SOFT LIFE
There's the most tender life
blooming just beyond these glass towers,
whispering my name like a prayer,
where my soul gets to wear
her softest clothes every day.
I dream of it with such love
this sun-drenched room with weathered floors
and light that dances,
where I write poems so sweetly imperfect
they make me weep with joy,
where creating feels like
coming home to myself.
Oh, how ready I am
to trade these cold contracts
for warm morning pages,
these calculated mergers
for the beautiful mess
of falling in love
with life again.
I want to wake up beside her,
this woman my soul recognizes
before my eyes even open
with nowhere to rush to
but deeper into this moment,
want to kiss her temple softly
and make coffee that tastes like
pure, unhurried bliss.
I'm dreaming of a life
gentle enough to hold us both,
neighbors who become chosen family,
who ask about my heart's work
instead of my salary.
I want to be that woman
who adopts lonely books
and fills her home with stories
like prayers made tangible.
The city tried to teach me ambition
but my heart is learning devotion
to beauty, to slowness,
to the sacred art of being present.
I've been building everyone else's dreams
while my own waited patiently.
Somewhere there's a house
with a porch made for lingering
and a kitchen where love gathers
like family around the table
where I could remember, daily,
that life is not a prize to win
but a gift to unwrap tenderly.
Where love needs no permission,
only space to flourish.
Where I could write impossibly tender poems
about morning light and her laughter
and call it the most important work
of my lifetime.
I'm cultivating the courage
for this beautiful becoming.
choosing softness over success,
truth over what looks good on paper,
love over every single thing
that promised fulfillment
but left me hollow.
Soon, my beloved heart murmurs.
Soon I'll step into the life
that's been holding space for me
like the most patient lover,
like coming home
to everything I was always
meant to cherish.
The Language My Body Knows
Since I was four, this has been
my mother tongue.
the grammar of grand jetés,
the syntax of Swan Lake,
my feet speaking fluent French
in fifth position.
When I dance, I am not
the body that was hurt.
I am not the flesh that knew
illness, violation, betrayal.
I am pure motion,
liquid light,
something that touches heaven
with my fingertips.
The studio mirror reflects
not who I was
but who I become
when music fills my bones
a creature made of moonbeams
and muscle memory,
all grace and impossible angles.
These legs that shook with fear
now leap like they could fly.
These arms that once protected
now open like wings,
embracing air, embracing space,
embracing the radical idea
that I deserve to take up room
in this beautiful world.
When I relevé, I rise
above everything that tried
to break me.
When I arabesque, I extend
beyond every limit
they tried to place on me.
When I chassé across the floor,
I am writing poetry
with my whole body.
Ballet is my resurrection story,
my daily proof that something sacred
lives in this scarred temple,
that beauty can bloom
from the most broken places,
that what was meant to destroy me
has only made me stronger,
more graceful,
more determined to dance.
Here, in this space between
earth and air,
I am exactly who
I was always meant to be
untouchable,
unstoppable,
free.
Scraps #12
We were forged in fire,
tempered by tears,
molded by hands that knew
beauty requires sacrifice,
that swans are not born
they are brutally,
lovingly,
inevitably
made.
And when we finally fly,
when we finally become
what all that breaking
was meant to create,
the pain transforms
into something holy:
proof that we can endure anything,
that we are stronger
than we ever knew,
that beauty
and brutality
can dance together
and call it love.
Pause
I'm learning the sacred art of stopping
mid-stride, mid-sentence, mid-worry,
to watch light pool in a puddle
like liquid gold.
The emails can wait.
They've perfected patience
better than I ever have.
Today I ate lunch like a prayer, slowly, reverently,
tasted something green, something that remembered sunlight,
something that whispered you are worth this moment.
A bird outside my window
has been singing the same three notes
all morning her entire repertoire
of pure joy. I just noticed.
I just remembered how to listen.
There's no deadline for wonder,
no meeting with amazement
I need to reschedule.
Beauty doesn't punch a clock.
Just this, the way afternoon
fills the room like honey,
how my breathing deepens
when I stop fighting it,
how my shoulders drop
when I remember I don't have to earn rest.
The world keeps offering itself
patient as a mother,
beautiful as first breath, unhurried as seasons.
while I remember, again and again,
what it means
to be gloriously,
gratefully,
completely alive in it.
This is enough. This has always been enough.
Letter to the Girl I Was
Sweetheart, I'm writing from the other side
of what you're certain will destroy you.
I'm twenty-six. I'm here.
That's the first miracle
not just surviving, but choosing
each morning to stay,
to let tomorrow find you.
I see you there, small and shaking,
convinced you're too broken
to ever be whole again,
practicing how to vanish
from your own skin.
But listen, my brave girl
one day your body will remember
it belongs to you.
You'll sleep without nightmares,
laugh without permission,
exist without apology.
That's the second miracle
the day you stop living
like a ghost in your own life,
the day you reclaim yourself
piece by precious piece.
There will be mountains to climb
out of that darkness,
and your hands will bleed,
and you'll want to let go a thousand times.
Please don't.
Because here's the third miracle,
the one that will make you weep
with wonder,
You'll become exactly who
that little girl needed most.
Your broken places will teach you
how to tend others' wounds.
Your survival will be a lighthouse
for souls still lost at sea.
Sweet girl, you are not the terrible thing
that happened to you.
You are the miracle that happened after it.
Everything beautiful in my life
began with your refusal to let go.
I am your tomorrow,
and I am so proud of you
for holding on.