Phoenix Cry

I am the Multitudes
Rising from the ashes
To soar the skies for as long as time allows

I am the Mother,
Who slipped into one suit and peeled off the other,
Left hanging in the back of a closet,
Who learned she could don both in the same 18 year timespan
to find within herself again the difference between happy and coping.

I am the Invisible
Who disappeared behind a low-lying cloak called Self-esteem
Ran blindly toward extremes to feel anything
Who finally awoke grinning in the midst of genuine pleasure
to wonder when she had ever stopped laughing.

I am the Divorcee
Who wore Failure, Unloving and Unloved as his badges
And lived too long as what she said she saw in him
Who finally recalled that he’d once floated on Lovable
to a girl who slept beautiful beside him.

I am the Human Journey
The cyclic renewal

And I am the Phoenix
Who cries out from above to all those grounded
That they are not the ashes
and that they may rise again.

The Collector: A Tale in Triplicate

I collect people.

There were ups and there were downs.
There was a shifting of roles.
Classmates. Lovers.
Then enemies.
And finally - Friends.
A mad genius.
Gifted, confident to a fault,
yet lost and lonesome more than he’d admit.
Driven by an insatiable need to prove himself to himself. A need stronger than any other. Stronger than our bond.
We ate sushi one night and spoke openly of our now evident mistakes, made during our 6 years of shared life.
For him I hope all the happiness I couldn’t seem to give him.
That is what I’ll never walk away from.

I collect people.

Bohemian soul to the core.
Frenzying, frazzled passion.
Survivor, struggle, attitude and angst.
She is not a white light but a pulsating purple vibrance.
We make blood orange martinis at her kitchen table in her underground flat
From oranges plucked rawly from a backyard tree.
We drank over 2-year-old catch-up conversation that felt as natural as if we’d never left off.
I feel I am closer to living when I am with her.
Hers is a voice I will do most anything to share.

I collect people.

He wanted to be a Rennaisance man. He wanted the world and all the experiences in it. It maddened him to near paralysis once that it seemed the world didn’t want him back.
I watch as life seems to implode within him. The beauty, the passion, the adventure – inside him yet out of reach.
A mirage in a desert
A treasure under glass
I see all the things he’s yet to do. Things he will do.
With strength, with belief, with full pockets and support.
3 years left now on a self-imposed Army sentence.
Seems a minefield of those implosion stretched between him and those million things.
Me be damned I don’t insist he be ready to change the world when it’s time.

I collect people.

I see where they’ve been. I see where they’re going. Better perhaps than they see it themselves.
We the artists. We the dreamers.
We live a Bootstraps Life.
A Persistence Life.
Of Human Strength.
We soldier on.
The Beautiful Endurance.

I collect people.

Whether they like it or not.
I put them on the hook, I will not let them off it.
And I will not let them forget who they once told me they were.

On Leaving

I have sensed moments of leaving Chapters in Life.
I have felt the turns of the pages.
There is a nostalgia and a pain that goes along with that kind of leaving.
Often times it didn’t turn out quite the way you’d planned it.
Often times thus the leaving.
It feels sometimes in looking back that you got off at an unfamiliar station and you watch the train pulling away into the distance of your old life.
You look around to see the new faces of your new life.
The ones who will populate the “present” of your days.
Sign above the station door says Welcome to Your Next Chapter.
You feel your stomach somersaulting and you thrust back into Life.
It’s funny that you thought the people in your little life would remain the same.
It’s funny that you thought at 12 you knew what you wanted from life.
It’s funny that at 25 you are only now realizing what you think you really want.
But you were so certain at any moment where you were going at full steam ahead.
It’s funny the Leaving
could also be Coming;
it’s only a simple matter of facing engine or caboose…
and of which way the wind is blowing.

Real Women

I thought I hated women.

I’d often kept my distance.
But force and circumstance collide,
Into my life came such a woman.
If one could call her that.
Selfish
Little girl,
Really.

Broken,
Hollow
Girl.

Searching for approval in any man’s eye,
For she was not strong enough to give it to herself.

Sad, sad vapid,
Most vacuous child.

One could almost pity her but for the destruction she unfurled.

Lost locked-up castle-top princess
Calling to be saved.

Men don’t fall in love with these girls
They fall prey to them.


I thought I hated women.

I learned of strength.
I learned of pride
Of artistry and power.

These women charged into my life
Though I had never ask it.

They saw in me a kindred soul
And took me as a sister.
Took me as a daughter
Took me as their own.

Women showed to me my light
And shined on me their own.

I thought I hated women.

Power was in manipulation,
False flattery and giggles.

Power was in between their legs.
Power
Within their lies.

But when the adoration stopped,
Alone before the mirror,
A fractured,
False
Femininity.

A siren song
Grown silent.

No.

Power is in the woman who knows where she is going.
Power is in the woman who would take a man
Or leave him.
Power is in the women I populate my world with.

I thought I hated women.

I come to find, it’s not women I hate
But the stain that these women
Put on the real ones.

- Chelsea Rose

In Little Ways

Every day – in little ways – we grow closer to ourselves
As others – fall away.

And shall we now into ourselves
Draw hope and inspiration
For loving things – devourings
Consuming eyes – Elation

Each day of life a forward thrust

To deeper truths existing

To start anew with each daybreak

Seek of ourselves, persisting

Every day – in little ways – we grow closer to ourselves
As others – fade away.

What more is there within this life
Within this world – what other
For we are here, so we must bear
Or feel we blessed and shudder

Struck speechless for the beauty here
For simple time around us
For simple breath and simple life
A sky and earth that ground us

Every day – in little ways – we grow closer to ourselves
As others – die away.

So stay a while within your days –
For Miracles to kiss you
The blessing of each blade of grass –

Or let your Life dismiss you.

Inside Me

Here stand I inside my skin
Afraid to let the outside in
Afraid to utter what I feel
Afraid that it might make it real
Living instead a life of doubt
Feeling safe if not found out
I could but use my voice to scream
My feet to run, my heart to dream
I could but go the way I choose
But risk I not, lest I might lose
Stand paralyzed within my days
Of mediocre, stagnant ways
I could but use my eyes to see
My mind to think, my soul to be
Thus could we ALL but grow and learn
That life is love and pain and yearn
And life is meant to feel and touch
So make of your life so much… so much
- Chelsea Rose

Birthdays Party!

This weekend was Calyn's birthdays. Yep! Birthdays. We had the 9pm-Saturday-night-giant-banana-split-ice-cream-potluck-so-you-think-your-birthday's-over Fake Birthday...and the 4pm-Sunday-afternoon-come-over-for-a-swim-because-we're-moving-soon-SURPRISE!-all-your-friends-are-here-for-your-birthday BBQ Swim Party Potluck birthday!

I don't have the photos from the first party. (Calyn will get them to me, right?) But here are two photos from the 2nd party that I put up. One is a present that she got and the other is the ultra-fabulous-I'll-just-throw-something-together-because-I-don't-have-much-time Dorie Cake that Dorie made! Calyn's favorite! The berries were amazing! I just kept stealing them off the top!

We are going to be having Dorie wedding cake soon enough!

I spent all day today finalizing the honeymoon plans! It's going to be amazing. Can't want till I have pictures to put up after that. It's going to be beautiful!

Here's to celebrating things!