Tag: beauty

Paradoxically is Such a Fine Word.

Published on by Tosha Michelle149 Comments

image

I’ve been besotted with chocolate.

I’ve been confused
by broccoli.

I’ve been stung by hornets,
but still I stirred the nest.

I’ve tripped over my mangled
spirit walking the narrow way.

I’ve prayed with fervor.
I’ve sinned with grace.

I’ve courted darkness.
I’ve loved the light.

I’ve questioned the sun.
Its answers reflected back
in the hourglass.

I’ve remembered to thank the academy of monotony:
laundry, vacuuming, dusting.

I’ve had it all: the sky, the finicky moon, the unfolded map.

I’ve got lost in a roundabout,
trying to navigate my mind.

I’ve lived well in unsettled hues.

I’ve been Saturday, Sunday,
and Monday.

I’ve tasted ash, eaten roses,
demanded a life of flames.

I’ve been a lunatic and lover.

I’ve been the Patron Saint
offering my protection.

I’ve been Judas,
freely spending the silver.

I’ve nearly drowned in the past’s harsh syllables.

I’ve held a grudge.
I’ve forgiven.

I’ve found a second soul.
I transcribe it in chaos and peace.

My heart circumventing the paradox.

I’ve learned how to rearrange the letters of myself in a sentence that fits.

Casting away yesterday’s syntax.

Coming unmoored.

I move toward clarity’s
swinging door as fast as
a sip through a straw.

I make my getaway.

The quarrel with myself over.
I stand at attention,
dust free.

I’ve survived.

-Tosha Michelle

Advertisements

Turn It Up

Published on by Tosha Michelle34 Comments

image

Sometimes we just have to
tap our foot at the life we have
like we would to a familiar tune.
Sometimes there seems to
be a halfway point between
where you’ve been and where
you want go. But you’re stuck
on the side of the road where
the landscape looks dead, but
still you find some pretty in the trees
and that song in your head.
You sing full-lunged as you
toe tap down the highway.
And for a moment it doesn’t matter
what came before or what came after.
You don’t think about where you live
or where supper comes from.
You aren’t concerned with hunger or restlessness.
You just keep going forward, windswept and hope kept,
all too ready to be struck by something reckless,
something mad. Something so intensely hot
it could strike you dead.

-Tosha Michelle

High Praises

Published on by Tosha Michelle81 Comments

image

Oh Goddess of rejections,
insecurities, sleepless
nights, and the sink
that always seems to leak.

Oh Goddess of loneliness,
depression, evenings spent
looking for hope in the
foggy light of isolation.

Oh Goddess of endless
chores, mundane errands,
always lurking around,
watching me toil and spin.

Goddess of painful memories
collected in a heart jar.
Unfulfilled dreams and desires.
The oil slick of wasted time.

I love you for forcing me to feel;
As I stand here holding onto
the railing of my sanity.

I thank you for the hands
wrapped around my neck.

For each tussle with the sun,
that always hides behind
a cloud of chaos.

At least I’m still here, kicking,
and dodging, the shadow crop of
my mind. I know how to make fire,
while others still struggle with flint.

For you it was never about high praises.
You live for the forlorn.
You know the insincerity of the thorn bush.

I praise you for the shattered,
the weeds, the bee stings, the
thunder clouds, every skinned knee,
wilted flowers, the dove that
refuses to eat from my hand.

Oh Goddess of imperfection,
You know that despair is the beauty
life and poetry are made of.

Thank you for teaching me this.
My tears and words sing back
a hallelujah for the pain.

-Tosha Michelle

Somewhere 

Published on by Tosha Michelle39 Comments

In the atmosphere, I have fallen.
I will not wake or be woken.
In my bed clouded by air.
I lie alone but not lonely.
Uncertain of certainty.
In this brief windswept hour,
the heavens spare a glance,
or maybe just a lark
I always wish on Jupiter
thinking it’s a star.
I write, knowing I can’t
rescind it.
The words heart colored
Legible only to me.
It is good until it is not.
Tell me there’s a comet somewhere

-Tosha Michelle

What Do You Hear?

Published on by Tosha Michelle28 Comments

Hello lovely ones. Happy Sunday. This blog post is a mix of of beauty, fashion and poetry. Please excuse the no makeup, hair in a messy bun look in the video 

Sometimes when low dark clouds hang above a
mind that is usually crystal
When lucid thoughts
become cluttered with
distorted perceptions.
When negative voices
linger in the darken chamber
speaking in disorder tones.
It’s hard not to become
brittle and break.

But if we can silences those
naysayers for just a moment
Maybe we can hear the sweet
cadence of a call note
reminding us of life’s affirmations and blessed beatitudes.
Maybe we can release ourselves
from desperation and self doubt. As hope’s
breathless alert finally resounds.

-Tosha Michelle
​​

Stage Leaps

Published on by Tosha Michelle105 Comments

Renewal happens in stage leaps

and high dives.

Under the water waits another 

life, another world 

Listen to the keening of the day.

Spring always comes around again.

The sun doesn’t move but we can.

Don’t be afraid to shimmer 

to put on new skin.

Let your heart be hungry 

Knowing whatever you become

next will be better. 

Shed your claws, your regrets 

The air is brighter but the time

finite. Jump into the arms of 

the novel of your life while

there still time to live the story. 

-Tosha Michelle 

Laying the Blues Down

Published on by Tosha Michelle48 Comments

image

I’m tired of dragging my
hurts round like a stick
along jail cell bars.

And my tune always broken,
and the warden always asking
for some change.

Let me lie down on a cot,
or in the middle of the floor
and scatter my grievances
and self abuse all around.

And wait for another inmate
with a bottle of whiskey
and harmonica, who knows
how to play the blues, to
come and sit down beside me

And we’ll harmonize our angst
like pressing a finger to a bleeding wound.

And our hearts may be broken organs,
but we’ll pluck a banjo from it’s strings.

And we’ll sing until the night
opens for us like a door.

And let our song carry us as
far as the sky will go or, at least
to Chicago or St. Louis.

There we’ll swallow snowmelt, and
take our self doubt underground.

Finally laying those
melancholy blues down.

-Tosha Michelle