Category Archives: Power Poetry

Power Poetry, short writings

1001

*Read trigger warning in full.

This writing piece discusses: suicide, rape, sexual assault, death, murder, systemic oppression, depression and anxiety symbolism and analogies. Read if you’re comfortable. If not, take care of your needs. This was written for my own release. Yours is allowed to be away from this post. Take care. You are awesome and amazingly lovely.

I keep seeing this number
Then I remember
That there is a lot
Out of my control.

If I try to force everything
And I mean everything
Into under my wing
It will fly out
From under me
And I may never see
Any of it again.

My floors are crumbling,
The glass of my windows
Are shattering
In time to the water
Bursting from the pipes.
I see flames flaring to life
At each corner
Of this space
I’ve tried to keep safe.

I cannot force the door
to stay upright.
I cannot put the water
Back where it came from.

I cannot remove
What is keeping the people
I love and care about
From reaching back out to me.

I cannot fix the system
That continually makes it
Near impossible
For me to live
A liveable life
That is worthy of me.

I cannot control
Who raped me,
Assaulted me,
Had beaten me,
Nearly killed me.

I cannot control
Who I like,
Who I love,
Who I fall in love with,
What they go through,
And if
Or when
They come back to me.

I cannot control
The amount of death
I was born out of
Nor the amount of death
I was born into
Then followed me
As my shadows.

I cannot control
that my mom died
In front of me,
Along with
The person I was
For her.

I cannot control
That that my dad
Was never really okay,
And never for the help he needed.
I was never meant to be
The sacrificial lamb
To keep him from
Terrorizing my extended family.
And I cannot change
What he’s done,
What my family never did
To protect me,
Or the consequences
Coming for all of them.

I cannot control
That I have been alone
For so long,
Too many times in my life.
That it has eroded my sanity,
Made me suicidal,
Making me want,
Then attempt,
To kill myself.

I cannot control
That I’ve had to be the one
To keep myself from
Ever completing an attempt
And kept myself alive,
When doctors, therapists,
Hospitals, family,
Friends, and so many others
Failed to be there for me.

I don’t think we ever have control
That’s what people don’t want to admit.

It’s affirming that not having control
Doesn’t automatically mean
Things will hurt us
I believe I most struggle with.

I may not be able
To control everything
That happens to me,
What people do
Or don’t do.

I may not always
Be able to control
What I do
One hundred percent
Of the time.

And it may be okay,
That those things are true.

Living your best life
Is overated.

Living a life
That is peaceful,
Where my needs are met,
And I am comfortable,
Can do fun things if I want to,
That’s for me.

It took seven tries
And six deaths
For me to be here.
I died one thousand times
And came back to life
One thousand more
To be the person I am now
Writing this.

There were many days
Of my not thinking
I would be here
And that people wouldn’t care
If I was gone.
I write this knowing that isn’t true.
Some take longer to tell you,
Some have a journey to take
Before they are ready to face
The infinity that is you
But it doesn’t make what they say
Any less genuine.
It doesn’t make what they feel towards you
Any less real and true

I will take care of myself.
I will be kind to myself.
I will be gentle with myself.
I will do what I can little by little.
Whatever I cannot control,
I will let those things sort themselves out.
And the people in my life,
Those I like,
Those I love,
The one I may have
Or will
Fall in love with,
Those I care for most deeply,
I trust they will find their way home.
First to themselves.
Then to me.
And by then,
My new home
Will be in much better shape
For new comfort and contentment.

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Power Poetry

Overflow

I feel the sadness
Choking my body
And it sliding up
Through my nostrils,
Down my throat
And towards my belly button
Mixing with the water
That makes up most of me.

Fighting is all I know.
Resisting is my nature.
But Lord God!
I feel myself weakening
More and more
As I wait to be rescued
From something
No one sees
Is killing me.

Does anyone care
That I’m dying
Right in front of them?

After all the waiting,
I do the one thing
That I swore
I’d never do.

Surrender
To the overflow.

At first it hurts.
You know,
Like a
Motherfucking bitch.

The overflow tightens
Its hold on me,
Force feeding me
Depression,
Anxiety,
And rolling waves
Of PTSD.

I remember
Every time
I was gaslit
By someone
I poured
My heart out to.

I recall
The fear
The anger
The exhausting annoyance
That came from
Each time
A perverted asshole
Insistently
Sexually harassed me
With his words
His mouth
And his voice
Reeking of privilege
He knows he can abuse
Against me.

The skin of my face
Would burn
In memory
Of every time
Someone refused
To gender me correctly
And be a decent person
Because transphobia
Is synonymous
To free speech
And “being themselves”,
Because their refusal
To see and respect me
As anything
Other than a “female”
Not even a girl or woman
Honors some god-given truth
Protects feminism
The “natural family”.
But in reality,
It only protected
Bullshit,
Bigoted bitches, and
Cunts who can’t
Come correct.

I remembered,
I recalled,
The memories
Replayed
Until my heart stopped.
The overflow
Consumed me
Until there was nothing
Of the old me left.
Whatever I fought against
Was always a part of me.
It was just now joined
To my everything
Without any fight.

