Poems

ddangler

I Don’t want to be Chased. I want to be Fucking Claimed.

Other Authors

This is precisely what I asked for, and I fucking know it. 

The only thing I yearn for, more than to have my heart broken open, is to have my heart met. And for a few weeks, I felt seen and held in a way I have not in years. It reminded me that I want love. 

So much of the cat and mouse—come here and go away—games that we see in dating are, in my opinion, attempts to navigate our need for reassurance, validation, comfort, and intimacy. 

We are told that we should not put these needs on the opposite sex, that it makes us come off as needy and undesirable, when the truth is we all have these needs. To ignore them and suppress them makes us feel less human, and that makes us behave neurotically. 

We belong to each other, but there is no belonging without safety. To feel safe, we must feel cared for, protected, and cherished. These are not feelings that can be chased. They can only be shared and claimed. 

By Justice Bartlett

ddangler

Poetry

Other Authors

“In our daily lives we experience enormous amounts of disorder and confusion.

And what poetry says to us is, ‘turn your confusion, turn your world into words. Take it outside yourself, into language.'”

Gregory Orr

ddangler

NOTHING IS LOST

Other Authors

All through your life, the most precious experiences seem to vanish. Transience turns everything to air. You look behind and see no sign even of a yesterday that was so intense.

Yet in truth, nothing ever disappears, nothing is lost. Everything that happens to us in the world passes into us. It all becomes part of the inner temple of the soul and it can never be lost.

This is the art of the soul: to harvest your deeper life from all the seasons of your experience.

– John O’Donohue

ddangler

Black

Justice & Equity

Black is our dark side
we hide inside our white skins

We cast our pain on those dark
The slaves we keep locked up inside ourselves

We think if we can erase them from our planet
we don’t have to look at our own evil inside

What are we so afraid of? Their power, their strengths,
the soulful beauty that comes from the riches of this earth

The black man and black woman are our birth mothers and fathers
We cannot cast them aside…love them and caress their vulnerable souls

Overcome your fear of darkness
Show courage and stand in for their pain and hurt

Embrace our black brothers and sisters as if they are a piece of ourselves….because they are.

ddangler

Unbecoming

Living & Dying

The journey here on earth isn’t about becoming. It’s unbecoming. Peeling away everything that is not us. Unveiling ourselves of our cultural, racial, gender, even our personality biases. And finally seeing ourselves as…we…really…are. And then, being delightfully yourself.

ddangler

This Virus

Living & Dying

This virus yells….look at yourselves. Look at who you have become. Is that who you want to be?

Feel and smell your breathe through your mask. Taste yourself like others taste you. Feel the fire that you breathe. Does it nurture or burn down this earth?

See what you look like all day long on Zoom. This is how everyone sees you. How do you look to others? What do your eyes say? Do you see love in your eyes or sadness or anger or nothing? How does your mouth move as you talk? Do you see disgust or arrogance in your grin or moments of joy, empathy or warmth? See your whole face. Are you present or are you distracted and just feigning interest?

Those moments, on your face. Those moments, they change people. For good or bad.

Sit with yourself this virus screams. What does it feel like to be alone with you?

See who you are and ask, who are you? How are you living?  How are you loving? Can you fly, crawl or swim? Can you imagine something better then your past?

How many resources are you using from this earth? How are you treating this earth? These animals; sentient beings? These life giving plants? These complicated people? Yourself?

Stop and reflect on who you are and what you do, human! Stop, now, right now.

The virus yells. Now is all you have! For death comes tomorrow.

ddangler

Madness

Love & Relationship

Love is madness, absolute madness
Like a helpless puppet on a string

We attempt to make choices
fooling ourselves
in believing so we cling

To the thought that we can push against this force
Is sheer madness once again

Don’t deny loves mystical power
And release that critical voice

Turn yourself over to what you can’t understand
Surrender your soul to a love that wasn’t planned

ddangler

Relationships

Other Authors

“Relationship are truly sacred, not in the superficial meaning of being high in value, but that they call upon infinite and mysterious depths in ourselves and in the very nature of things. And in those depths lay a mystery called the heart- not a puzzle to be solved, but a mystery in the spiritual sense: unfathomable, beyond manipulation, showing traces of the finger of God at work.” Thomas Moore

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