for my sunflower sister

together we walk
like warriors
sisters of the cosmos
with daydreams of sea magic
and shameless love for our cunts
sharing laughter and inspirations
healing
the wounds left by patriarchy
we cultivate revolution
between our breasts and our ovaries
we are power
i love you

contradictions of mind and heart

***just some reflections i scribbled down. gonna make it a complete piece later***

all my life i have heard that the heart and the mind want different things. you can see something, logically, as positive or negative but the reflection of that logic to emotions does not compute. as if our minds and hearts are on different wave lengths. this “reality” has often been used to justify staying in unhealthy environments or continuing unhealthy relationships based solely on emotional investment. in contrast this “reality” has also been used to create unhealthy situations out of thin air by use of insecurities, past experiences and defense mechanisms. the latter is what i have currently been struggling with. i have allowed my negative past experiences and the insecurities developed from them to defer my emotions and projection of those emotions from the “sensible” part of my mind. and while it is true that we are shaped by our environments and are a product of our experiences, who says that my mind and heart have to be in almost constant disagreement? they are two components of a single entity so why have we been convinced to believe the negative instead of a communion between them to work toward a positive outcome?

these are questions i have been shuffling through my head over the past several months as i have begun a spiritual healing process of balancing my own energies. the truth is, we have been conditioned to believe in this dichotomy. in mainstream media, in carefully selected history, “classic” novels etc. but lately I’ve been thinking this conditioning goes right along with the capital conditioning the people face as womyn, queer folk, people of color and working class people in general. and as we look toward a new society, toward a different life. toward revolution we are still faced with these issues. to have a sustainable movement toward the liberation of all oppressed peoples that actually moves beyond marches and one day strikes to a complete deconstruction and rebuilding of this life we must have theory and practice. theory is like the logic of our minds. we must have a logical idea of where we want to go from here. to dream of how to create better days rooted it in real history and present conditions. and the practice of that theory is the emotional ties we have when manifesting movement and struggle. the immense love when the people rise up against our oppressors and demand to be treated as humyns and the rage that comes with the states resistance to our power in the form of tear gas, police batons and murder. but the two must always go together. if you just have theory then there is beautiful thought with no movement…intellectual masturbation and if you just have practice it is too easy to lose sight and righteous acts of resistance become mere activism. we forgot why we are fighting and what out goal is…action for the sake of action means nothing and loses momentum.

so like revolution, humyns cannot live healthily without our minds and hearts moving in fluid motion with each other. we must stop seeing them as mutually exclusive. if something makes sense in your head it can make sense to your heart and be reflected in your motion. the hardest step forward it breaking down the walls of our conditioning, physical and emotional. but just as Egypt ripped of her chains, as Palestine never gives in to U.S. backed Israeli imperialism and genocide, as the legacy of the Panthers, the Zapatistas, the Young Lords Party, and more continue to inspire souls young and old and spark fires of resistance worldwide; we have more power than they tell us we have and they fear this discovery. after all, “a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all…it can be broken down.”

two hours past midnight

womyn have the obligation to yell

to raise our voices and scream our truths

to be carried with the wind

until our struggle no longer falls on deaf ears

as the rain nourishes the soil

we are rooted in the earth and cosmos

in revolution and liberation

our militancy

natural and necessary

we birth forth the steps needed to get free

from the sanctity of our cunts

a power that out spans oceans

we are warriors

in every sense of the word

this life can cause us to fall

to lose our light

our way

each other

but we keep gettin up

a little slower and a lot more deadly

a poem written in the back of a book

it’s been said that a true revolutionary is guided by immense feelings of love

that it’s impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality

…
this is what i strive for

to be guided by love

as effortlessly as the branches bend with every passing breeze

to heal

holistically

with my sisters

and myself

to be a true revolutionary

without the dogmatic rhetoric

the patriarchy

the competition and insecurities

mashed into the folds of our skin by this life

soaking up our very essence of living

leaving nothing but survival tactics

this is what i strive for

to be a true revolutionary

so in love with life and the people

with the ancestors and my sisters
…

the salt of the earth fresh on my palette

i can taste the liberation swimming through my arteries and ventricles

yearning to be unleashed

as necessary as breath

inhale…exhale…go

music man

to the music man…

the earth has rotated twice on its axis

spinning seven hundred and thirty sunsets and moon rises

creating

evolving

gettin free

your eyes hold revolution

that fire that grows in the most beautiful of hearts

your soul sings to the people

with the most vibrant of colors

in turquoise and reds

you paint your story

in octaves and quavers

sharing your truth on drumskins and piano keys

…

to the music man…

who speaks of struggle and liberation

whose importance is cosmic in proportion

and righteous in motion

i love you

…of the soil and cosmos

…this is a poem for a womyn i love…

like drips of red clay running through fingers

is how i can describe your beauty

raw,

timeless,

art,

your presence…healing

and necessary

power

you dance atop a warm evenings breeze with the ancestors

ready to welcome the moon

over the sea

…

to you i write

oh dear righteous priestess of the soil and cosmos

i am not okay

we, as womyn, trek through this life

sometimes walking on broken glass

or forced to climb and move mountains

or crawl out of the deepest of hell holes

all the while, expected to be unheard

to cry silent tears

and hide rage in sun shadows

to choke on our pain

and never admit

…i am not okay

well here i stand before you

5, 6, 7 years old

another child molested

a statistic

the blood of my innocence

staining family sheets

and dripping from dirtied and calloused hands

teaching me never to trust

even in blood ties

…and i am not okay

here i stand before you

10, 11, 12 years old

full of a horrid sense of worthlessness

holding secrets of bruises and swelling

well disguised

sharing nothing but lies

those few times father lost control

fanciful tales of clumsiness and fictitious sibling spats

to explain black eyes, swollen cheeks and fat lips

…and i am not okay

here i stand before you

17, 18, 19 years old

full of the most putrid anger

where survival became pertinent

where the beatings became brawls

and i decided i was never going to sit silently in fear with him again

…and i am not okay

you see, there’s liberation in that statement

because in a world that tells us to endure the evils of the present

for false promises of a “better future”

the only thing we can do is take control of ourselves

to abandon the shadows

scream our truths

let them be carried with the wind over the seas

so together we may cause righteous waves of unrest

and get free

so here i stand before you

…23

which i’ve been told is a trying year

here i stand before you

23…sharing my truth

not as a victim

but as a ripple in still waters

that can start a hurricane

powerful

mighty

and never again afraid to admit

that i am not okay