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Two Minutes at a Festival

He bent down, peering in, then stepped back quickly, overcome by the heat and the damp that clung to the air and to all the items in the tiny tent. The tiresome drizzle did not seem to have plans on cessation.

“Are you coming or what? God, your tent is a mess.”

“Hey! I didn’t ask you to bend in.” She yanked the flap of the two person tent up, zipping as she held on.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” He stuck his hand in the little space that still remained, “are you actually boxing yourself back in properly? Forget about the heat, we need to get going.”

She sighed, exasperated, “I. need. Two. Minutes.” She said it through gritted teeth.

“Would that be a girl two or a real two?” She snapped the zipper the remainder of the way, nearly slicing the skin on the heel of his hand. “Watch it!”

She made no reply. He knew he had hit a nerve. Ugh, one couldn’t joke about women around her anymore; she used to be so much more fun. She still was if he just kept his thoughts to himself. He tucked both hands into his parka and curved his back against the tiny droplets peppering his clothing. He wasn’t wet, not really, but he hadn’t been dry in days. It was beginning to take its toll.

A minute later, a zipper was making the rounds towards the muddy ground. She popped out. She had put on some sparkly lip gloss and a few shiny stickers on the side of her face. It was in complete contrast to the scowl she was wearing, “well? Shall we then?”

He smiled his roguish smile, “I know you don’t plan on us walking the entire way while you sulk.” She said nothing. He huffed, “I’m sorry, okay? Of course a girl minute is not an acceptable metric by any standards, but especially not in the patriarchal subsystem under which your highness and I exist.” He lowered his head in a mock bow; she swatted it. Then she skipped forward, sending flecks of mud to either side of her, “come on! I don’t want to be late for Kaytranada.”

Non classé Prose et Poesie
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The But

Quel est le point?

Censée devenir… quoi?

On est sur la route, le but duquel est

d’Être

sans doute, plus humain.

Mais on

Est

déjà ce qu’on essaie d’atteindre. 

Circle, moot. We’ve been set on a path

to discover what was core to the plant, the root.

But you are the tree and the fruit.

Quel est le but, alors?

Already both winner and warrior.

Inspiration Prose et Poesie
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Comprehension

Walking the world with me while I walked it alone

In stride

Staying in the periphery when my tunnel vision kept me blind

Respecting all the boundaries but toeing, still,

The line 

Keeping silent in the vacuum, acts-in-service – practiced mime 

Stars are stars

always

steady,

twinkling, in the sky 

Sweet serendipity, sweet universe, allowing ours

collide.

Prose et Poesie
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The Force of July

Its this process of “collective” grief.

It’s the feeling like you are not recovering as fast as the rest of the collective. When you feel like your rage is overblown because you do not see it mirrored communally but do not realise that you, too, are moving through life silently, simmering, but only below the surface. Rage on mute. About to boil over but not yet, not quite. When is the bounce back, the recovery? And as you are doing this, as you are moving through with your muted rage, your comrades are moving through with theirs too, maybe not as silently, maybe not very loudly either. Unbeknownst to you. This perceived silence – the sweet, elusive recovery time- is ripe and heavy with the weight of pent up rage. No one is bouncing back. Communally. And sometimes, the only catharsis achieved in these moments is through witnessing the turbulence, the pressure cooker of emotions roiling in the depths of the “collective” eye, in the burdened beat path routed to the reality of connection with the kindred in community. Collective healing, from the vantage point au milieu; the crowd clamoring for justice  to remain in full view. Change, unspooling, whipped in old ideas of the “new”.

Change.

I don’t think the process of change is intended to be pleasant. We have never asked the butterfly how it feels to be in the chrysalis. We just rejoice in solidarity when it breaks free and begins to fly. And what was the process like in that shell? Did the wings rip it’s body apart as they formed? Did the caterpillar fear being reborn? What must flight have looked like for one so close to the ground? Are there screams of protest against the metamorphosis with voices too shrill to translate into sturdy vibrations? Are we not paying enough attention to hear them or is the silence it’s own picture of strain. When I feel pain, I curl, I shut my eyes tight and squeeze; tensing muscles till my hands are unyielding mallets and the mounds that clog  the barely formed arches on my flat feet, spasm. I experience pain in flows I want to ebb into oblivion. So perhaps there is a tortured silence in a changing pulse. Or maybe this is out of the loop and there is no pain at all. Just discomfort. Just a longing to hold on to the stable we have built before being dragged by our wings into verdant fields of unknown. 

Perhaps the caterpillar lived in pain and discomfort every aching moment till it was freed. Perhaps change was the road not taken that led to peace.

Peace.

No justice. No peace.

Rage is rage. Muted or shrill.

Inconsolable, is the collective grief.

Journaling Prose et Poesie
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Society in Motion

Forgive them

Forgive us

Forgive the deep parts within you cannot trust

 

Time spent but never earned because this is a bus with no stops 

The fog in the rear is not slipping into the exhaust

It is purged

We are running, leaving it behind.

We cannot earn because we cannot bind

We are dust waiting to return 

We are rust waiting for the sun

To burnish us, turn us to bronze that flickers and wreathes like gold

The gold is nowhere but in our souls

The bronze is all that shows

 

And for what? For us to lose the precious little, trailing away like black smoke that unfolds,

pouring out the maw of a backside, not worth a gather

Not worth the sole you exhaust

Not worth the bronze you won’t buff

The rust that needs to wait for the sunrise to feel lust

Of self

 

None other than heavy mist beyond the veil

The dust and the fog and the time-shares of clutter

How you can breathe through the same pipes where all that sputter and gunk choke the inhale.

Choked

Unprovoked

Choke and roll over and sink down like the sun 

Unable to purge through the rays the bronze run.

Unable to shine and burnish itself to a gold spun by society; to relive that choked one

You know the one

Life. 

Let’s pick up the run.

Journaling Prose et Poesie