Tag Archives: self growth

Intense

You are pure passion,
vibrating energy,
infinite love.
You are a brilliant, blinding force,
intense by your very nature,
but the world has taught you
to feel shame for being “too much”,
to hold yourself back,
shrink and shrivel,
to recalibrate,
accommodate
those that can’t handle
your power.
So you find other outlets –
locked doors,
secret journals,
wanton ways –
to unleash the pressure,
the uncontrollable urges
to seek pleasure,
discover darkness,
feel love.
The call to curiosity,
once so urgent,
slowly starts to dissipate,
but never quite disappears.
All it takes is a trigger,
a someone or something,
to arouse it,
and for a brief moment,
you feel alive again.
The outside world fills with color,
as your inner world sparks joy.
With no one to share it, though,
this same joy reminds you
of your heartache,
a pain equal and opposite in every way
to your life force.
Perhaps walking aimlessly and numb
through this monochrome existence
is better than flying through heaven,
alone,
heart bursting with that intensity,
which feels so familiar, but all wrong.

Listen to me, my love.
It isn’t wrong.
It was never wrong.
They were.
It’s just that, back then,
feeling loved and validated
was more important to you
than being yourself.
It was they who didn’t know
how to recognize your beauty,
they, who were so shrunken and shriveled themselves.
Now you know better.
There is no excuse
not to let your brilliance shine through.
It isn’t arrogance to want
to use your power
to light up the world.

But hang on a minute.
What’s the rush?
Learn to walk before you can run.
Accept yourself first,
the light and the shadow,
the love and the lack,
your critic and your choir.
Own who you are,
and if you don’t like her,
then dream of who you want to be,
and take baby steps to get there.
Let the force of your desires
wash over you,
but not rule you.
Listen for the sound of the path that beckons.
Do not shy away from yourself.
You are beauty and brains,
laughter and light,
majesty and might.
You are deeply divine.
Let that knowledge,
that freedom,
take your breath away,
and in that instant,
feel boundless,
because in truth,
you are.

Loneliness

Loneliness,
for so long have you been my oppressor,
that now, finally, you’ve turned into my friend.
Like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome,
I have fallen for you.
We walk hand in hand, daily,
you, listening to my rambling reason,
hovering stealthily close to my consciousness,
grasping at my heart with hunger.
It is a wonder no one’s been able to steal it
with you barking them down at the gate.
Most days, I resent your presence;
other days, I long for it,
because you are all I know,
and you want me
with a desperation
unlike any I’ve ever known.
Loneliness,
you are the first beat of my heart every morning,
the last gaze at my empty bedside every night.
When will you free me?
When will I escape?
It’s the same dance,
always the same dance.
These narcissistic,
co-dependent
chains that bind us.
They say I should call out to my savior,
and that I need only look in the mirror
to find her.
But, truth be told,
she scares me.
She wants too much.
She is kind and caring on the face of it,
but, in reality, her heart is cloaked
in something far darker than you, my love –
Desire.
She would have me leave you
to follow her own quest
for fulfillment,
enlightenment,
submission,
love.
We all know of love’s fickle nature, don’t we,
compared to your constancy and commitment.
Love destroyed me once;
who’s to say it won’t do so again?
But what if…?
What if this love was from her,
my mirror image,
and what if I loved her back?
Wouldn’t we then have the strength
to achieve everything our hearts desired –
dark or light,
wrong or right?
Wouldn’t swimming through muddy waters with her
be more thrilling than this quiet,
cloying existence?
Sometimes I see glimpses
of her beauty,
her care,
but mosty,
her greed,
her endless need.
Look at me,
am I not content in my loneliness?
Perhaps we aren’t as different as I thought,
she and I.
Perhaps if we joined forces,
we could create our own blended brand
of magic.
We need not hoard it selfishly,
for, in essence, magic is unconditional
love and freedom,
both of which can’t be contained for long.
Oh to dance with such loveliness,
not loneliness, my dear.
To let love lead the way
spinning us ‘round in circles
as if life were a ball.
But for this vision to hold true,
I must finally let go of you.
And though the loss might slay me
at first,
it is in the re-discovery
of my reflection,
and my ultimate reunion
with her,
that loss will turn into freedom,
and my wings will be the wonder
I witness
as I make my way forward
in awe.

