lucysgemz

[lucysgemz]

My mother named me Lucy because of its meaning: light. She meant for it to be a good thing, which it is. But lately, I’ve felt like I’m the sun completely burning and drying everything I get to close to.

#lucy #light #sun #burn #thoughts #spilled words #spilled poetry #love #unrequited love #spilled thoughts

[lucysgemz]

Ions and eons

We are literally surrounded by positive ions from recircled air and screens 24/7. It’s why water is calming. The negative ions balance us out, act as an anti-depressent even. 

Proof our thoughts do not 100% control our feelings.

I’m going to do whatever I want. I’m going to be whoever I am. I’m going to defend myself the way I defend my friends and family.  I am going to be loyal to myself the way I am to my friends. 

As Audre Lorde said, you cannot use someone else’s fire, you can only use your own, and in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe you have it. 

I know I haven’t been writing well but writing anything makes me feel strong. Tending to my inner fire. 

#science #positive #negative #ions #feelings #hormones #balance #audre lorde #inner fire

[lucysgemz]

Drunk talking to myself in the mirror the week after I got fired

It does get better, not meaning it can’t get worse again, but today it does feel better.

I returned the last of my belongings. Was treated like a criminal for no reason for hopefully the last time. I came home and drank brown liquor at 11 am for what will most likely not be the last time.

I talked to myself in the mirror. 

I said

“You have got to take responsibility for the way this is making you feel and fix it. Really overcome it. Your support system is great, but this one is on you.

Recognize what you don’t like about yourself and change what you can. Start down the road of acceptance with the things you can’t. 

Do not stress about trying to convince people they are lucky to have you. It’s not your decision to make. 

Focus on what makes you feel happy and alive.”

#talking to myself #writing #ramble #freeflow #self #being fired #losing a job #drunken thoughts #self critique

[lucysgemz]

Denver, pt II

I remember when I was dating this city. Every drive on I-25 was romantic; I admired the blue and white mountains on one side, and the rose gold hue of the skyscrapers on the other side. I delighted in the novelty: the snowflakes I caught in my lashes, the sunshine, the clean air.

I was an eager homesteader who came to claim a new territory. I thought, in this world, but I realized, also in myself. I have shifted, shaped, and grown and I don’t quite fit myself anymore. 

I have been broken and more alone than would have even been possible if I’d never left home and I’ve grown stronger and more resilient because of it. I’ve had many times where there was no one to turn to but myself and backed into a corner, me vs. me, I confronted things that were hard to look at, but things I am glad I no longer have to try and live as though they don’t exist. 

I’ve fallen in love. Not with this city, but with a man. Hard-shelled, one I respect, far from any game of my past. Someone deep, and kind, and independent. Someone who betters me by being himself.

I’ve fallen in and out of love with myself. Some days I wake up and stroke the soft curves of my body in the early sunlight. Other days I avoid mirrors and set impossible goals. Some days I feel brilliant and inspired and strong. Other days I scroll through social media endlessly and wish I were someone else. Every once in a while, I celebrate how far I’ve come, how far away from it all I got. Most of the time, I can only see the mountain I have yet to climb. 

It’s a process and it will continue to be so.

Old friends feel distant, but there is no one I’m close enough here with to replace them. 

I will continue to thrash and scream and be the mess I am as I search for my place in this world. I hope you’ll join me. 

#denver #colorado #my city #new home #second home #adult home #what is home #spilled ink #spilled poetry #spilled words #thoughts #writing #self #growth #independence #changes #love #self love #place

[lucysgemz]

Love, a revolution

Women are taught to be afraid of aging, of losing their value to hairs turning grey and cobwebs growing in untouched places.

There is an abundance of industries that will only thrive for as long as women hate their bodies. 

I want to reclaim the ways I value my self and my body, crafted from millions of years of evolution. A body that is tough. That stretches but does not rip. That wrinkles but does not wither. That bruises but heals. That bleeds but does not die. 

I want to teach and learn love from other women because we have been taught hatred toward each other for so long. Mothers asking daughters to shrink in order to make room for sons. 

I want sisterhood. I want to rise with other woman, not be told I have to use them as stepping stones. 

