tree[s] matter like friends

i am about to write a poem.

i have been thinking. of course i have been thinking. i have been writing. nothing is ‘of course’ about that.

at work i like to go to the conference room with all the trees and you can open the windows. i hear the scrub jays bicker. i feel the wind. i cry.

if you all knew how often i really cried, it would maybe be concerning. to me though, there is nothing wrong with crying. i need to release. i shall be released.

i played the song ‘message’ by alex g for my grandmother. she said it sounded like the song ‘i shall be released’ by the band. these songs are like the two wolves inside of me, but there are many more wolves. many more duos, many more spectrums of thought.

i am writing a poem, and the title of this post will be a line in the poem. i have been working on this poem all summer long. this is a summer poem. a summer changing poem. a change poem.

i stitch my poems together like quilts. every so often, in my life, in the shower or driving to the grocery store, or out with friends, i feel a line of poetry inside of me. i write down that line, those words, sometimes a scribble, sometimes a whole thought.

then i stitch the words together. some of them are from june, some are from today. the august words are especially heavy. none of you know which words are from where. i tell you where they go. i tell you where they make sense.

sometimes i forget. all the lost words, the words that gurgle down the shower drain, the words that slam shut. the words that drift away into the spiraling loop of other words, reminders, ideas, worries.

just last week, i stood there in my underwear in the kitchen, eating a cucumber and staring at a stain on the countertop. writing an entire poem in my head. i forgot the poem. i remember telling myself to write it down. it was a good one.

now that poem is for someone else, something non-physical. my brain silently released it out into the world. no mouths, no pencils, no tapping on a keyboard. it is out there, and none of us even know!

does that not feel massive and huge? did you know we could all be dead next week? so why do we do anything?

it all feels so futile. work. doing work in this system of corruption. of course the government is evil and i know it is all ruled by love of god and hatred of women, and racism and power and the need for power, the need for domination, control. money, body, land.

how much more can i take? when do i get to see the beauty? if you make a list of things you love, what is on it? it could go on forever. i will do a short one just off the top of my head.

things i love:

• the smell of the morning time outside

• when my friends make an unexpected funny sound

• the way ripples look in water at night when there are lights reflecting on the ripples

• wide bumpy rich green fields of native grasses and flowers

• crashing ocean waves

• the smell of amber oil on skin

• seeing people smile genuine smiles

• when rocks or sticks or other natural objects are shaped like hearts or something else

• when my friends get my stupid jokes

i could keep going, but i cannot or i will be sad. isn’t it funny when making a list of things you love makes you sad? i don’t think that there is much difference between these feelings. love is complicated and so is sadness, and they are holding hands so tightly. with their fingers interlaced.

we should be able to feel it all. which i think a lot of people do, because i do. but what really matters is not just feeling it all, but expressing it all. let me show you how i feel. let me tell you, or draw it out, or write it, or film it. or whisper it into your ear. or SHOUT IT OUT WHILE CRYING AND WAVING MY ARMS AROUND WILDLY.

let me be organic matter.

there is something happening here with the social contract and with nihilism and with nature, but i cannot separate the strands just yet. this is not an essay, but it could be. these could all be essays. i love essays.

i love poems too. why is it so hard for me to write poems now? i used to spit them out, they could not wait to free themselves from my body.

now my heart and my mind are greedy and want the poems all to themselves. the poems poison my insides, make me languish, make me howl. second-guessing.

the poems are like the little parasitic worm inside of haku in ‘spirited away’ except they are poems inside of me.

silly worm. silly poems. also incredibly powerful and deadly, also beautiful and transformative.

take a long breath, because now it has been another week.

i should probably just do shorter posts more frequently.

i missed my treetop meeting time because i called out sick on tuesday. yesterday.

sometimes my body fights me. sometimes my brain hurts so bad that i have to throw up. my head pounds so hard against my skull, my eyes feel like they will pop out if i look into the light. i feel weak and tired and weird in my skin and my body.

so i slept until like 2pm, wet hair on my pillow, shivering, then sweating, unable to regulate my temperature. somehow i can be cold under 2 different blankets. then in a few minutes, i’ll throw them off, too sweaty i feel like i am burning.

my body. me and my body. oh how we battle.

my body like the soil, rich and deep. people say “you get happy and you gain weight” and i believe it. i love skin. i love when people have stomachs. i think everyone has a beautiful body; you become ugly to me when you are ugly inside.

it hurts to see the world and where it goes. bodies. we hate our bodies, fight our bodies, scar them and starve them and make little jokes about it. i don’t even think i can get into that right now. the internet and its poisons. the way it teaches us how to restrict our eating, make sure to only eat ‘healthy’ food and sugar is bad, and you aren’t working out? what’s wrong with you?

of course i hate my body. everything i see in the world SCREAMS at me: you are wrong, the shape of you is wrong. i see it in peoples eyes when i pass by.

i also love my body. sometimes i feel so beautiful. my hair is so long now. when i undress for the shower i look at myself in the mirror and i feel like one of those renaissance paintings of those curvy women lounging around in silk scarves with their long beautiful hair.

self-loathing is funny. it does come from within but it also undeniably attached to the world around us. to the society we live in. bodies like those above are just bodies. i would say that these women are not fat. they just have stomachs and thighs, thick skin and curves. and of course there is nothing wrong with being fat. i know this, i really do.

i just have to fight the voices and the posters and the videos and images and internet posts and trends that all tell me otherwise.

legitimately, i get advertisements every single day for bodysuits that will suck in my fat, or for energizing beverages to help with bloating and help me lose weight, or for online exercise plans to burn fat quick! every single day. my phone looks at me and says YOU ARE TOO BIG.

it does not help when this is reality. the people around me. my family. the subtle messages and hints.

are you really going to eat another piece of cake?

yes, i am. why do i need to feel bad about it…

i am going to stop now. i will cry. i cannot cry, because work.

you should be allowed to cry wherever you want to cry. and you technically are. but the social contract.

again. i could go on. i cannot go on. i am going to go outside and sit in the sunlight. i am going to take a break. i am going to eat my lunch. maybe i will get a treat, and i will not feel bad about it.

thanks everyone, hopefully something i said makes sense. i am not going to read this one over, i am just posting it and it will exist as is.

thanks for reading my mind. love you.