Redefining Joy

sometimes exhaustion and activism
sit side by side
sometimes they play footsie
under the table
while enjoying a pot
of fondue

sometimes anger
and compassion square dance
spin your partner do-si-do
at a h***y tonk joint
outside of town

reverence and irreverence
have been known
to give piggyback rides
to each other
the two of them snort-laughing
their way down the aisles of
All That’s Holy

the sacred and the profane
are next door neighbors
they serve sage truffles
and strawberry boxed wine
at their thursday night
book club

the foolish is my saucy friend
and the wise my midnight lover

this means I can march
in the streets with a bullhorn
a human torch of rage and compassion
then
curl into the shape of grief
in a fort made of hope blankets
then
cry feathered tears for
the tiny broken robins egg
on my driveway
and still use words
like dicktard and cuntwaffle

two things can be true
at the same time
like this poem that seems
to rhythm and rhyme

and then doesnt

let this be your
get outta jail card
when you hold yourself prisoner
inside the smallest simplest
version of you

the cleanest you
the compliant you
the chameleon you
no longer needs to conform
to the one-crayon picture someone else
colored you to be

stop demanding the world be
one thing only
or expecting people to comply
with your version of sanctity

life itself is a juicy
contradiction
a hot glorious mess
of entangled beauty

so are you

live it all
let it all
then own it all

authenticity is sexy
accountability is the new pretty
transparency is the little black dress
that can take you anywhere

get real
and then wear that
realness to every event
its the spicy accessory
that goes with everything

this way lies the zip code
of your genius
where your deep joy
feeds the worlds hunger

this way lies
fragile fierce belonging
as it sways
with toothsome reality
to a jukebox lullaby
on a floor of sawdust and wonder

Poem © Angi Sullins - from my new book "The Fragile and the Fierce" AVAILABLE HERE: https://angisullins.com/shop-3-2/

Let me tell you something
you already know
but forgot
not because you’re foolish
but because forgetting
is part of being born.

You are not just flesh and name.
You are not just the sum
of your longings
or the things they took from you.

No.

You are a sky full of stars
wearing a skin of forgetting.
And somewhere
behind your eyes
a constellation is still moving.

Not dead light.
Lving light.

Stars that burn with stories
you haven’t told yet.
Stories your bones remember
but your tongue can’t quite shape.

Because this isn’t a modern thing.
This isn’t Instagram wisdom
or page-turning poetry.
This is older than fire.
This is when the first human
cupped their hands to the night
and heard their own blood
answer the silence of the stars.

You are that.

You are the drop
that remembers it is ocean.
The wave that knows
the gravity of the moon
before science gave it a name.

And you?
You are a constellation of soul
not stitched from comfort
but forged in loss
in laughter
in longing.
You were made from stories
that began before you
and will echo long after.

A thousand ancestors
blow through your lungs
when you sigh.
They walked with bare feet
on wet earth
and now you carry their fire
in your belly.

You think you’re lost?
That you’ve strayed from the path?
Darling, you are the path.
The forest listens when you walk.
The crows speak your name
when you weep without knowing why.

You are not broken.
You are becoming.

And deep inside
beyond the grief
beyond the wound
beyond the questions
that have no clean answers
a supernova hums.
A star that never went out.
It’s not looking to be healed.
It’s looking to be spoken.

So speak.
Speak with your walk.
Speak with your tears.
Speak with the way you love
what cannot be tamed.

And remember
you are not here to be safe.
You are here to be true.
And the universe?
It is not a thing you look at
from a distance.
It is the firelight inside you
when you finally say
yes.
********************

poem Angi Sullins - my new book "Unmasking the Myths" available here: https://angisullins.com/shop-3-2/
This page is my tribe's Red Tent Blanket Fort, and I write to find all the misfits and weirdos who belong in here with me and the snacks. Tell the others.

More about the fort: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1393715445036560&set=pb.100031943546696.-2207520000&type=3

Artist unknown