#women #womens march #feminism #intersectional feminism #intersectionality #poetry #poem #declaration #love #spilled ink #spilled words #spilled poetry

[lucysgemz]

For my I-Ball

I came to the Grand Canyon not only to see its great beauty, red spires blanketed with white snow, vastness so inconceivable, but to say goodbye in a place larger than any church, a place that feels more like us, a place that is God’s kingdom itself, not a place to go worship it in. 

Your service was beautiful and filled with people who love you, but my memories of you are in the outdoors: on this very rim itself, rafting along the Colorado river, walking through Kentucky forests, covered in moss and dew, searching for morels, sitting on a porch and watching a pink and blue sunset over a Kentucky horizon.

You taught me to open my heart, see beyond the conventional, and love without hesitation. You spoke to me about philosophy when I was merely 9 years old. 

I let go of my sorrow for the way it ended and hold onto my love for you. You gave my mother life, and raised her so she could give me the best life. Thanks to you, my life has purpose, and I will live it with compassion and love in your name. 

#grand canyon #national park #outdoors #memorial #grandpa #family #poem #memory #sacred #kingdom #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #rest in peace

[lucysgemz]

When a man or a woman wants you to bow down

Step forward Claim your space

Just because their voice is louder, doesn’t mean they have better ideas

Don’t waste your time fighting the biggest fish in the tank when you can keep your mouth shut and scheme your escape to the ocean. 

#power #poetry #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #space #claim your space #words #mantras

[lucysgemz]

Arise Music Festival, 2016

Arise Music Festival healed my broken heart. I held hands with strangers and howled at the moon among canyon walls instead of holding my own shoulders, and tossing and turning in my bed. I fell asleep on hard ground that felt like a soft cocoon. I ate mushrooms and cried when Rising Appalachia played our song, only this time I was weeping because I’d finally allowed myself freedom.

It took the dryness of the desert, the dust coating my lungs and toes, sunshine naps induced by marijuana and alcohol, and most importantly, the realization that anything that did not feel better to me than my sweet solitude was too small for me. 

#festival vibes #music festival #colorado #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #old writing #2016 #healing #thank god for healing #opening #happiness #solitude #freedom

[lucysgemz]

To release the past and be grateful for all its perfect lessons....Why is forgiving myself so much harder than forgiving anyone else?

#spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #sentimental #questioning #growing #forgiveness #self love #self care

[lucysgemz]

My Bleeding Heart

I send you into the frontlines, with no armor, only a pen which you attempt to yield into an eraser, but all you get is smeared black ink.

Like The Postal Service song that makes you want to cry but you play it again and again, especially at night. Especially when it rains. 

You look forward to cold weather, where you can stay inside, wrapped up in blankets and lubricated with whiskey, as days pass by, then weeks. 

My poor heart, victim of Stockholm Syndrome without even knowing it.

I tell you how brave you are, how strong you are, how you can separate yourself from my head but you are just a bleeding heart; you are nothing compared to the forces that want to captivate you.

#poetry #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #spilled poetry #words #writing #poets on tumblr

[lucysgemz]

When You Think of Me

When you think of me,

    Do you sigh in relief?

Let my memory leave your brain the way your breath leaves your body. 

    Momentarily. 

Do you dust me off? 

     Pick me up and flick me onto the linoleum, like a piece of lint?

Or am I a lump in your throat?

     One you cannot swallow.

How do you think of me?

      If you think of me at all. 

#heartbreak #poetry #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #spilled poetry #words #my art #my work #my writing #my words

[lucysgemz]

Denver

Denver, I expected you to come and save me from mediocrity like a prince on a white horse or a winning lottery ticket or a mysterious godmother from another country sending me a letter with a whole new bargain on the table. 

Denver, you had a role to play in the fairy tale I’ve been repeating to myself for eight years: girl, escapes small town existence and finds her purpose. No more Diet Mountain Dew refills for toothless rednecks in a local diner. No more boredom. No more sitting in circles with groups of friends too stoned to get out a full sentence. No more forcing beers down in dark dive bars with too loud pop music playing. No more falling asleep next to a sandbag of a man who was oblivious to my anger and frustration.

Denver, you were supposed to be a cure-all. Beauty, adventure, happiness, purpose, excitement and love. But what I found was emptiness, a loneliness I’ve never known, one thousand miles away from everything I love. Where I expected inspiration, I found another dead-end. Where I expected beauty, I found alleyways reeking of piss, crawling with raccoon-eyed junkies with outstretched hands, trembling for a taste. Where I thought I’d find freedom, I felt more stuck between four walls than I ever have before. 