Villain

I never wanted to be a villain in anyone else’s story.
Spent a lifetime people-pleasing to avoid it.
Till I couldn’t.
Till I realized that,
the only thing I had any control over
was myself.

We’re taught as children to stand up to bullies,
right?
But apparently,
the rules change when you grow up,
especially if you’re a woman
standing up to a man.

I became the villain
in one hero’s eyes,
and in the tall tales that spread
among his many minions.
Even though I was the storyteller,
he was the one with the audience.
At first, it hurt to feel
so misunderstood.
Hadn’t I spent a lifetime
proving myself?
For a while, I tried
to uphold my nobility,
my moral high ground,
my grace and class,
but orating to the deaf
is exhausting.

So I crawled into my cave,
raw and wounded,
and all I could do
was wait.
To heal,
recover,
redefine,
update my script,
outdated for some time.
That’s when it hit me –
if I’m going to be the villain,
why not be the villain?
Why not dazzle the world
with my darkness,
my secret stories,
my guarded shadows,
reveal who I really am?
Even if that revelation
will surprise me, too.
I’m not some conniving queen,
who can prick you into loveless sleep,
or svelte sea nymph
who can spin your song into silence.
But I can still unleash an uproar
as my voice rings out in defiance.

Everyone knows bad girls have all the fun.
It’s downright freeing to no longer care,
a relief to shed this skin I’m in,
a delight to offload the excess.
Who needs hero worship,
when all the power lies
in the pain.

Goodbye to caring
about what other people think.
Farewell to the fakers,
the parasites,
the critics.
Welcome to the truth-tellers,
the awakened souls,
the writing rebels.
It’s good
to finally
be home.

There will always be those who know:
even villains
have their own side
to a story.
Even villains
were once heroes
who got hurt.

Each Moment is Longing

Each moment is longing,
quivering impatience,
holding my breath to see,
what You have in store for me.

Each moment is pure desire,
hope bubbling up like dew,
discontent clouding the air,
tears like weapons of despair.

Each moment is full
of my ignorance,
my owned yet disowned arrogance
that I must control the narrative.

In truth, each moment is a gift,
a delicious unwrapping, unravelling
of sign after sign after sign,
all perfectly sensual and divine.

The universe erupted
from Your desire to be known,
our lives a series of cycles
of longing to return.

This being waits with quivering impatience,
avoiding hurdle after hurdle to see,
what exactly it is
You have in store for me.

When will she stop resisting
the floods of love meant to break her,
and surrender to the stillness and storms,
seeing only the light that will take her?

The Beginning of the End

The beginning of the end for me
was the day I finally saw You for You.
Before that, you were just a name to bandy about,
a pacifier for those who had no clue.

You were to be more feared than loved,
that was simply the order of the day.
At least, that’s what I had been told,
and I wasn’t one to disobey.

Ironically, the moment
I felt You close by,
was when breaking the rules,
this I cannot deny.

Yet still, You revealed to me
a deep truth from within,
hidden under layers
of worldly din.

I believed at the center
of my lonely, lonely heart
that You didn’t love me,
I was somehow apart.

That belief shaped my actions,
my relationships, my core.
How could I flip this thought
so deeply stitched into my lore?

The answer is slowly and gently,
bouyed by the strength of Your love.
Could there be a stronger force
in this earthly world or above?

Now that I know You are on my side,
anything and everything seems possible.
An entire lifetime has been examined,
motivations analyzed and found tossable.

Frameworks have been readjusted,
future plans left open for guidance to come.
Some things are ending, others just beginning.
It feels like I’m mourning, my heartstrings a’strum.

As I bury my former self in the ground,
I wonder how long this grief will last.
I beg You, please, don’t give up on me,
as I overcome my treacherous past.

What will the other side look like,
I ask every day.
You present me with options
to choose from, but nay!

This time,
we’ll chose together,
You and I.

We’ll rebuild this life from love, not fear.
Even when I’m alone, I’ll know You’re near.

And this I can say
one hundred percent,
my heart has grown porous,
there’s no more cement.

I live only for You
and whatever good I can do,

till the end of time,
till the end of mine.

Mixed Messages

You say You gave us ample warning.
You say You made it clear.
You say we’ll find our way back to You,
even if it takes a hundred thousand years.

