The Great Divide

Hello, WordPress, my old friend. It’s been ages. Sorry for the long hiatus. Life and time have a way of running off together, and by the time I finally find my shoes, they’ve already disappeared around the corner. Rude. 

I’m here for a brief moment but I’ll have more random nonsense to post at a later date. Lots of good things in the works, my latest poetry collection will be arriving soon, and we also have a few interesting excursions coming up that I can’t wait to share. For today, though, I simply wanted to talk about music.

One of my current favorite artists is Noah Kahan. If you aren’t familiar, please acquaint yourself with this young man’s work .He’s what would happen if Paul Simon and Bob Dylan had a baby.. Noah’s music is human in the best way possible. He has this rare ability to make songs feel both intimate and expansive.. His writing blends folk, indie, and Americana influences with deeply personal storytelling about mental health, nostalgia, loneliness, home, and the ache of growing older. His latest work aptly titled, The Great Divide captures the space between what was and what will be. Noah writes from a place of self reflection and is painfully honest with himself and his listeners. Be warned his music is melancholy, but conversely,, also so uplifting and life affirming. Pretty sure sad girl summers were invented by him. You always get the impression he’s sitting on the back porch at dust with the weight of the world on his shoulders, writing his maladies into something lyrical and beautiful.

Here are three of my favorite songs off the album/

“You know I think about you all the time
And my deep misunderstanding of your life”

“And I clutch my cloth, and I bite my tongue
I’m an aging wolf who lost the taste for blood”
“Everybody’s asleep, let’s talk about him
Let’s talk about high school, talk about death
Talk about the long ride home from the grave”

Notes from the Other Side


Sometimes sorrow turns into
irreversible regret.
We choose to live an icebox
existence.
Wallowing in misfortune’s
frosty glass.
Consorting with memories
Squabbling with dreams.

The poet too has felt life
interrupted, days that vanish
upon awakening.
I’ve known suffering and
the pull of solitary confinement.

Now looking back from a happier
vista. I’m hear to tell you,
the pitch of pain may never
be unheard, but it does gets softer,
fading into a bittersweet refrain.
The past becomes part of
your case history, to be read
by nostalgia’s light on rain
soaked nights.

In time the visible world brightens 
Let it entice you with the woo of
the today and what will be.
Take refuge in the heat of
places uncharted, linger in
the sweet realism of the hour.

Walk toward the future
with unshackled feet.
The misbegotten shadows
behind you now.
Let the smudge of the sun,
and the warmth of a steadfast
hand be your guide.

-Tosha Michelle

Love Me

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