I find there’s something a bit degrading about putting on makeup
The subtle message we send to ourselves that says
We’re not enough
More is needed
Something so sinister about dyeing our hair
Something so subtle
The clothes we wear
The smiles we try on for size
But they’re too big
Too small
Our faces have to pay
The price for it all
Sincerity
Is somewhere underneath
Buried with our hopes and dreams
That we could be not loved
Not appreciated
But just accepted
For who we are
-jenn
What if every life is a research assignment,
Crossbred with a game?
Our goal is to win,
And to win we are challenged to find out as much as we can
About the environment we have been born to?
The problem is
That we forget
That we are here to learn and experience.
We buy into the illusion of the backdrop,
And we get confused.
We think we are here to teach and
To express our particular made up experience,
Which is a distortion upon a distortion,
And thereby we confuse ourselves and others.
We encourage our own limitations,
And those of whom we love,
Anyone, in fact, with whom we come in contact.
But what if we can see,
Every life is a Jane Goodall,
Where all we view is good and all is bad
And everything in between?
But what if we have come to play this game
In the midst of the gorillas in the mist?
What if we take the time
To tame our own wild ego?
Maybe the promise is:
The game will get
A lot more interesting.
-jenn
Why are you hitting yourself
Hitting yourself
Hitting yourself
Why you keep hitting yourself
A sordid little game
That adolescents play
Not children
Because children are innocent and sweet
But usually someone a little bit older
The wannabe bully on the bus ride home
Would grab your own arm and slap your own face with it
And say
Why are you hitting yourself
Hitting yourself
Hitting yourself
Why you keep hitting yourself
Sometimes I find I am stuck in a loop
Of nonsensical drama
And invisible moving goal post hoops to jump through
And I felt like a dummy yesterday
With an unidentified demon
Having his way with me
Torturing me with an unrelenting update of autocorrect
I’m a wreck today
And just want to let everything go
Throw everything I own in the River of Timelessness
And watch it disappear on its descending twisted route to the sea
And quit letting people hit myself
With me
And also….quit hitting myself
-jenn
I read the letter again today,
The letter telling me to
Pray,
Morning, noon, and especially, at night.
The olde style cursive writing
Scrawled
Upon a yellowed gold-embossed stationery,
The blue ink now a steely gray,
A shaky hand has written to me:
“Thou must pray.”
“And furthermore,” she went on to say,
“We are obligated to practice kindness, humility, and correctness
With those we love,
And whomever we relate to in the greater circle
Of our family and our friends.
When we depart from these, we lose the aid
Of our higher power
And risk a great misfortune.”
I read the letter every day.
It takes great self-discipline,
Because it hurts my eyes to read
The lines I see so in between,
And my heart can hardly stand
To know the fate of the shaky hand who penned it.
And yet through bleary eyes I see,
This letter has come to me from the past
And travels ahead to the future,
No matter where I forward my address.
My mother’s mother’s mother’s words,
The visage of her, tall and slim,
And wispy as the Holy Ghost.
Austerity was her middle name
And wisdom her proclivity.
And she wanted me to hear
The way to get from a to b,
And b to c,
And c to d,
So that I might arrive unscathed,
Bathed in the light of peace and joy
And deep sagacity,
From night
To the deepest heart of day,
To come to reside again with my ancestors.
-jenn
The Dog has long been known as “man’s best friend,”
Because they can only listen.
But if they could talk,
And if they chose to,
Then they would be out!
On their own!
Kicked out,
For speaking their mind!
Because dogs are better than us…
Dogs are kind,
And loyal,
And if they began to question us brilliant humans
Why it is that we do the idiotic things we do,
Why we say what we say,
If they began to disagree with us,
We would shortly see
That we don’t know why we do these idiotic things we do,
Why we have such divisive hate-filled beliefs and speech.
In truth, we have no basis for believing any such things,
Much less commenting on them.
But…. we would quickly evict our pets
Right out of our lives,
Exclude them,
Like we do our husbands,
Like we do our wives,
And even our precious children,
Because we’ve grown too smart to live with them,
Or anyone else or anything that might question us,
Because the great knives of our intellect
Have divided everything,
Including our own hearts and eyes,
Until we are all nervous wrecks of pure exclusivity.
We have no room and no compatibility,
No willingness to include anyone
Or anything in our minds and lives.
And if dogs could talk,and if they chose to,
We would not have any room for them either.
I can only ever start with myself.
And so, just for today,
For my first twelve steps:
I will try to aim high
And be as good as a dog.
-jenn
