Category: Photography

Hey y’all. I mentioned taking some time off WP one post back, and I’m extending that break to the fall.  I may blog between now and then. I may not.  I don’t know. I do know I’m in one of my antisocial, introverted, melancholy moods.  I’m tired of humanity at the moment, or the lack thereof.  Imagine a world where empathy won out over apathy, where instead of me, me, me it was WE. Self absorption is killing us. I’m just as guilty of it as everyone else. 

Things always look better in the fall. Hopefully, the cooler weather will spark my creativity and energy. I’m blessed more than not.  This Debbie Downer thing will pass. In the meantime, be well.  Lots of love. 

Below you will find a poem and song.  Take care. 

Winter Mindset 

Calming breath as I walk in the cold. The sky cast in a sober shade of melancholy. On the ground a thin layer of snow, lined by my footprints, creating a circle. Feet that have lost their direction. No faith in the journey. My heart blue with evening. My soul in the dark hours. My mind in paraphrase.

Soon it will be a New Year. Time to let go of past regrets, focus on the now. Toss out our bad habits and scrawl a new list. Do I still have use for such things?

Soon January will mutate into February. Hibernation is a kind of conservation, I remind myself. I could live inside, sleep until spring comes. Let my dreams refurbishes and rehabilitate. No longer full of Cinderella wishes, but still so very wishful.

I’m not as young or as uncomplicated as I once was. My spirit has never been still. The future is an Edward Hopper’s painting, a lost penny on the side of the highway. Perhaps, this is what purgatory is like: the scent of falling snow, the taste of ash, the endless road of what was, the journey to what will be.

As I walk back inside. I catch a glimpse of myself in the living room window. For a moment, I see the reflection of the girl I used to be. Shy. Timid. Meek. She was always happy to linger in the hallway outside her life.

Would I go back to the days before I became unmoored, before my life accumulate in experience, sorrows, and lessons learned? I don’t think I would. A dust free existence isn’t really living, is it? The artful dodge is only artful for so long.

Perhaps, Purgatory really is where we understand the multiplicity of self. That what’s left for us, is what we make it. Maybe I’ve been trying too hard to remove myself from the syllables. Perhaps, there’s grace in the old nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and hope in the new ones. 

As I go to close the front door; I note my footprints, and how the snow looks brighter and softer in the half light. Could it be my steps have purpose, even if the heaven I’m looking for isn’t there?

-Tosha Michelle
https://g.co/kgs/fLBfDv

I am not she.
The view is not the same.
I sit by roses but don’t
see the thorns.
Even after all these years,
still full of the blush
of wonder

My air is warm, fragrant.
My heart speaks of
watercolor nights and
a breathless yearning.

I’m wild for you, but not
afflicted. I recite charms
through verse and song
by a bending light.

I speak in sunlight even
when the cumuli
starts to gather. Lying
face down in the grass.
Hope imprinted on my cheek.

My heart bleeds in syntax.
Just a gleaming of my
streaming soul. Writing what
touches me best.
Love. Fear. Happenstance.
A trembling mind.

The punctuation peppered
with sea salt and caramel.

I steadfastly sit by the ocean
as the boats drift away.
I choose to contend with the
wind. Making a symphony
with the air.

Chopin playing against
the elements and tide.
Never just a passing note,
or a mere flash of a melody
burning or receding.

Here the pitch rings a psalm
of stormy serenity, a
rain-cleansed sun in a
perpetual state of grace.
The perverse strength
of fragility and hazel eyes.

-Tosha Michelle

My cover of “Almost Lover”
https://m.soundcloud.com/tosha-michelle2020/almost-lover

What happens in the chamber
of a narrow mind?
Does the air grow thin?
Does the dim light flicker?
What would happen if
a door opened?
If they dared to look beyond it? If they viewed the world as it is, cracked but not broken?
If they acknowledged not only voices that speak with the loudest inflections, but those small voices that bend?
Imagine if they saw liberty as
not just a ruse but something
that belongs to everyone?
The axis of the Earth not
just them, but you and me too.

-Tosha Michelle

And on an unrelated music note.  

“We’re like Romeo and Juliet
We’re like 40 dogs; cigarettes
We’re like good times that haven’t happened yet, but will
And I can tell you where we’re gonna be
When the whole world falls to the sea:
We’ll be living ever after, happily”

Sometimes we have
to move beyond the full
length mirror, the curled
hair, the made up face,
the audience waiting
for a grand illusion.
We’re all an imperfect play,
hoping someone will take
note of the things we leave
out. See beyond the war paint
and hot iron, and find enchantment
in a confusing plot. We want someone
to love our secrets, our darker selves as they
tumble off the stage, stained
crimson from the fall, to love
our grief, our less than moments
where we dance over our own shadow, into chaos.
Someone who’d traded their own conflicts
and essentials with us, take our hand,
pull us up, and show us something generous,
pure and beautiful.

Incomplete, but together we
walk into the night,
all our bitter truths in the wind.
We journey on, our own fallen civilization
of happenstance romance. Finally, understanding
this is love, this is love the way the broken do it.

-Tosha Michelle