Where Hope Comes From Read online

  creating cosmic theories using apple trees.

  And the muse still sat on the shoulder

  of Edvard Munch during the Spanish Flu, his body riddled with disease,

  and yet his self-portraits captured more than his gaunt face,

  they showed his burning urge to stay alive to paint another masterpiece.

  Yet to me, no inspiration finds its way.

  Instead I look more often out my window to the roads,

  to an empty horizon of street lights

  in the summer of a Saturday night.

  It is a small act of protest,

  just to be here and still alive.

  This, too, is worthy living.

  And it will do just fine.

  On My Government-Mandated Walk

  I saw that the pub we love

  now has a For Sale sign in the window.

  No bright lights

  or warm fireplace.

  You’ll be glad to know, though,

  the mismatched armchairs are gone, too.

  I know how much they bothered you.

  Inside is now an empty, eerie building.

  Once full of life

  and now nothing.

  I worry about Lou who manned the bar,

  always a smile for everyone.

  I worry that Charlie and Mary

  may not be able to find other jobs.

  So this is what happens

  to buildings once they lose their people.

  The same as what happens to people

  when they lose the ones they love.

  They become ghostly things,

  monuments of memory,

  as do all possessions and people

  that once upon a time knew such deep, life-giving love.

  Stay

  It’s always on the tip of my tongue.

  I sprinkle it in thought at the end

  of every sentence I trade with you.

  Have you eaten today? Please stay.

  What do you miss most? Please stay.

  We’ll go for a picnic one day. Please stay.

  Did I tell you that stars can survive

  for millennia without meeting other stars?

  Please stay.

  Have you got enough medication? Please stay.

  We are all just water and stardust anyway.

  Please stay.

  If I promise you a day at the beach,

  will you promise me

  you will be safe?

  Promise me you will not turn

  into tendrils of smoke and ash

  and memory.

  Promise me you will be alive at the end of this

  so we can tell our grandchildren

  these stories.

  Please stay.

  Please stay.

  Please stay.

  The Truth Is…

  George Floyd believed in second chances

  and community and his daughter’s smile.

  Elijah McClain had the gentlest heart

  and played violin to soothe stray cats.

  Breonna Taylor spent her days and nights

  helping other people hold on to their lives.

  What they deserved is what all humans deserve.

  A full life. More gentle greetings from the neighbors

  as they leave for work in the mornings.

  More family dinners filled with laughter and joy.

  More affection and arguments with their lovers.

  Warm arms to hold them when they are sad.

  New things to learn about love and the soul.

  More victories that bring them glory and lessons

  from life’s defeats. Future friends to celebrate with.

  More people to be proud of and who are proud of them.

  A chance.

  To grow and to love.

  A chance.

  To find peace.

  My Grandmother and I Are Talking About Death Again

  Over the phone, her voice feels

  even further than the thousands of miles

  between us. We talk every Saturday,

  but time has lost its meaning during the plague.

  She says endings are sacred.

  I tell her that they are painful.

  Her voice is steady,

  For endings to evolve us,

  they must be painful.

  She says death is faithful. It follows us

  from the moment we are born

  till we finally learn to welcome it.

  When she speaks like this,

  I feel like a maze of frozen streets.

  An aimless wandering.

  Stricken by even the idea

  of a world without her in it.

  And here we are again, talking about death.

  I grip the phone and tell her

  she is the only holy I know.

  How she must promise me

  that, no matter what,

  we will see each other again.

  That we will always see each other again.

  I picture her smile through the phone,

  lace tablecloth under careworn, gentle fingers,

  the phone shaking against her ear.

  One day you must learn

  that the god you are seeking

  will always live in the act of letting go.