So depression comes more naturally to people like me, people who build homes in their heads. Depression slides on like an old sweater, comfortable. What did I think changing the scenery would do? 

#lost girls #poetry #words #depression #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #spilled poetry

[lucysgemz]

September

September has been sleepless. As the air cools I become increasingly restless, tossing and turning,

attempting to measure my value through the prism of an ex-lovers eyes, rubbing myself raw to convince myself that although I am alone, I am not lonely.

#words #things #stuff #poetry #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #spilled poetry

[lucysgemz]

Poem About A Poetry Reading

I’m standing at a crooked podium amid cheap tropical decor, multi-colored twinkle lights, fake snakes and parrots.

The lights are hot on my face.

I am not nervous.

The crowd consists of a lesbian couple: one falling asleep from taking too many pills and her girlfriend kissing her neck, biting her shoulder, rubbing her tenderly between the shoulders. Later she will get on the stage and dedicate a poem to her.

A black man sits in the back corner in a work uniform and a du-rag. He scribbles into a steno pad and talks furiously to himself.

A few hipsters sit quietly and listen, all fake eyeglasses and cuffed pants.They act interested, nodding as each poet comes to this stage to make some sort of declaration into this cheaply decorated vegan cafe -- a world apart from the nightlife of LoDo, all laughter and alcohol and collared shirts and attempts at sex. A world apart still from the Denver Skid Row next door, where body after body lay passed out in sleeping bags or tarps next to beers and Mountain Dews and needles and puddles of piss.

I catch the eye of a Hispanic man who has paused over his meal and is looking at me expectantly.

I clear my throat, prepare to launch into my well-rehearsed performance of the best poem I’ve ever written.

And what do I find?

You.

Your dark eyes.

The way they followed my words as I rehearsed this poem to you privately, before its first performance. All new love and summer sweat and stained shorts and alcohol.

The way they looked at me as though even though they have seen me a thousand times, they are just now seeing me for a part of who I was. The fire within me that I cannot control so I try my best to cultivate.

“We never questioned the existence of God.” I begin.

I wrote this poem before I ever met you yet every line is punctuated by those dark brown eyes.

I am a hurricane of a girl.

I thrash and toss and turn.

My favorite question is: “Why?”

I know a wound heals best when you do not touch it, yet, I continue to pick off all my scabs, knowing they will bleed but hoping that I can make something of that brilliant red.

I invite the skeletons in my closet to have dinner at my kitchen table, pouring them wine and hoping I can get a good poem out of our conversation.

I fall apart. Then I mend like a motherfucker.

Then I do it again.

It’s the ultimate contradiction.

“It’s no wonder so many writers blow their fucking brains out.” I say to my friend Hilary over beers after the reading.

We hold our memories and our regrets like the stones in Ophelia’s dress pockets.

We wear the stories and hurt of others like a noose around the neck.

I know exactly where the lifeboat is

yet I choose to drown in my own storm.

#writing #words #poetry #spilled ink #spilled words #spilled thoughts #mps

[lucysgemz]

Green Tourmaline

I spend my time alone walking along random paths, “thinking like a writer,” allowing the hypnotic pull of nature and the soothingly rhythmic pattern of one foot falling in front of the other to pull thoughts from my subconscious and form them into something “worth writing.” What is worth writing about? Or better yet, what is not worth writing about?

A small dusty, gravelled path broken off of a cement road in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, an oddly-shaped blue sign reading “Town Way to Water,” a few row boats and yellow kayaks carelessly strewn on either side of the path, which turns from dust to brown pine needles to mud as it gets closer to water. The thick, marshy grasses sharp enough to slice a finger open that surround the water’s edge, the few motorboats that skip along the soft waves of the bay, just barely kissing the muddy, seaweed-filled surface: these are all things worth writing about.

My sore back, the sharp edge between my shoulders for support, the dirt and small bits of gravel stuck to my bare thighs, each leaving their own, unique imprint. This is all a part of human nature, of the experience.