Now the real healing
Is about to commence.

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Power Poetry

Sad and Real

I choose to be sad and real
Instead of happy but fake
Internally gaslit
So that other people
Are comfortable in their bullshit
While force feeding it
Into my mouth.

It looks like cooking
And waiting for the food
To burn just right.

It feels like being annoyed at roommates
Doing whatever they want and
Not washing a wine glass
That they know you use
And had also drank from.

It sounds like the fire of the stovetop
Burning hotter and hotter
As the depression swallows me up
In its suffocatingly comforting waters.

When the food is done
The leftovers are heated up
And the juice is poured
Into a recycled Pure Leaf tea bottle,
I am just simply being
In my sadness.

I accidentally
Made my roommate’s
Pad fall into the toilet
And all I did
Was wipe off the water
And put it back on the
Medicinal container.

It dried and looks like
Nothing happened.

They won’t know
What had happened.
I mean they aren’t good
With telling me things either.

They’re even worse
With not noticing
When I need someone to
Be there for me.

Sad and real
Is not a trend
A hashtag
Or a movement.

I simply am being
What I am
At this moment,
Even if it means
Doing it alone.

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Power Poetry, short writings

Short Writings No. 3

Image Description: Black text on white square block image reads a short writing/mini poem as follows below.

I feel safe under the trees.
They move in the gentle
Motion of the wind.
I know I can rest now.
I know that my body
Will not be exploited.
I know that my rest
Will not be politicized.
I can fantasize,
Romanticize
Anything in my dreams.
My inner child
And I are one.
I am free
In the wide landscape
Of slumber.

~GWAE

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Power Poetry, Uncategorized

Sensation

Feeling

Sad

Feeling

Horrible

Bullshitting myself on the daily

Moment-to-moment screwing up everything

Because I don’t have anything left to give the world

Because I have nothing left to give myself

My self-loathing intensifies as I hear fellow humans start their day

Cars flood the the intersection next the three-way stop sign

Next to the tree

That marks the wooden house with a red door

Screeches and hip-hop music blend into my annoyance

Birds chirping have me wanting to scream at them

But I don’t utter a word

For I am that unable to care enough

That’s why I did not shower the night before

And I unfortunately itch in the worst areas possible

I become frustrated at life moving on without me

From the steps of roommates meeting creaky hardwoord floors

To long-wailing squeal the bathroom door makes before closing or opening

And when life is playing its usual hum as the day progresses

My self-loathing,

My insecurities intensify

They are deadweights that pull me farther down

And down into an ocean I never learned to swim in

Life is too scary, too unpredictable and potentially traumatizing

That while I lie down

The place I made my safe zone in my mind

Becomes my prison

And I only want out because I see others being free

Wishing they could be my key

But then I am reminded that I am my own key

That I must unlock myself from the deadweights

In order to float back up

And if not that, then at least stop myself

From sinking further into the oblivion of depression

While I lie down

I fight that fight

And struggle with all my might

Because what is easy will keep me stuck in my pain

Trapped inside an endless cycle of nothingness

A nothingness that increases the distress of my mind and body

Yet what I want

The wanting to join the rest of the world

And be that person I dream of being

An individual who lives their dreams

In balance with their demons and light

That amount of effort, that amount of dedication

Frightens me back into abandoning myself

On more mornings than I wish to admit

I got so good at abandoning myself

Giving up before a day started

Because the possible challenges awaiting me

Seemed more treachorous than it was worth

It is only when the day is gone

When the night is waning

And just before the birds begin singing for the new dawn

That I see how much I could have gained

If only I fought to take off the deadweights

I have grown so accustomed to carrying

In my sleep

Photo by Mariana Montrazi on Pexels.com

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Power Poetry, Uncategorized

GWAE

I am the nightmare.

I am the dream.

I am the god.

I am the Satan.

I am the moon and the stars, the sun and the comets.

I fall like rain and rise in time with the tides.

I flow with winds that travel beside mountains from times of old.

I am at once the wonder and also the terror.

I have known and hold both innocence and perversion within the confides of my soul.

My body has been torn apart then put back togther with the scraps of sanity I grabbed with each trial I suffered.

I know the gray areas are only bridges that keep the infinity within me anchored.

And that makes me no less the powerful human I am right now, the one I always will be.

I am Jourdan R. Lobban.

And I am Riv J. Lobban, Riv-Rayne J. Divinity.

I know that I am a survivor, a warrior, a miracle baby and person whose existence is worth celebrating.

I am at peace with the light and dark within myself. And I love all parts of me from feriociously ugly to downright beautiful.

For everything I have done that is unspeakable, I hold myself with compassion, nurturing, love, and non-judgemental, unconditional accpetance. I know that the reasons why I did those things came from parts of me deeply wounded from all the trauma I experienced.

I know who I am. I embrace who I am. I accept who I am.

I am the king who defies all.

A queen of her own right.

A downright Godx With An Edge.

And most importantly, a flame that lights up in the dark without any fucking apology.

Photo by Being.the.traveller on Pexels.com

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