  I Wonder What They Would Put in a Museum for Our Times

  Masks. The fear of them. The words of the people who called them safety, and the cries of the people who named them muzzles. Photos of empty cities and of fiery protests. The callousness of politicians who did not care. The helplessness of the people who did but could not make a difference. The doctors and nurses who gave their lives fighting for their patients. The trauma of those who had to die alone. The families who had to say goodbye to their loved ones over the phone. The shock that we could not even attend their funerals because that was how the virus spread. The devastation that we could not even bury our dead. Walls upon walls dedicated to the thousands of names sealed forever in time. A promise to protect the legacies they leave behind. The burning words, Your Death Will Not Be in Vain and Never Forget. The oaths taken that there is more to live for and to fight for yet.

  After the First Death

  You learn you cannot say goodbye.

  That you cannot bury them,

  for the illness spreads when people collect.

  Even funerals are not exempt.

  But mourning, like living, is a verb,

  no matter how lonely.

  They tell you losing people is hard,

  but they neglect to say,

  Can you cope with it, truly,

  when the world itself is lost?

  How endings within endings

  are never easy.

  When the anguish comes to stay,

  it haunts the whole bedroom

  and then the house.

  It is so heavy, so consuming,

  that we have no choice but to turn it into stories

  to keep the memories strong.

  After all, who else will become

  the keeper of their tales

  other than your wounded mouth?

  Part of you may die with them,

  but the stories will stay

  to help you live.

  From Everything Broken

  There is nothing beautiful

  about the wreckage

  of a human being.

  There is nothing pretty

  about damage, about pain,

  about heartache.

  Yet still, despite the ruin,

  they show an ocean of courage

  when they pick through the debris of their life

  to build something beautiful, brand new,

  against every odd

  that is stacked against them.

  And there is no denying

  that this,

  this is exquisite.

  Two Texts for Those I Let Go

  (To the ex-best friend)

&
nbsp; I know this may mean little, coming from me,

  but from one small human to another,

  I want you to know that love

  felt this deeply, this fully, is never lost.

  We did not come into the art of this

  just to lose ourselves.

  We came to turn our bodies

  into beacons of hope,

  forever calling to each other

  in a language only we understand.

  It is the end of the world.

  I hope you let the sunlight in for longer these days.

  (To the person named Destruction)

  People forget that their actions

  not only have consequences,

  but victims and witnesses.

  People who will carry what you said

  or did within their bone marrow,

  your disrespect in their sinews.

  You are chaos theory:

  a butterfly who caused a hurricane

  for which you refuse to take responsibility.

  There is no goodness in that.

  Still, I hope you are safe and warm

  and happy wherever you are.

  Supernova (Reflection)

  noun

  • ASTRONOMY

  A star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its mass.

  • INFORMAL

  The moment just before death, when a star shines its very brightest.

  Reasons to Live Through the Apocalypse

  Sunrises. People you have still to meet and laugh with. Songs about love, peace, anger, and revolution. Walks in the woods. The smile you exchange with a stranger when you experience beauty accidentally together. Butterflies. Seeing your grandparents again. The moon in all her forms, whether half or full. Dogs. Birthdays and half-birthdays. That feeling of floating in love. Watching birds eat from bird feeders. The waves of happiness that follow the end of sadness. Brown eyes. Watching a boat cross an empty sea. Sunsets. Dipping your feet in the river. Balconies. Cake. The wind in your face when you roll the car window down on an open highway. Falling asleep to the sound of a steady heartbeat. Warm cups of tea on cold days. Hugs. Night skies. Art museums. Books filled with everything you do not yet know. Long conversations. Long-lost friends. Poetry.

  In Self-Quarantine, Watching My Cat from My Bedroom Window

  I hope one day I become

  as gifted at recognizing

  love as my cat is.

  I named him after the poet

  with the darkest, largest heart

  and I think of ravens

  every time I call his name.

  He is not obedient,

  but I would not want him tame.

  His tightly coiled body as he stalks birds,

  his discerning look when he hears

  his name but does not wish to come home.

  I, too, hope to be that confident in a love.

