take off

walking, tall
beyond the shadow of the doubt
i uselessly instilled inside myself
so long, long ago...
but here i am, still
living, still
breathing and standing, still
and even in the wake of
moving mountains and
waving goodbye to ghosts.
i remind myself daily
"keep going, keep
beating" and
it works but it all
hurts just the same, my
heart low and heavy in
it's cage.
not sad, just low, just
tired... but
this struggle is worth
the pain, it won't
find it's vanity in gilded
promises riding into sunsets -
it is my own,
it is what i own and
even though it cuts to the quick,
sometimes,
my nails always seem
to grow back.
forget the promises.
forget the useless doubt.
keep that beat low,
girl, and
maybe you'll find
the ground was never that
scary to begin with.

~k.

coming up, spring

it's these days that really get to me, lazy and light and "maybe i'll just take a bath" kind of days that last and last and last... it's the dusks that make the spring worth surviving through (cause that little rodent spent too long underground and tried to will spring here but the seasons remain unmovable as frigid hearts and clock hands), i mean it's been a little chilly but the days are growing longer and the nights, warmer - and another spring will pass into summer and i will dip my toes in the water, whatever water that i can find, and i will think of golden sunsets in the park and lightning bolts between our fingers and green, green, green; it's amazing the things you never want to forget fade so fast, like the sound of your grandfathers voice even though it's only been a  little over a year, or the way my bones jutted from my skin (even though i know it's wrong to starve yourself that lightness, like feathers, like femininity), under leotards and tights that only encouraged me... and the things you try to forget, they stick; like superglue, they do, and your brain just won't let them go... so instead of feeling the soft grass on my back and smell that fine clear blue sky above, here i'll be thinking about these memories my body has moved on from, these tiny little ghosts that hang out in the attic of your mind.

that's okay, though, right? isn't wisdom just aged experience?

~k.

silver linings

i've been thinking a lot about my dreams lately, like, when did they disperse like oil in water, and how did the things i once thought were so simple have mutated into a many-armed, many-eyed pms monster? i read things about change and the acceptance of aging and what wisdom is (turns out, it's knowledge that has experienced life, fucking proverbs) and how to avoid bitterness and what really makes us happy... and all of it, every single bit of these snippets of life and love and learning - essentially they all say the same thing.

be patient.

be kind.

be willing.

fuck me, right? here i was, thinking the many years i have spent driving myself towards this goal, the hours i've let wash away taking class, the minutes that wrap themselves around the music in my head... be patient. be kind. be willing.

i am thirty. my patience is waning, as are my hips. i don't have the patience to be kind and willing anymore. am i bitter because i was forced to resign gracefully? betrayed by my own body, frustrated that my mind will forever be a better dancer than my body ever was?

is wisdom the art of resigning willfully? of not allowing your own body to misrepresent what you actually are? do i have to be kind about it so that i can ease my own inhibitions about aging and soften the blow of this graceful resignation - otherwise known to the rest of the world as "giving up"? there is only a letter of difference between "kind" and "king". do i want to be king of my world, or be kind to it?

and is there a possibility for those two to live sympathetically side by side?

~k.

triple falls

these leaves, they've
been turned over and
around, soft
on the ground and
freckle it with pretty yellows
and oranges and
reds, all flipped from
stem to head.
so bright they burned,
lighting the carolina mountains
like stars behind the stars
in the inky night sky,
those massive pinpricks
of searing fire, burning
out with each brilliant
flicker.
fifteen seasons of
watching leaves die,
since looking in your eyes
that balmy morning at
the back door, the
stars and the leaves
curling at the speed of
their own light;
fifteen seasons of praying
for green, for
rebirth of the color
of forgiveness, of promise;
fifteen seasons and
i have moved on,
and you have moved on,
or at least to places
our flames wouldn't
-couldn't-
ignite inside each other.
fifteen seasons later,
and here we are.
bridging the gap
with silence,
with space,
with feigned ignorance
but
we
are
still
here.
leaves turning, burning
out like stars
behind the stars in the
inky night sky.

~k.

old crow

stop.

~k.

another year older

you knew me, some
time forever ago,
with black hair and a
bleeding heart; you
loved me then
for the colors i shared,
the deep reds and blues
I so artfully let
wash over me, let settle.
you knew me when
i didn't want to know
myself, when
i didn't want to know
my layers, too stubborn
to let the walls be broken.
but you broke them.
and i hated you for it,
i still kind of hate you for it.
i wanted that shell, that
protection against people
just
like
you. but
too late, now...
i found someone like you,
just like the song says.
and i don't care that
i've been broken or
infiltrated or
even smashed to bits,
because it's the kind of love
you couldn't give.
so i'll take my pearls and
my weathered leather
jacket and be on
my way, again, through
my swinging doors, not
yours,
and smile to the sunset
that all this
was worth it.

~k.

the bolt

the bus yesterday was crowded, full to the brim. and it was a monday... i guess no one wanted to pay the two grand for a ticket to see madonna at MSG. i was happy to leave, like most of the people on the bus, to go home to my own bed and my own cat and my man; not to say that i was happy to leave my friends, the promise of free studio space, or the fact that anywhere i wanted to go i could walk or take the metro.

movement is a funny thing. it's the only thing in my life i know i'm really, solidly good at. and i have been in such a constant state of motion since graduating from high school, shit, since before that... that i am in no means saying this is not a nice, slow transition into a different, welcomed life.

new york city for a weekend - nicely does it. i should have moved there fresh out of college. i would have had the energy and will to do everything and anything that i heaped on my plate. but at 27, 28... i just couldn't hack it. the movement was killing me, and so i am therefore happy i am out.

things will pick up to a pace i enjoy and can handle in my old age eventually. for right now, the bus back into the city will do.

~k.