11.5.22 18:08 [the fear/the hope] 

to be good to be bad to be forgettable

to be unforgettable

 

social experiment 20.5.22 13:38 [part-hearted]

unhinge me, move me

i am already undone

put me back together, but leave me alone!

pull me up, down, turn me inside out

you lift me up, can spin me round

 

but can you move me?

 

move me move me

hold me dance me

stretch me i am strained,

i am never pained

ask if you can touch me,

know that you can’t move me

 

do i almost wish you could?

 

21.5

the little wish seeds, one floated right past my face and tickled my cheek, like a brushing finger or a fleeting kiss

 

23.07.22 15:15 [yearning/learning] 

my tears run rivers

glacier frozen on mountain top runs in the newly shining summer air down

down to the valley

below

the valley basks alternately in sunrays and cool shade

the brooks giggle, winding their sweet way

through her rivulets

the mountain’s once austere stone cheek has earned

wrinkles and her sounds rhyme as the water trickles

trickles runs

tickles into waterfalls and

pools, rivers to oceans

and the ocean weeps, gasps and sobs and hiccups

 

and no longer will that achey scratchy pain hollow out my

throat

i would rather

sob on the tile floor

of a hotel,

weep in the drizzle, waiting for the desire to eat,

than wait for a hand that never comes

to rub my back and allow me to cry

no permission needed, no permission

granted, my honey eyes run soft and clear

they will spill when i will, with no measure

and no tap

every precious drop winding its way to my

ocean

i let my rivers run

 

little angel 21.8.22 20:45 

his arms wrap tight around my neck,

i remember i bring joy

his soft sweet cheek buries in my shoulder,

i remember if i am his safety i can be my own

i hug his little person to me and i kiss his hair, i breathe in the scent of fresh air, of strawberries and sweetness, i walk him where he asks

and i hold him as long as we need

 

4.9.22 afternoon, from the back of an envelope

i cut off hair today.

put it in the kitchen bin like it didn’t matter.

like its genesis and existence was unrelated to the scalp on my head.

so i sat on the edge of the patio after and

but, a painful nothing.

i’m so used to crises,

to calling because something

went wrong.

how do you call up and say “hi,

my world is grey”          ?

 

6.9.22 17:53

and then,

 

some moments,

despite all this,

surrounded by mounds of untidy belongings, amongst dreary piles of responsibility,

i catch my own eye in a mirror

and it all stops –

 

distracted by my own reflection,

i join the sway of my hips with rhythms of a thousand ancestors

i indulge in the sweet sound of humming;

noticing its thunder, ancient and present, its resonance affirming

i feel my fringe that tickles and teases

my skin, its softness and see my smile, its fullness

i stretch shoulders so often weighed, and then

i hear my soul sing within

 

for now

i let my laughter crackle and fizz

once again hearing that fire hiss

i am rain i am storm i am all

just for now

 

it is a moment i will have to record in words, because my video shows only a beautiful young girl dancing, and the music tells its own story. i will write it here, in my silly pretty desperate futile human desire to remember, even in the knowledge that half the reason it is so beautiful is that time and forgetting will soon gently take its hand and let it wave goodbye ∎

Words by Rhiannon Abrams. Art by Louis Rush.