And so it is.
And so You did.

Yet still, we lie here in confusion,
so many choices weighing us down,
each one leading to countless others
like tree roots burrowed deep into the ground.

For each choice we make,
we beg for guidance,
but often all we get
are mixed messages.

Perhaps every choice is the wrong one
if not made solely to seek Your pleasure.
Or perhaps our choices
are actually chances,
portals to the Divine,
like the waves of the ocean
flowing gently, to and fro,
clinging doggedly to the promise
one day they’ll meet the vast horizon.

Do we choose education for our benefit or Yours?
Do we choose to work for our profit or Yours?
Do we marry, have children, treat others well,
for our legacy or Yours?

Only You know the landscape of our hearts.

Will choosing You mean everything becomes easier,
our choices less difficult,
our decisions less painful?
Maybe or maybe not.
It’s hard reading Your mixed messages
with this damned veil upon my heart.

I beg of you
to lift the veil,
to clarify my path,
and coax me along it,
because this limited mind,
this constricted heart,
this darkened soul
is blind.

I am nothing without Your light.

You say You gave us ample warning.
You say You made it clear.
You say we will find our way back to You,
even if it takes a hundred thousand years.

And so it is.
And so You did.

And I will hold You to that promise.

The Why Behind the Why Behind the Why

Inspired by Rumi’s “The Root of the Root of Your Self”

When I tune the whole world out
in order to look in,
I look for the why behind the why behind the why.

Why…do I feel so alone?
When I know that You are with me
everywhere I go.

Why…do I forget Your presence?
When I can see Your signs all around me –
water curled up in the clouds,
the freshest air atop the tallest peaks,
Your grand design woven through the very chrysalis of creation,
as mankind grows and evolves,
sinks and dissolves,
paints the world in ugly colors,
turns its mess into a masterpiece.

Why…do I not see Your signs,
even when my eyes are wide open?
Is it You who placed this veil on my heart,
or my inner demons who blinded me
by lulling me into soulless slumber?

Why…do I still then feel pain,
despite every attempt to be numb?
Is this a punishment for my many transgressions,
or a merciful reminder,
more bitter than sweet,
of the ache,
the longing,
to be whole again?

If you look for the why behind the why behind the why,
the answer to every question is You,
Your infinite love,
Your magnificent mercy,
Your enigmatic plan.

When I tune the whole world out
in order to look in
what I’m really doing
is meeting You at our favorite rendezvous,
dancing around You like a giggly school girl,
trying to get as close as I can.
What I’m really doing
is looking for the One
Who never gives up on me,
brings me gifts wrapped in pain,
wrapped in pleasure,
sends me love notes in every song I hear,
writes me poems in every word I read,
breaks my heart
only to put it back together again,
reminding me every second of every day
how dearly I am loved.

When the weight of the world overwhelms me,
I just look for the why behind the why behind the why
because that’ s our special spot,
and it’s a date for which You’re never late.

I am Woman

In honor of International Women’s Day, I’m re-posting a prose poem I wrote a few years ago. As always, your thoughts and comments are welcomed below.

