Tag: art

Love Me

Published on by Tosha Michelle90 Comments

Love me, not just my body,
but the curvature of my being.
Take me as I am, as I’ll be.
Give me the quiet music
of your heart. Teach me
the lyrics and tune.

Love me for infinity, and not
just indefinitely. Tell me
we can work, if we work
for it as if it were our livelihood.
As if it were our art.

Love me enough to make
revisions to replenish.
Let me be the black and
blue uprooting your veins.

Love me from the inside out,
where the echos are heard everywhere.
Let me be your irreplaceable.
This body, this spirit, this future corpse.
Let me translate and soothe in a language
that’s never been anywhere but us.

Love me with substance and let our love
be a love of existence. Knowing I’m flawed,
that I’m nothing special but knowing
I’m enough for you.

Love me, like an
idea fully formed, like a love poem
filling the paper to capacity, full of hope,
written at the desk by heart light.

Love me, like yours is the hand
holding the pen.
Let the rhythm belong to you.
Love me, like I’m the
syntax of your verse,
the reason behind your rhyme.

Love me,

Tosha Michelle

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I Can’t Hear You.

Published on by Tosha Michelle15 Comments

Raise your hand if you’re tired of keeping company with anxiety, perpetuated by a relentless virus and the dwindling sanity coming out of Washington. The wind there cold and reeking of hubris and greed. Empathy becoming a supernatural thing.


Raise your hand if you’re losing your patience with narcissistic behavior and a culture more into canceling humans instead of reforming them, a society on the precipice of being nothing more than a hollow hulk.


Raise your hand if you’re done with the self absorbed and lack of regard for community. People happy to button their own coats but with no time to consider their neighbor’s thread bare wear.


Raise your hand if you’re tired of apathy, of those wrapped in a flannel sleep, Always content to let others shovel the coals.


Now instead of raising our hands, let raise our voices. Don’t wish for lungs that can sing. Sing! Step up! Be visible. Be heard. The dark blistering rain is not quite frozen yet. Prove that all the light did is far from done.

-Tosha Michelle

Deity in Diversity

Published on by Tosha Michelle105 Comments

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Maybe someday we will
have written about humanity
and grace so much
that the paper we scribble on
will burn down
the forest of hate
that grows in casket-closed minds,
eradicating words like
racism, hate, bigotry.

The fire cleansing away
evil and ignorance.
Strike a match with
your pen.

Let’s try at least to
direct the language toward love.
Let’s keep moving the
adjectives higher and higher.
Trust the verbs to lead us,
the pin of light, to the fire.

Maybe as the trees come undone,
leaves igniting,
branches bursting with truth,
charity and clarity will rise.
Rustling beneath skin.
Love rising, tapping deep.
Opening eyes and cleaning tongues
in the dialect of compassion.
Hope slipping into the core.
Porous and large.
Looking out in every direction
until it is inside the sky,
the rocks, the moon.
Lacing the night and hearts with promise,
the rainy season finally over.

Until then, let your pens sway
against the dark waves.
Let’s push our boats against the current.
Light the candle wick.
Kiss it with fervor.
Give flame to the wind and waves.

-Tosha Michelle

Photo, my own 

Johnny and June

Published on by Tosha Michelle7 Comments
Hey y’all. It’s been awhile. Life just keeps getting busier and busier but it’s a lovely kind of busy. I really haven’t been writing much. I’ve been in reading mode for ages now. I’m still on a Johnny Cash kick. In that vein, everyone knows you can’t have Johnny without June so I thought I’d share a few of my favorite videos.

I love their love story, not because it was a fairytale, because it wasn’t. Their marriage wasn’t always an easy road, just like their courtship, they had to struggle and battle to keep the love they had. They went through some hard times through their 40 years together. They almost divorced at one point during the early 80s, but ultimately they never gave up and that’s what’s true commitment and love is all about. In their later years, they were closer than they had ever been and more in love. In my opinion, that makes their love affair  so much better than a fairytale because it was real and genuine. Very few of us live happily ever after, but many of us live happily after all. As June Carter always like to say “steel is strong because it knew the hammer and white heat”

Here’s Johnny and June on their way to Jackson. As a side note, this song was inspired by Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
And one of my favorites of theirs. “Long Legged Guitar Picking Man”  such a playful song . 
This next video is not the best quality, but it’s so poignant. Time catches up with us all. June would die 8 months after this was filmed and Johnny would follow her 4 months later. It’s makes the words their singing so moving, It’s a wonderful love song of hope and redemption, and the promise of never ending peace.