  Someone who I know will still love me,

  even if I do not run to them

  every time they call.

  Hindsight

  All because everything is forbidden now,

  I want to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower

  and sing at the top of my lungs.

  I want to visit every museum and gallery

  I have put off visiting

  because work got in the way.

  I want to touch the walls

  of cathedrals and temples

  in fervent prayer.

  I want to jump in the ocean

  and not even care about my fear of sharks

  because viruses kill more people than sharks ever could.

  I want to tell everyone

  I was too afraid to love that, truly,

  I do love them.

  Hug them tighter.

  Stop time so I can enjoy each kiss longer.

  Be more reckless.

  Dream bigger.

  Chase storms.

  Befriend strangers.

  Fight less often.

  Love a little harder.

  See falls for what they are,

  a place from which you can only go higher.

  See failure for what it is,

  just another chance to be a better learner.

  Every argument

  as a chance to be a better listener.

  Breathe in all the sweet air deeper.

  All of this resolution is too late because

  I did not appreciate life’s magic

  when it was in my hands.

  All this resolution now—

  that I will hold on to till the air is safe

  to breathe freely again.

  Daily Mantra 2

  There is still room for love.

  Even after being uprooted

  or when survival is painful.

  Even through trauma.

  Just ask the universe

  when it aches too much to see,

  it will tell you how the big bang

  was when everything broke so it could be.

  Letter to My Younger Self in Times of Turbulence

  Love yourself dangerously. In all the places no one else dares to love you. Fulfill this yearning for yourself. The primal love you hold within your stormskin commands you. All the deep sadnesses made of words and wounds are no match for the pain of a broken heart. From within your own muscle and sinew, you can do this. You can do this—you hold the secret to surviving within your solitude. Fill journals, make art, make beautiful things just for yourself. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks of them, all that matters is what you think of your own vulnerability. Smile at the skies. You are still here; you are still alive.

  And when the thoughts of mortality come to haunt you, think of how nothing is eternal. Everything else accepts it. The gentle robin at your window and even the fearsome tiger in the wild. And if they accept not being eternal, so should you. Your mortality, after all, is the beauty of you. To burn brighter than the sun if only for a matter of seconds to the universe, you are the chrysalis and butterfly, the ember and the wildfire, the story and its ending. Embrace that, embrace it, because this is all you have. This is all we all have. A chance to make something beautiful.

  When you feel death has your name on it, tell it to wait another day. You still have so much more to do. Then live, live the way you have never lived before, whether as a quiet celebration or a war song. Only LIVE. That is all that was ever asked of you. It is all you have ever had to give.

  You are not immortal.

  And this, too, is a gift.

  Baking Banana Bread as the World Ends

  These are things I have not noticed in a while.

  The way the sun shines through the kitchen window

  after furious thunder and lightning, little dancing droplets make small rainbows.

  How the fragrance of a watery world,

  softened soil and sky water, is lifted by the breeze

  so it can meet me at the open window.

  This world is a different realm now.

  And I am a new survival,

  aggressively hopeful and kind,

  baking for the people I love,

  pretending good cheer to keep the smiles going.

  I thought the apocalypse would be a loud,

  angry, breathless thing.

  Instead, it sits with me on the porch,

  fresh-baked banana bread crumbling

  from its fingers and mine,

  looking out quietly at the sparkling rainwater driveway

  while I post glittery happy pictures on Twitter about what I will eat for dinner.

  Notes on Survival

  You are allowed to break.

  Everything does.

  The stars grow tired and fall.

  The waves crash against rocks and shores.

  Trees fall for both storms and wind

  leaving behind seeds and saplings

  so a version of them may grow again.

  Storm
clouds part for rain

  then part for the sun to come through.

  Night must break for day

  and day for night in a cycle.

  The world is made of broken things

  piecing themselves back together

  —this is what gives us the most resilient stories.

  So why do you think that you were made

  any differently than the night and the storm clouds?