over – Poétique

Heart Over Head

The common thread:
Invisible labor + deferred regard

Asymmetric adaptation
Before I gave my heart away
“Is this how I sound?”
We used to dance
Then —
Ask the clarifying questions
Your self interest is revealing itself
What time isn’t it?

I no longer need witnesses to my integrity
“Is this how my words land
When I’m not holding them?”
Many many boulders

Carrying weight is not what broke me
Carrying weight
While being disregarded did.
Period
When the full moon came
Clarity was acceptable
But only when it didn’t cost them
What it cost me
I heard my canary singing
It falls apart a lot with logical inconsistencies
Could his song hold me?
It was acceptable when
I absorbed their messiness,
but unacceptable when they do.

That’s what you’re here to hold
That’s why you made it into the egg
That betrays you with cold intolerant
Phrases like « you’re a freak »
When the cape becomes mandatory
I become invisible

Stop negotiating with shadows
I can be someone alone

I am no longer willing to sacrifice
My well-being to preserve
Your autonomy —
Especially when that sacrifice is invisible
Unacknowledged, and expected —-

My nervous system is not
Commercial property

But they made decisions that affected you
And they did not care how it affected
Your world

Suspension
Suspended
Suspend me

Darkness
Water
Islands

If I don’t protect myself here, no one else will.

Self reckoning

You don’t need to disown
That part of you that expects
Love to meet you

It takes time to trust a system that doesn’t require you to bleed to function…

They didn’t object when
Self-interest flowed one way…
…they objected when it stopped flowing

toward them.

Even when I named my feelings
Directly, they continued to
Prioritize their wants —
And expected me to adapt

Adopt
Adopt me

I am not safe here if I keep waiting to be considered.

Anticipatory self-abandonment.
Chronic vigilance
First light
I am no longer required to disappear to keep others comfortable
Unzipped
The internal contract has changed
Deregulation
is internally regulated

When hurt
Understands systems and process
When hurt
Doesn’t require approval to proceed
When hurt
Doesn’t respond to intimidation

Rejecting your threat response
Is delicious
My ground is open
My stance is strong
My tongue untied
It takes time to trust a system
That doesn’t require you to bleed to function

Froth

The faster we float away
From one another the kowtower
Crumbles into the cracks
Of a deserted earth that has
Seen nothing of water or grass
In what would become 600 B.C.
Theirs was a past life pavilion
Special fruits and flowers
Only appeared in delicate
Quantities but like everything
Fragile they too broke intolerably
Before the second rising of
A double headed moon that was
Eager to become its own identity
The villagers were unaware
That anything had changed and
Sleep contoured the sky as
Their breaths were confirmed into
A night full of comets scouring madly
As though they knew they would
One day become the bloodline
To fireworks and the birthstone
Of a dimmer time when it was
Necessary to light up the celestial
Heavens as the sun could only
Boil for so long but never did
Restful nature plan for the future
Of its distant existence to ponder
A once past because the curls were
Made of silk and the lips were
Of lust licking passion from
Other worldly souls whose winged
Creature-like existence was
Something like riding narwhals
No one had a console to turn off
Writing was on each other’s backs
The taste of skin was like
Biting into a peach plucked
Perfectly from the tree of life
Sensual bliss and salty reality
A divine breath of being
Sailing in opposite directions

Start Over

It’s not that serious
They said just like
Empty sex in hotels
The same way actors
Make you feel
As if the kiss is
Meaningful or real
Lingering eye contact
Something superficial
Hiding behind the truth
Slowly becoming actual
Watch your step
In the future
Be forewarned
As crooked as things can get
It won’t turn out the way
You’re expecting
No blinking red lights
I believe that
We’re all still made of stardust
In the end
Which begs the question
Do we belong to ourselves
Or to the stars?
No vacancy
Preservation is expensive
You know
We could just start over
Demolish everything
Make a clean slate of it
Are we maintaining our innocence?
Does the melody
To remain the same neigh
Or does the sound
Of our change bray?
We hold in our hands the
Answer to a question
As delicate as the motel
That is crumbling
Down the way
There are people inside it
Maybe the activity is
Too arduous for saving ourselves
Collecting every piece
One tile of the roof at a time
We could hold onto it all
Or we could just start over