in spite of falling apart. Empowerment is falling apart and writing about it the next day.

Good night my friends.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, identity, poetry

Angry Poem

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Angry Poem I fought until I was the fool, until every word I said compounded insignificance, tacking on weightless syllables that fizzled into nothing as if I hadn’t said a thing at all, a person without a voice, not a person at all. For a moment I let the silence stick, crushed by insecurity as if speaking would reveal weakness, repulsed by my thoughts, my impulses, my actions, letting it all get to me regretting my voice regretting me. But something felt wrong to write about deficits, to strip away the intention of all those things I said, to say the meaning meant nothing. Those words mattered, fucking mattered, because I matter.

Don’t ever let someone make you feel like you don’t have a voice or that your voice has no weight. Be heard. Be yourself and be heard.

I love you guys.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in destiny, poetry, writing

Reclaimed

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Reclaimed She’d relinquished her existence long ago to everyone and everything but her own volition, accepting she couldn’t control the crying of the clouds, the sky exerting dominance on the people wrapped underneath like prisoners of a dictator. She let ominous intimidation tell her how to feel: tears breaking when it stormed, sadness infused in flash floods, billowing into the drains on the street, running below the city in an undercurrent of gloom. She lost sight of possibility, that even if it rained she could dance, that happenstance could align in spite of the wind fighting opposition with gusts of yesterday’s debris, that if she looked at the clouds from a different angle she could imagine whatever shapes she wanted. She stumbled with the sky’s discretion, thrown whatever direction its will decreed, falling to her knees, begging for mercy as her heart admitted defeat. She stared up at the sky, at the expanse of gray beckoning and heard nothing, realizing only then, that she’d imagined the grip on her destiny, that she could reclaim the faculty of living and just be.

This one is inspired by “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten. It’s been my anthem over the past month or so.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in love, poetry, writing

Integrity

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

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

I’m Not

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I’m Not I believe in pretending for the sake of functioning, the persona of silence— what people see when they look at me. In the superficial light of artifice I believe in the beauty of my body, the posture of fitted sweaters and long necklaces draped across my collar bone in nonchalance, of tight pants and knee-high boots— the attitude of asking for jealousy. I believe in daytime smokey eyes because it means I can’t let myself cry. There’s strength in my beliefs when make-believe becomes truth. But not today. Today I lied and they all believed me.

Another week has come and gone. Today is the only day that matters. What will you make of it?

Happy Saturday!

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Protect the Heart

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Protect the Heart The natural cage makes sense, a rigid encasing to guard the soft tissue underneath— supposed to ward off destruction, to support the breathing underneath so we can stand tall, heeding the strength of construction— our innate barrier of warning— be wary of the heart’s fragility I count the ribs beneath my T-shirt. 12 pairs, still there. So why then does my chest ache late at night?

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Flushed

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Flushed

How’s everyone doing? Sometimes it’s odd to think that I’m sharing poem after poem with all of you beautiful people without really knowing you. The truth is, I want to know who you are and how your day is going. I want to know what brought you here and what you’re thinking about this Friday in early May. I want to meet you, to get coffee with you, and steal inspiration from your stories. Life’s better when we take the time to acknowledge one another. This is me acknowledging you, whether you’ve visited She’s in Prison before or whether this is your first time. Please don’t be afraid to say hello! I’m on Twitter too if that’s more your style!

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Resilience

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Resilience

This poem is dedicated to my mom, Lori Ortbals. The title was her idea.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Tuesday! Hit me up on Twitter or say hello in the comments below. 🙂

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

Clear

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ClearConfidence is a weird thing–how it can come and go–how it presents itself at the strangest times–how it fails at crucial moments–and how it’s a bit abstract. I feel the most confident when I’m in front of a notebook with headphones in, rocking out to my favorite music. I’m not trying to hide behind the headphones, but rather enjoying the bliss of my favorite songs in my ears. If you’ve visited She’s in Prison before, you know that music permeates almost all of my poetry, especially that of Twenty One Pilots. I’ve been feeling a little disconnected to them lately since I retired the Josh Dun Poetry Corner and I also haven’t been to a show since October. Regardless, today’s poem is inspired and named after their song “Clear.” Take a look at all my TOP titled archives and give a listen to their version of “Clear” below.

Happy Saturday! Hit me up on Twitter folks 🙂

http://youtu.be/4N1I1nYDcaU

 

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Eating My Feelings

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Eating My FeelingsAbout a year ago I went through a heavy rhyme phase, playing with integrating it within the lines. Most of it turned out awkward…but some of it turned out kinda fun. This is one of those examples that I hope fall in the latter category. Happy Friday. Now, go eat some chocolate and whatever you do, don’t regret it!

Posted in art, Music, poetry, writing

In Return

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In ReturnWhen I started She’s in Prison almost a year ago, I promised myself that I’d be transparent in my writing. I vowed to share the tough stuff, even if it hurt or I felt exposed or uncomfortable. This is one of those poems, which may be a surprise because I recognize that the message is simple. I struggled in writing it, I admit. I don’t see the point in putting up a front that I’m uber confident in each and every one of my pieces. Truth is, I’m not, which I like even better. The words you see above are inspired by emotions I’m working through in this moment and I don’t feel I’ve been able to capture them fully. But as I was listening to “I Got You” by Leona Lewis, I knew I had to try.

Come back next Sunday for more poetry inspired by songs on my playlist. Also, don’t forget to hit the follow button on the left and hit me up on Twitter too!