read a poem Archives - Page 5 of 8 - ⚡️Kristen Kalp

Posts in "read a poem" Category — Page 5

The Uprising.

There is no name for a nation
undoing its moral underpinnings,
freeing itself from the constraints
of the democratic experiment
the same way a woman sighs with such relief
when taking off her bra before bed.

There is no name for the dreams that come after:
drowning, climbing, plummeting to a certain death
and waking to find only faint sunlight
making its way through the window.

There are no maps for this place,
this soft burning that is not hate
but keeps trying to be.

There is no name for the uprising of the human heart.

P.S. 69 more of my poems here.

Invocation

After burning Brand Camp to the ground and taking a multi-month sabbatical, I wrote this as the keystone for beginning again.  Before the website and the sales pages, the plugins and links and SEO, there were only these words.

It’s the prayer/poem I offer for every visitor to this space, and it’s my deepest wish for you today.

Invocation

Help me breathe life into the space
between who I am and who I’m becoming.
Help me transcend the path that is merely obvious
for the one unfolding through the things I can’t not do.
Help me choose to follow those breadcrumbs and in the process
to make something solid in the soul, something lasting,
something holy.

Help us breathe life into the space
between who we are and who we’re becoming.
Help us transcend the path that is merely obvious
for the path calling to us through the things we can’t not do.
Help us choose to follow those breadcrumbs and in the process
to make something solid in the soul, something lasting,
something holy.

P.S.  69 more poems here.

For when it all falls apart.

When it all falls apart,
let it.

Trying to save a brick here
or a scrap of gold there
during the act of tumbling to the ground
doesn’t help and isn’t wise
and probably means you break an arm or a leg
during an acrobatic feat gone wrong.

When it all falls apart,
let it.

And on that morning, long from now,
when you find those three pieces
that have survived,
you’ll see the way they fit together
into some new and necessary
way of being.

When it all falls apart,
let it.

P.S.  More of my poems here.

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100 ways I’m broken

I routinely scoff at books I know I need to read,
like The Ultimate Guide to Making Your Retirement Make Sense
or Master Your Cravings 4 Life (4 Real This Time)
or How to Adult Like You Care About Adulting.

I love sugar even though it makes me weepy
and dairy even though it gives me zits
and Facebook even though it gives me zombie-screen-face.

I want to save the world and blow it up. (Sometimes in the same breath.)
I don’t watch the news because it hurts
and care more about homeless dogs than homeless adults.
I’m not sure my efforts to save the world have made any difference,
just like I’m not sure my art means anything or my life has an ultimate
deep-down-for-real-for-real purpose other than the one I give it.

I can’t extrovert for more than an hour at a time
and would take last place in the Small Talk Olympics.
“So um…yah…um…”

I’ve got a soft spot for baby animals on the internet
and “Eeep!” loudly at dogs in public
and wish I could hug the porcupines at the zoo.

I routinely eat too much bacon.
I wear tights as pants sometimes.
My I.Q. is embarrassingly high when compared with my credit score.

I suffer from seasonal affective disorder
and depression and abibliophobia —
the fear of running out of reading materials —
so I packed twelve books for my last trip
and my suitcase was almost too heavy to fly.

I routinely shrink clothing in the dryer and
would rather travel than spend money on just about anything else.

I am, officially, ‘obese’ on the medical terminology scale
and am better at marketing other people’s work than I am my own.

I cried when I watched a movie about ethical fashion
because I didn’t know I was causing so much harm with my clothing choices.
(I hope my pre-knowing-about-ethical clothing sparkly gold sneakers last a long time.)

I don’t let myself go to Target alone
because I need that haphazard $150 for other things.

I still don’t know how to do contour makeup.
That one time I tried to do eyebrow stencils I had a crooked eyebrow
and looked exceptionally skeptical all afternoon.

I would rather live in a shoebox by the water than anywhere else
but I live a landlocked life. Missing the ocean hurts every day.

I want to say I’m wise and above try to fix myself
but really, I suspect the broken
is where the magic seeps in,

and so when I make extended eye contact with kids
and we break into dance at the restaurant
I can call it ‘broken’ or ‘magic’
and either label will fit, depending.

When we gather and don’t talk about the weather
or exchange recipes but discuss souls and light and dark
and you show me who you are
we can call it ‘broken’ or ‘magic’
and either will be true

and when we agree that having to feed yourself three times a day,
every day,
FOR LIFE,
is really the worst,
again:

Magic.
Broken.
One and the same.

So let’s be magic, forever and ever,
which means broken, forever and ever,
and let’s enjoy the way the sunshine hits your forgotten to-do list,
the way you failed at meal planning again,
and all the other ways magic has found
to weasel its way into your existence,
today and every single day.

(But really: you’re not allowed to go to Target alone.)

P.S.  Once we establish that you are, in fact, magic — listen to Magic vs. Muggle: the struggle is real and do a little something about it.

M-School is for bringing your particular brand of magic to life.  Check it out.

I’m proud of you.

I’m proud of you.

For waking up. Every day. For showering whenever possible.
For seeing the mountains of work to be done,
morning after morning, and going to it.
For holding her up when she couldn’t climb any further.
For shouldering his pack when you were exhausted.
For smiling when
inside, you were breaking.

I’m proud of you for greeting this morning with something like kindness.

I know it’s easier to fling yourself into despair
and berate the world for all it’s done,
to give up on living a better
or more interesting
or engaging life.

It’s easier to shut it down.
Close it down.
Lock it down.

I’m proud of you for opening, again and again,
in the face of all the world’s frustrations;
for staring all those reasons to give up in the eyes and standing
again, today, in the middle of the mountain.

I’m proud of you for putting one foot in front of the other
despite having lost the summit in the clouds long ago.

I’m proud of you. No caveats, no despites.

I’m proud of you.

P.S. It’s okay to stop hiding.

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