A single man in hiking boots and a moss-green shirt walks up to the water’s edge, giving me a wave before turning around and continuing his walk. He too has a story. Each evergreen tree surrounding the bay has a story, each one a different shade of green.

However, what has captivated my attention today is my necklace of Green Tourmaline.

You gave it to me as a token of your love; as a way to remember you always.

The stone is grey, green and gold, depending on the way the light hits its surface. You are going, going, gone, depending on the amount of alcohol you had to drink that night.

Green Tourmaline is a stone thought to bring the wearer self-love. You stole it from the dresser of another girl whom you lay your head with when you need somewhere to go and you don’t know that I know this, but I do.

When you gave it to me, I held it in my fingers: turning it, examining it, and trying to think of a way to make “us” work.

That night, when I told you I needed to be alone, your anger came in raised syllables, scathing name-calling and the dagger you thought you could drive into my heart: “This was all a mistake.”

You know as well as I do, that everyone who has ever loved you, left as soon as they were far enough away to see what you really are: a man who is falling into a canyon, hands desperately grasping for anything to pull you up. When you are too heavy for someone to pull over the edge, you have no problem dragging them down with you. I have descended further and further toward that rocky bottom each time I have tried to save you.

And the fear of watching you fall has prevented me from letting go.

So I wear this stone of Green Tourmaline, deep, cracks move through the stone, but the texture of it is smooth; a token of your love, something to help me remember you always

and I will.

I will remember to love myself enough to walk away from you.

#words #writing #poetry #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #cgm

[lucysgemz]

This is How You Lose Her

She is not the type to just give up, to walk away from anything. She is still working on drafts that she wrote six years ago. She is able to see the good in everything: the lines of promise in angsty, cliche, teenage poetry, the good intentions buried beneath the careless actions of another human. She forgives people like it is her job; like all you have to do is put out your recycling on the curb, on the right night of the week, and in she comes, like the garbage man. All your trash, she will take and turn it into something new, if you ask her to. If you leave it for her.

She can take a drunken swing at her delicate, little jaw from a man twice her size, or intimate text messages with an ex-girlfriend. Blinking away tears she will read them, telling herself: “We’re all human.” as she lays down the bricks to make a path for people to walk all over her. “We’re all gorgeously human and flawed.” It is a path that is free of obstacles, free of cobwebs, free of thorns, free of skeletons in her closet. She wants loving her to be easy, a walk in the park on a spring afternoon, so she tries to not be needy. She shuts herself away: puts every emotion to paper, tucks it in between black hardcover in her messy scrawl. She won’t let you see her reaction, the way her jaw trembles uncontrollably at phrases like “I don’t want to hold you back.” When you shut her out, she thinks maybe the best gift she can give you is to not give you any pieces of her at all. She won’t be angry; she will have forgiven you for leaving before you are even gone.

There won’t be dramatic phone calls or insults thrown your way or accusations of “Why, why would you hurt me?” You simply will stop talking to her and she will be forced to teach herself how to live without you and be as happy as she was before. It’s not a fast process, but she has done it before. She’s learned that emotions that aren’t dealt with will show their ugly heads in new ways so she is careful to take her time. She won’t throw herself under the body of another man but will throw herself into her work, learning not only how to do her job but the job of her supervisor, the job of her CEO. She will focus on her body, mastering yoga poses that she could not manage before. Breath steadying her shaking arms, letting go of everything that does not serve her with the exhale. She will write about her journey away from you, reminding herself that someday she will look back and read about her heartache, laughing and thinking “That wasn’t so bad.” But now your absence feels like a gaping hole that she can’t stop seeing, as she digs through her collection of unread books, she will miss telling you about the characters in them, the things she’s learning. If she’s lucky, six months from now she won’t still be waiting on a text message or phone call.

There is no definitive timeline for the process of moving on but she knows that one day, it will be like when you first met: she had finished years of putting herself back together after a malicious and toxic relationship that tore her apart. She’ll no longer think of you on Saturday afternoons, you in your khaki shorts, blue button down and black framed glasses. Some boy is going to approach her at a coffee shop or a park, ask her what she is reading, like they so often do. But this time, she will not dismiss him, but engage with him, take his number and actually call. She will know she is ready when she is no longer comparing him to you.

#writing #poetry #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #spilled words #spa guy spas: new 7 foot mps-52 hot tub tubs