I am woman.
Hear me roar.
That’s how the saying goes, right?
And yet, you’ve never heard me roar,
never so much as a peep or complaint.
My mother taught me,
“Don’t expect too much from the world,
The world will only disappoint you.
Don’t expect too much from the world.
Then you’ll never be disappointed and no one can hurt you.”
Such wise words, I always thought.
Look at me now, I’m so happy.
No expectations, no disappointments.
Except,
hello,
I’m human.
The hurt would come and,
like a good little girl,
I would swallow it up.
Over time, it slowly built up,
like a heaving, suffocating burden,
so that now,
at 35,
I’m all filled up.
And the hurt the disappointments the heartaches,
they’re boiling over and pouring forth
like lava.
Still I tried not to show it.
I tried to push it, stuff it, lock it
all right back inside.
I hurt myself ‘cause I didn’t want to hurt you, world.
Didn’t want to hurt you, ‘cause I was scared you wouldn’t care.
And perhaps you don’t.
Or perhaps,
I’ve had it wrong all this time.
My mother was wrong,
as was her mother before her,
and her mother’s mother before her.
They taught us that,
as women,
as girls,
we have little worth in this world,
so better not to expect, to rock the boat, to stay in line.
Be a good girl,
be a good wife,
be a good mother.
Ain’t nothin’ better than a self-sacrificing mother who puts her needs at the very end of everyone else’s.
Needs?
What needs?
I’m a saint.
I’m an angel.
Except,
hello,
I’m human.
I hurt, I cry, I get angry,
when you don’t laud my achievements as much as my brother’s,
when you think my desires aren’t as important as my partner’s,
when friends and colleagues don’t show me the courtesy of calling back,
because their time is so much more valuable than mine,
when I am branded either a prude or a prostitute,
while, conveniently, “boys will be boys”,
when you don’t think to offer your help in the kitchen,
and instead, ask me,
“What can you offer?”
like I’m the waitress at your favorite diner.
What can I offer?
What can I offer?
Dude, what can you offer me?
When my profession asks me to work just as hard as anyone else,
take stress just as much as anyone else,
see my kids just as little as anyone else,
then pays me a salary lower than everyone else,
they’re telling me
I’m worth
less.
“You are not worth it.”
The world has said this to me in so many ways.
And I absorbed it, believed it,
inculcated it into my life,
wove it into my being,
and proudly spread the message to my sisters.
“You are not worth it.”
My worth lies in what I can offer,
in the pristine condition of my private parts,
in the voluptuousness of my body,
but only if it’s in all the right places, otherwise,
in the waif-like silhouette of my figure.
I am not worth it.
I don’t need some profit-hungry make-up company to tell me I am, just so I’ll buy their products.
I need my parents to say it,
my siblings,
my friends,
my teachers,
my children.
But most of all,
I need to say it.
Now I wonder, why in the world did I grow up idolizing Cinderella,
who let everyone walk all over her, as she whined in her sing-song voice to her mice,
when instead, I should have respected her Stepmother?
At least she was honest about what she wanted,
and went after it with a passion,
rather than running away at the first signs that someone might see who she truly was,
and losing her ‘glass slipper’ in the process.
(I wear Aerosoles, bitch.)
Because that only happens in dreams, right?
In fairytales,
with the help of fairy godmothers we didn’t know we had,
who randomly decide to bequeath us with magic?
You can’t give me magic.
You can’t wave a wand and expect its sparks to transform me into something more precious than I am now
because,
although I may not always know it,
although you may not always see it,
I am the magic.
I’m the magic that makes this world go round.
You don’t even know how lucky you are to have me, world.
If you call me a bitch now,
I will take it as a compliment.
If you call me “too ambitious” for single-mindedly going after what I want,
I’ll think I’m doing something right.
And if you say,
“What else did you expect?
She’s a woman after all,”
Then I’ll make sure,
in fact, I guarantee,
you will hear me fucking roar.

All Stories Can Be Summed Up Into This One Line

We are one.

Whether it’s a Regency-era novel or reality TV, self-help books or Sufi poetry, indie movies or Insta highlights – every story we read/hear gives us a peak into someone else’s life.

The story might be set in a past or future landscape, and take place halfway across the world from you. It might be an encapsulation of one person’s emotions or her description of a moment in time. Whatever the story, each one shows us another perspective, another life into which we could have been born. But just because we weren’t, doesn’t mean we can’t try to understand what it’s like to be “other”.

Stories create empathy. They allow us to see ourselves in others. And if we can truly see our reflection in another person, or in several other people, or, indeed, the whole of mankind, we would realize that we’re all the same. We each have a human body with a soul or consciousness. We all go through the same cycles of life and experience the same laws of nature.

If you walked down the street today, and passed by someone who looked exactly like you, perhaps you’d be more likely to smile and say “Hi!” If your enemy suddenly transformed into your mirror image, you’d probably be more likely to resolve your conflicts and forgive him. What if you saw yourself on the news, being attacked or oppressed in some way; wouldn’t you be more likely to help yourself? To speak up, to tell your story, to call out injustice. To create an uproar.

We are one. And like some idiot who hammers nails into his feet and sets his hair on fire, we’re only hurting ourselves by not taking care of each other. It’s only natural for our world to be in pain right now. It’s a symptom of all the damage we’ve inflicted on each other. What’s unnatural is for us – all of us – to not be screaming out in anguish.

Dayton. El Paso. Chicago.

