Triggers, Birdsong, and Rising

Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash

I have proudly proclaimed that I am in my whimsical art era, and oh what a privelege it is to bring glimmers of hope to others in these dark times.

But tonight, I am reminded just how sacred this whimsy is, and how hard it has been fought for. There is a depth that holds so much grief, a depth in my nervous system that remembers trauma, and a depth in my own mind that has suffered the symptoms of many mental health battles. I am okay. But I am also reflecting and that is okay to feel through.

I wrote this poem a few months ago as an anthem from the depths. Tonight, I needed to sit back in these words, to claim them, and to do so with tears. I am so grateful for my whimsy. I am grateful for paint. I am grateful for the movement my body allows me to do. I am grateful for a mind that allows me to write. I am grateful for deep emotion that allows me to love and care for. And I am grateful for every version of me that has never stopped fighting.

I keep forgetting that I have a place now to put these words. I hope you find them soft and supportive. I hope they offer solidarity or inspiration or a little hope. Remember that seeds grow in the dark. As do we.

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I grieve in shattered glass.
The violence of emotions 
Inside the heart that living broke. 

So I claim this choosing. 
That I will rise 
With wounded wings 
As Maya’s words* 
Ring out the anthem of my ascent. 

Fuck the cage that trauma built -
The underworld that haunts me still -
I was made for sunsets. 

And river streams. 
And pine tree dreams. 
For warbler song. 
And mountain peaks.

I was born to weave my story 
Into tapestries
Of my own creating.

So I will weave with broken glass
And borrowed thread
With pine needle 
And feather tip,
Until the sound of the voice speaking in my head, 
Is my own.

*a tribute to Maya Angelou and her brave poem, “Still I Rise.”

with so much love and light,

Holly