Under Lavender Skies

The Thing is   Ellen Bass to love life, to love it even  when you have no stomach for it  and everything you've held dear  crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,  your throat filled with the silt of it.  When grief sits with you, its tropical heat  thickening the air, heavy as water  more fit for gills than lungs;  when grief weights you like your own flesh  only more of it, an obesity of grief,  you think, How can a body withstand this?  Then you hold life like a face  between your palms, a plain face,  no charming smile, no violet eyes,  and you say, yes, I will take you  I will love you, again. ♡♡♡

MOON-RISE We walked contentedly along,  So at home in the night,  That when I saw a cozy, yellow moon  Reflected in a warm and shallow pool,  It seemed the comfortable lamp on my table  Mirrored in my cup of tea. ♡♡♡

Pretty soon it will be a month since my last post.. I am not sure that anyone reads my posts but I still like, or at one point liked, making them.  I've been really busy and stressed with school recently so my weekly posts have been pushed to the side.  Here's my plan: I have acquired many poms that I adore and find beautiful that remind me about the beauty of life.  For the next four to six weeks I will post a poem on here as well as on my Instagram.  I hope that you like reading a possibly new poem or receiving a reminder that life can be beautiful as well.    In Passing How swiftly the strained honey  of afternoon light  flows into darkness and the closed bud shrugs off  its special mystery  in order to break into blossom: as if what exists, exists  so that it can be lost  and become precious Lisel Mueller ♡♡♡

   I finished up this piece with the color in the background along with inking in the quote.  As I wrote it all I knew was that I wanted there to be an element of "movement," though the poses, the flow of the letters, and the content of the words.  I think I captured that.    Combining art and writing is one of my favorite things.  I know in terms of writing here there isn't much but I think the words, along with the color, are what takes this a notch past a simple sketch.       Thoughts?  Thanks for reading!

I hope the pictures aren't too small and that you can still read the poems!  Let me know if you've read any of these before, I think they are all pretty unique and bizarre at points but that's also part of the beauty of it.  At the moment I'm having such a hard time figuring out what to post on here, it seems like ages since I posted a true post and not a  simple poem or art piece, I suppose that could be a true post but it feels a little different to me. Let me know what you think and if you have any topics I could write about!  

 A Poem About Clouds  Today, I point out, the clouds Are wispy and quick across the sky. I know it's been said before, And that many think the same, But I adore clouds. The way they are never the same At times, Hardly touching the corners of the sky At others, Taking it over completely. This is a mostly pointless poem about The sky — but also I often wish I could pull myself up, On one of those days when the clouds cover the sky, And walk around up there for a little bit, In a completely new world Just for a little bit. My life seems to be changing fast, And flitting across the sky like the Clouds today. I have decisions to make and things to do And I'm not sure why it's so difficult to get myself to do them, but it is, And instead I write this poem. I want the clouds to be still And slow. Maybe tomorrow, Maybe then it'll be easier to handle. Or a tomorrow soon after that. It has to be. abby m.

Grapes for Breakfast Yesterday I ate grapes for breakfast, half of them squishy  And brown, And gross,  And I told you my life story, Tears dried on the frames of my glasses from me crying with my head In my lap.  I ran into the kitchen before the silence grew too loud Too overbearingly loud  For those few moments, the world shut off Even the birds stopped singing and the wind ceased blowing  It was all so loud, louder than I could have imagined,  Like a raging, Relentless, Waterfall. It was just about to suffocate me  When I fled to get more grapes. The only way to describe a  A silence like that one, one that smothers everything around it,  Is with a sound. I also wanted to clean my glasses So I could at least see while we talked about how I could feel like  Less of a rotten grape, shall we say, and more of a person.  In the end, you said you understood but There was plenty of time, from me carefully picking out each rotten grape ...

The Poem Recently. . .  The world has feelt heavy recently and that feeling seems so come much easier then... the obvious lighteness  of the spring wind  through the overgrown grass in our backyard.  I read some advice recently, about how bad times and thoughts will come and go, and how you should let it pass though, you'll have to live life anyways,  people smile all the time even if they don't feel it one bit,  so you might as well set down as much  of the weight of the world as you can.  As a friend once said,  imagine the sky to be your life, the sky will be blue, cloudy, and stormy.  Storm clouds will come but they are not the end though they might stay for awhile,  Let them pass and don't attach yourself to those feelings.  Well, I will continue to write my little poems and stories, and paint and draw, and to learn, The best I can. Though I really have no idea what I'm doing.  It w...

My skin is buzzing Sitting alone, at the dinner table On a Monday afternoon And I feel daunted, But as though I can Possibly Take on the world. If the world, Really the world, is what I get None of this fake  Impersonal stuff  Everyone seems to care So much about, but Something real.  Like clouds, and cats, and trees, and bees, And kindness. But with music buzzing in my ear I'm unable to move forward Or do anything at all. I am not ready To take on much at all. I am just a someone, Who's sitting alone at a table  Who's got too much buzzing, Who's got too much going on inside her head. "Buzzing" 

From floor to ceiling, rising Up, are butterflies, bugs, and bees  No longer writhing or striving  To survive, you see They are pinned in place, not hiding But displayed to see, for you and me. Up the hill, three children roamed And explored that day, To peek into the bug man’s home  It was early into the month of may  The first window they peaked in, Was the bathroom  It was bees and grasshoppers that affronted them from within Thankfully, no one was using the room. The three friends watched, unable to move, as the doorknob began to spin  A woman stepped through,  She saw them right away  For only a moment she withdrew  Holding beetles in a display,  Her hair was short and of the darkest hue, It was only a moments delay  Before up her face, a smile grew. Still terrified of what she would say, they were dismayed  When she lunged and threw Open the window and set down the display  “And who, may I ask,  Are you, peeking...

Make a fist. You got this. 

The woman behind the register looks over her cat eyeglasses, she smacks her gum, glancing from the conveyor belt back to me.       “This all for you?” she asks.  I grab a pack of gum remembering I just ran out and set it down on the conveyor belt.       “Yup, just this.”  I give her a tight-lipped smile, this is what I’ve been waiting to do all this time, isn't it?  To be able to buy what I want when I want it.  Her bracelets jingle as she grabs the gum and the orange.   I can't wait to get out of this store, it wasn't bad until the woman grimaced at me, doing so the whole time as I waited for her to ring up my total and then count out the change agonizingly slow.   Still, later on, that’s not what I would tell you if you asked how the trip to the supermarket was in the middle of the day.  I'd tell of the way the fruit section smelled so sweet and wonderful, and a toddler, waiting wi...