//a love note to living//

 

you were the groggy morning haze of waking up from a dream i wanted to live in

you and i, baby angels dancing barefoot along the interstate beneath a new moon

forgiving each other for what we could not tame

you were a promise i let myself keep

the trust fall i fell into every day with my eyes squeezed tightly shut—

look, no hands

no hesitation.

no hesitation

we make it to our 70s

still foolish enough to have the audacity to believe in a silly little thing called love

your hand in mine

sitting on my worn green velvet couch, clutching our sides to keep from toppling over 

we’re giggling like schoolgirls at the state of the world

as if we were still as cautiously optimistic as we were upon first meeting

just learning how to taste the sweetness in the bittersweet they whispered about;

some forbidden secret only a few select souls were privy to, lest anyone find out

one can, in fact, be happy and sad at the same time and know exactly how that could be.

the song on the radio doesn't teleport me back to that beige-stained room

i can go to sleep before the sun rises

i don't have to mix my meds with weed to feel something

you weave a flower crown of poppies into my hair

and remind me my memories are allowed to yellow and fade

the cracks and tears just mean we made it

please, hold me here, gently

maybe we go back to the desert

build a house from adobe

just the two of us

letting the laughter echo in the ghosts of the voices slain

no longer bouncing around empty buildings skeletal to the bone

with pieces of confetti from the last ceremony softly fluttering above faded linoleum-scuffed floors

what are we, if not the ruins of our past selves, still standing?

i fall asleep under starry skies

spacious enough to hold every dream i got to live in

like the one where you and i are watching our last sunrise

a blood-orange and cranberry swirl melting over silhouetted saguaros in bloom

i don't want to wake up

but you call out to me

and ask me if i'm ready to go.

yes,

i think i am.

—z.z @the.beautiful.gods

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behind the poem:

this space is for me to provide extra insight into what was going through my mind when i wrote this piece. it's a breakdown of lines that stood out to me, like the extended cut of a film. i don't know if any other artists feel this way during the creation process, but when i'm writing or drawing something, i'm not always aware of what's transpiring. it's incredible to see what our subconscious takes in and how it regurgitates back into art. 

being the funky lil mentally ill potato i am, self-love doesn't come easy for me. so every February, i write a poem and reflect on my relationship with self-love and survival. how has it changed since last year? how have i grown? i am learning how to be gentle and soft with myself. it is a practice to be intentional and patient with oneself through growing pains. i titled this work "a love note to living" with the optimism that i will soon make it out of survival mode. 

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"you and i, baby angels dancing barefoot along the interstate beneath a new moon" this piece begins with how i picture a modern-day coming-of-age John Hughes film would start out. except instead of two teenagers, we've got this slightly dishevelled 20-something and this phantasmic personification of Life bounding down a deserted highway. their arms are thrown about. mascara streams down their faces to be replaced with glitter. the sky is lavender, nearing dusk. despite how dreamlike their chaos may look, they're the most grounded they've ever been. it's a love story for the ages. 

"we make it to our 70s" the idea of making it to my 70s is one i cannot currently wrap my head around. for so many years, i've hesitated to let myself envision my future more than a year out from where i am. this mainly stems from the unpredictable nature of my muscular dystrophy but also my history of suicidal ideation. even writing this line in a poem feels like i'm tempting fate. there's no way of knowing what'll happen between now and then. there's this part of me, self-preservation, that needs to look at things realistically. however, when i dream, it's so rarely rooted in reality. like isn't that part of the point? you want to picture an idealistic world so vastly different from the one you're living in but still encapsulates the warmth and safety you feel now. to imagine me in my 70s is daunting. it's kind of scary. but what if it's not? this line is a declaration that despite what losses will come, i'll still be here. 

"you were a promise i let myself keep" i joke that my longest committed relationship has been the one with myself. one of my personal tenets is that i only make promises i intend to keep or am capable of keeping. past usage of this line has included poems where i'm speaking about or to other people in my life. i think this is the first time (and probably not the last) that it's shown up in relation to my testament to stay alive. i think about this line similar to how i feel about the "we make it to our 70s" line.

"lest anyone find out one can, in fact, be sad and happy at the same time and know exactly how that is" this line references the following quote from the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky:

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”

TPoBaW is a book hugely influential to me in my pre-teen and teen years. this quote was my first look at the duality of emotions living in one body. at the time, it felt like a mystery or a secret. sometimes it still does. 

"the song on the radio doesn't teleport me back to that beige-stained room" i associate the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic with the song "Ashes of Eden" by Breaking Benjamin. it was a traumatic time all around. currently, i can't listen to this song without intensely remembering those endless days. who knows. maybe that changes.

"you weave a flower crown of poppies into my hair // and remind me my memories are allowed to yellow and fade" poppies symbolize remembrance and death (among other things). life knows all things must end. the goal is peace. letting go doesn't mean forgetting.

"maybe we go back to the desert // build a house from adobe // just the two of us" i grew up in Tucson, Arizona and moved to Washington state when i was between 19 and 20. while i love the greenery here and being close to my family, at times, i still very much miss the desert. i could see the mountains from my backyard and front yard. i miss the summer monsoon storms. the rain here in Washington is so different from the rain in Arizona. here it drizzles. there, it poured. 

when i think of myself at retirement age, i go back to this dream house i designed in my freshman year of high school. it's a gorgeous log cabin with a wood-burning fireplace and skylights. there's a community garden in the front. an art studio and pottery shed in the back. the funny thing about it is that i always envisioned it in the forest. returning to the desert wasn't (and hasn't been) on my radar. lately, though, i've been thinking about how it might be nice to go back. when survival is softer and the living comes easy. maybe. just maybe. 

"letting the laughter echo in the ghosts of the voices slain" i use laughter as a coping mechanism (hello, gallows humour, thanks for the levity) and also as a radical act of reclamation. why is laughter revolutionary in the context of healing and reclamation? because it takes courage to find joy in places that once caused you discomfort. "you cannot heal in the places where the trauma occurred." okay. so heal somewhere else. and then, if you can, go back to the site and laugh. let a new sound reverberate through the space.

"spacious enough to hold every dream i got to live in" a reminder to myself that i am allowed to take up space. some dreams are too contingent on circumstances based in privilege to become a peaceful reality. i won't get to live in every dream i dream. but in the alternate reality in which i'm in my 70s and living my retired life in a little adobe home in the desert, i want to be able to look back and say "yes, that was enough."