How to be an Expert at Life.

Published on by Tosha Michelle116 Comments

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Praise imperfections.
Ask questions.

Don’t fear the answers.
Do fear snakes, toads,
and Donald Trump’s hair.

Adore books, animals,
weaknesses, the broken,
and growing older.

Find a love to orbit around.
Have a constellation seeking brain.
A heart that star gazes.

Don’t trip on what’s been
gone for years.

Walk hand in hand with today.

The one seemly not
telling the truth is
the one you should
listen to the hardest.

Pay attention to your
conscience, make
sure it’s really yours.

Know there’s beauty;
in words. The ones
you use and the ones
you leave out.

Read the classics.
Brighten to artistry
Don’t be afraid to improvise.

Listen to jazz while
drinking iced coffee.

Don’t admire yourself
too much, this can
lead to disaster.

There are two types
of people in the world,
be neither of them.

Know sometime what
seems useless is
full of meaning.

Learn how to bend,
not break.

Lose yourself to love,
to madness.
Always carry a suitcase
full of mischief.
A passport of adventure.

Don’t forget to add a dash of moonlight.
Season the nights with heat.

Create the scene.
Live it.

Lose your shoes and inhibitions.

Split the wishbone.

Know nothing important
comes with a manual.

Just because your
spirit is tangled,
doesn’t mean your
soul has to be tied in a knot.

Be full of vigor,
meaningful chit chat
and chocolate. Lots
of chocolate!

Know there is holiness in the missteps.
Grace in the fumbles.

Remain unfinished.
Be the light.

-Tosha Michelle

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Published on by Tosha Michelle13 Comments

Tom Hanks portrayal of Mister Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is so realistic one almost feels like Mister Rogers is still with us. It’s such a glorious film. If you’re lucky enough to see it make sure to have a tissue in hand. I’m tearing up just writing this. I was a mess during the actual film. It’s message is so timely given the current state of the world.

The beauty of Fred Rogers was how he never lost faith in humanity. For thirty years he taught children the importance of kindness, love and forgiveness. Those themes are reiterated in the film which focuses on the friendship between Mister Rogers and journalist Tom Juno. The two meet when Juno is tasked to write an article on the beloved hero of so many of our childhoods. I can’t praise this movie enough. It’s surprisingly dark in places which makes the sweeter moments more poignant. Here’s the trailer, followed by a few of my favorite quotes from the film.

“To die is human, and anything human is mentionable. Anything mentionable is manageable.” – Fred Rogers

“Do you know what forgiveness means? It’s a decision we make to release a person from the feelings of anger we have against them.” – Fred Rogers

“Sometimes it’s hardest to forgive the ones we love.” -Mr. Rogers

“Just take a minute and think about all the people who loved us into being.” – Mr. Rogers

“I think the best thing we can do is to let people know that each one of them is precious.” – Mr. Rogers

“He’s just about the nicest person I’ve ever met.” Tom about Fred

On Roses and Netted Woods

Published on by Tosha Michelle16 Comments

Hello lovely ones. I’m sorry I’m so sporadic with my posts. I can’t promise I’ll do better, but I thank you all for sticking around. On a random note, going to see the Mister Rogers film this afternoon, excited for it. He was such a beautiful soul. I’m sure Tom Hanks did him justice. Now for a poem. I hope you like it. Happy Monday!

——–

In the journey of my life,
the voyage of self awareness 
 I’ve fed on roses,
walked through woods netted
with bramble 
Mixed metaphors and signals.
I’ve had glimpses of narcissism,
flirted with egoism, had brushes 
with bitterness, doubted my worth.
I’ve questioned the validity of the sun
and found solace in torrential rains.
I’ve left small bruises on paper,
but nothing that hasn’t been felt
by others more lyrical than me.
I’ve had childlike faith and believed
in the flickering of fireflies, even now,
as the days grow shorter,
each year the footnotes longer.
Finally I’m home again, content to sit in 
our garden and pay attention to the
call notes gathering in the air.
The bird sings sweetly, no 
longer in her wicker cage. I join 
her chorus, besotted with the 
fever of a life living and lived. 
-Tosha Michelle
 
Goofy goodness
 

Fire Escape

Published on by Tosha Michelle18 Comments
“Walking home your hand in mine
Tattoos on the river line
The morning birds are taking flight
Either way I thought that you should know

You’re my number one
You’re the reason I’m still
up at dawn
just to see your face
We’ll be going strong
with the vampires, baby
We belong, we belong awake“

https://youtu.be/KfU-S6ovooQ