Category: Creative Writing

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Creative Writing Poetry

Mastery

If I subordinate beauty to brute force and logic,

Then I’m nothing but a pride-filled fool.

Art embodies a being only birthed in servitude;

Such a spirit cannot be beaten into submission.

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Creative Writing

There was a curiosity and insight I had as a child,

That I have still, though muffled by each year added to me as I grew taller, and more afraid.

I want to be like how I was before, in the truth of who I am right now –

I want to feel things, not distance myself

From how I see people, how things hit me.

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Creative Writing

Whose I am

When all the days are full of a battle for what’s been given me,

Physicality eludes me and I wish that I could take some time to let challah dough rise

Or a moment to feel the freezing air seeping through the seams in the house,

Like when I sat drinking coffee a week ago and the rim of the mug reflected a band of sunlight around the room, encircling me.

I replay in my mind how much linen stretches when stapled to a wooden frame, how paint-strokes flow when the brush is anointed with oil.

I want to relive the mirth and delight in your eyes, and the joy I feel when I share in how I see the world, what I find beautiful,

And I think we both find beauty terrible, even fearful, in its greatness.

I am afraid of pausing for too long – when I stop, it uncovers the things that lie heavy on my heart, and there’s too many of those for me to lose momentum.

Each moment, my breath is given to me, and I am reminded of whose I am.

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Creative Writing Poetry

Roadside pines

I am a bough bent low beneath the heavy snow,

One of a thousand trees on a long pilgrimage

Turned funeral procession, the weight of the cold

Breaking the backs of young and old.

Bruised, I bow in prayer as others

Trudge on through the night, cloaked in woolen white

Creaking in the freezing of the ground

And all that grows in it.

Slumber becomes so sound that the day knows no light or dark.

Everything seen on the trail of frozen tears

Is crowned in glory, frigid, and stark.

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Creative Writing Poetry

My sadness rises like a mist

And thoughts toll like a bell through fog,

Resounding from a place I fear

And I find no one there to hold.

Only holy, invisible things to weep for,

My shoulders rising and falling

With the air in my lungs,

My tears falling onto my father’s coat.

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Creative Writing

Coming home in layers of wool, I feel more like an itchy sweater than a person. I don’t feel like a person, I feel like a hole in the wall – I feel like shrinking into a ball the size of a field mouse, forgetting who I am and staring at the stars, who tell me that I am something, everything, and nothing all at once.

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Creative Writing Poetry

Withdrawn, drawn up

If I were in the sylvan glade, I would be stretched out on the grass

Engulfing me with its green sweetness, the warm earth pulsing at my back.

Iridescent clouds melt across a periwinkle sky,

Shimmering pools lap against black sands, bubbling from essence that falls from eternal heights.

I would reach out my arms and feel the tender tendrils and blossoms kiss me with joy –

I’d kiss them back and then I’d raise myself up off the ground

And go where my eyes take me always, up above the molten clouds.

Higher I tumble, and up I glide, the green land beneath me growing,

Stretching as far as every horizon – a golden circlet for the earth, wide.

I rise like a dove on the sweet orange winds until I reach the place that’s beckoned to me all this time, unknowing.

Glassy crystal waves and shines so that I can scarcely see through – I place my palm against it and nearly feel pierced through

With its icy burn and sweet sting.

Beyond, golden creatures flow in and through and all throughout, their faces of prism scarce peer out.

If they do, it splits my heart into a thousand minnows

Swimming in the warm shallows of the sea.

Then one celeste rests a gaze on me and does not take it off

My mind cannot utter a sound and my heart is reduced to ash ~

I am grasped by heaven’s hands and

Searingly, blindingly, euphorically, helplessly,

I am pulled up in a flash.

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Creative Writing

Though I cannot fathom you, nor your love,

I have both within me

And I know you are working to bring something to light, to bring yourself to my eyes, to show me your Spirit, and not my might.

I wonder at the world you’ve created,

And what you’ve created me to do –

And I’ve become impatient to do what I need to,

To find what I truly long for.

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Creative Writing Poetry

Co-creation

As the artist is taught to see beauty, and to seek out wisdom,

The spirit of truth seizes him, and doesn’t let go-

Breath catches as the transcendent unfolds,

Any shell of false disdain falling away.

Before his eyes the face of the Creator appears,

And he sees that his Lord has a face not different from his.

Meek and mighty, the Artist of all

Loves all, saves all, sees all.

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Creative Writing

Words in the dust

I stumble across writing in the dust,

And in my foolishness I wish it was a message from You.

You know my heart, and know my sin

Of looking for a sign in emptiness,

So I am humbled, but still wish most of all

That You’d speak to me, and tell me

That You are near.

You inscribed on stone and my people strayed,

You traced words in the dust, and drove men away.

I want to be engraved on your palms,

For us to walk by each other’s side,

Bound more than a body to soul.