Kashmir. Palestine. Syria.

The Amazon Forest. Our polluted oceans. The toxic atmosphere.

There is no lack of stories to be told, people and places to be cared for. And the great thing is, there is no lack of love in this world, or positive energy with which to spread that love.

So next time you’re walking down the street, see if you can spot yourself – your thoughts, your emotions, your experiences – in the person that passes you by. Then take a moment to wonder what that person’s story might be. The tingle that you feel in your heart? It’s called Empathy, and it’s just another word for Love.

What Does it Mean to be Free?

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like

to evaporate into the air,

transform into a molecule of oxygen and join the rush of wind

as it enters my house through an open window,

flowing past me in a wave of ecstasy,

before rushing out again.

I wonder what it would be like to fly,

to feel the coolness of the breeze and the warmth of the sun at the same time.

But not just to feel the breeze,

to be the breeze,

leaving everyone I pass in a state of bliss.

I wonder what it would be like to feel my own self so fully,

my own little universe in my own tiny molecule,

but also, to be a part of something greater than myself,

the collective expanse of air that makes up our atmosphere.

I wonder what it would be like to fly through the world,

and go anywhere I wanted,

not rooted to any spot,

not bound by the limitations of geography

or the human body.

I wonder what it would feel like

to own this world.

All my life I have felt unanchored,

adrift at sea,

and uncomfortable,

in a way that disturbed me when I was growing up.

The fact of the matter is,

I’m still growing up.

I used to spend each day

trying to figure out why I felt this way,

why I couldn’t feel at peace in the security of my family,

the walls of my house,

knowing that I was loved

knowing that I was taken care of.

Why wasn’t that enough for me?

Now I’m starting to think

I was never actually meant to cling to anything so tightly in the first place.

I was meant to be free,

I just never understood how.

Why would I want to hold on so fiercely to things,

to relationships,

to moments,

to concepts of home,

that are all just constructs of my imagination,

none of them permanent?

No matter how precious they are to me,

I have no control over any of them.

In fact, I have no control over anything.

And that’s why I need to learn to be okay

with just being that free-floating molecule of air,

whether I’m lying stagnant on a hot summer’s day

or whipping about in a fevered frenzy,

or even being thrown from one side of the world to the other

in what feels like a catastrophic storm.

I have no control over what happens in this world.

So why am I trying to grasp so fervently onto what are,

essentially,

clouds,

reassuring and ephemeral,

beautiful yet banal.

I need to learn to let go.

I need to learn to let go

and just enjoy the ride.

Maybe then being unanchored will feel more like freedom.

I am larger than what my body allows me to be.

I am a force of nature, bursting at the seams,

as if I’m trying to get out,

not out of this world, mind you,

but, out of my body.

I’ve always known that there was something precious inside me –

inside all of us –

but for years, I hid it away like a dirty secret

under all these layers of my own making

and now that I’m trying to strip away those layers

and tear down those walls,

that sparkling and buoyant Being is expanding inside of me.

It wants to grow larger than humanly possible.

It wants to bend reality and challenge the limits of my imagination.

It wants to break free,

as if this combination of body and mind is some kind of prison,

but it’s not.

At least, it doesn’t have to be.

It’s only a prison if I allow it to be one.

It’s meant to be a vessel that I borrowed for a short time

which will help me experience what it’s like to be human,

to experience pain and pleasure and everything in between

the way only a human can.

But this growing Being inside of me

isn’t quite content with this arrangement.

It wants to be free.

Of what, I’m not sure.

How can I be both a human of this world,

and a Being far harder to describe, from some other world,

at the same time?

One foot here and one foot there.

How can I be in two different places at once,

two different beings in one?

Please help me

to be both human and spirit at the same time,

to find the balance to float freely between worlds,

as seamlessly as the wind blowing in and out of my window.

Please help me to unanchor myself from my limited understanding of the world,

and to be okay with it.

I long for the truth,

but I don’t need to know it all,

at least not yet.

Please help me let my Being evolve as much as it can,

even if that means it grows larger than the confines of my body,

as enormous as the Earth itself,

as inexhaustible as the universe.

Who says I can only be a human who exists inside the universe?

Why can’t I be something greater?

Something shiny yet invisible, full yet free, everywhere and nowhere at once, 

with the universe inside of me?