I don’t have resolutions and despite popular belief
I really don’t know what I’m doing
(especially going into this next year.)
Instead, I know more about who I am not
& I know what I will not do.

I will not wait.
for anyone or anything to like me
I have no desire to be likable to the people who see as debatable
I want to be loved fully and completely
I want to know that I am worth the fight
worth the discomfort
And worth the effort to try to get it right this time.

I will not linger.
on the pain or ambiguity.
part of the awakening / is the awareness /
that everything works out as it should.
there’s nothing I can do
there’s nothing you can do
there’s nothing anyone can do
to keep me from what’s mine and
anything ‘lost’ in the middle is merely practice
to lay my own impatience to rest.
“as I think, so I shall be.”
so I let go, consciously
knowing that I will be okay with the energy of the cosmos leading the way.

I will not be afraid.
I used to believe that fear was a super power capable enough of making me
smarter, sharper, faster,
but I clung to that too much
holding onto that belief until fear crippled me.
// I’m not doing that anymore //
living with fear at the forefront
has made me lose more than its ever made me gain.

last night, I drove to pahrump
alone at midnight.
it was pitch black out
nothing but mountains for miles and a thousands threats of danger lined both sides of the roadway.
But I kept driving
I kept going
and I prevailed by repeating that “I am not afraid”
// A new mantra when I start to lose my way. //

I will not doubt myself.
my sacral authority has been strengthened by
18,976 minutes of meditations.
my intuition is more than capable
of interpreting the signs
the numbers
and the meaning
of everything around me.
This is the power of woman
and all I need to do is listen.

I will not define myself by insanity.
I will not repeat the same patterns
and the same behaviors in hopes
of different outcomes.
there is an ebb and flow to everything / the yin and the yang /
perfect pairs that present truths
that I keep persuading myself as wrong.

“Maybe if I try harder, this time it’ll be different”.
“Maybe this time, they do just need space”
Maybe this. Maybe that.
But maybe not.

These are not chances that I am willing to take as I gamble my life away.

I will not stay silent.
I will not say yes when I mean no
I will not sit by and watch atrocities unfold
when I have a voice.
My boundaries
My emotions
My thoughts
My peace
are all inherently valid and will not be ignored.

This year
I don’t have resolutions
and I have no clue what I’m doing
but instead I have this simple equation
where I subtracting the distractions
add in new wisdom
multiply the joy
and diving the things I love
to find the real value.
to find the real me
the who already has everything
she needs because she understands her power
and know it lives inside her.

and I hope you can connect to that, too.

happy new year.

tomorrow marks 2 years since you left
breaking the entirety of my being in ways I didn’t know were possible.

but, I’m not sad anymore.

I can finally say your name without trembling
and my heart doesn’t skip a beat anymore when I think about you.
Don’t take this wrong and think that I don’t still love you
because I do,
I always will
and nothing can change that.

because e.,
in the years since our eclipse,
no one has ever come close to
making me feel
as loved and accepted as you.
not even myself.

you changed me
and I am sincerely better for it.
the eternal gift of your love and for this I will always be grateful.

self-ideation was a just a concept and
I had no idea who I was before you
showed me what it felt like to be
recieved with intention.

I will never forget your smile
the first night we met
or how gently we kissed in front of Rebar
listening to my favorite band on repeat.
(“one more hour” was always my favorite track, but now it’s even more special because of you.)

I never got the chance to tell you but e.,
you quite literally launched me into this new life as a poet
and propelled my devotion to spirituality.
that one rose quartz caused it all and now I have more crystals than I can even count
every time I get a new one, I think of you
and I’ve finally stopped favoring ones that are blue.
I’ve most recently started gravitating to purples and pinks.
a symbolic representation of my journey of trying to fall in love after you.

I’ve had to learn the hard way that no one will ever love me like you did
and I’m not saying that out of pity or remorse at all.
It just makes what we shared all the better because you are the blueprint
You made falling in love feel like a dream.
You are the reason I know to never settle
and know what it means to reach perfection because you saw it in me
and nurtured it even when you knew you’d have to leave.

That used to make me sad but I understand why now.

Without your influence, I would be doing so much worse.
I definitely would have settled
and probably gotten stuck with a baby
co-created by someone not even worthy of my energy.
(SINCERELY…THANK YOU!!!!)

I’ve written so much about you and I don’t think I’ll ever stop.
A part of me will always miss you
but I know that we weren’t meant to be
A forbidden love
with a man lost at sea.
My literal sailor and hero
in the U.S Marines

Thank you for gracing me with your presence.
Thank you for seeing what I didn’t know existed inside of me.
Thank you for teaching me that feeling and connection are not something to fear.
Thank you for showing me the importance of surrendering to the universe,
to trust the process and just flow.
Thank you for making me a poet
and forcing me to grow and
receive new love in ways
I never even dreamed

You really did change me e.
and for that, I will always be grateful.
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this,
but that won’t stop me from giving flowers when they are due and my one regret is not being able to give you that while you were still here.
So e.
if this does ever find you,
all I really wanna say is
thank you <3

I want to know if you regret this
Are you awake right now
losing sleep over the pain too
or is it just me
rolling around restless at night
trying to figure out how the fuck
it came down to this?

I want to know if my face haunts you.
My docile doe-like eyes and soft curves
contorting into a demon whose memory
is smeared all over the walls of your face.
You can remove me materially,
but my energy will linger
and you will have to sit with it
knowing what you did
knowing who you lost
and all that you chose to throw away
because running is easier
than taking accountability.
responsibility does not come from the way one handles business and finance,
but from the way one works though conflict and treats other people.

Are you proud of what you did?

Because despite it all,
I was still ready
to stay in your life
and help build you back up again.
Bedtime remedies to help you sleep
Calls during the middle of my work day to keep you calm while the weight of the world burned down on yours.
A submissive princess ready to take all your worries and transmute it into something beautiful anytime you called my name.

All I wanted was respect

for all the love I gave.
I was building something beautiful while you were slowly looking for the chance to tear it all down.
I’ve learned the hard way that unrequited love is never worth it
but for the life of me,
I’m tired of always feeling so damn disrespected each time I carve out a space in my life for somebody’s son to come sit for a while before they no longer see me as a human deserving any bit of common decency.

I don’t want your compliments.
I don’t want your money.
I don’t want your love.
I don’t want attention.
I want you to respect me enough to either
leave me the fuck alone to begin with
or to stay and figure it out.

Yes I am angelic,
Yes my energy overflows and could stand the leakage.
Yes, I will be okay.
But please,
respect that I am still human
and am worth the wait.

I wonder how old I have to be before
people stop seeing my body
before they see me?

all life long
little black girls are sexualized
before they can even form a concept of the self.

12 year old me
standing in line at Smart & Final with my grandma
wearing my favorite romper
adorned with vibrant yellow sunflowers
and a conservative white shall.

That was the first time I got t h e stare
The licking of lips
and flirtatiously raised eyebrow from
the mid 50-something year old cashier
who kept a straight face until my grandmother looked away.
His glare of desire will always be engraved in psyche.
I didn’t know pedophiles existed
until I looked one in the face.

We can’t help that we bloom early
Blossom early into our womanhood
even when we are still kids.

What has to give before my DDD’s
stop entering the room before I do?
Before the melanin in my skins stops
telling my story before I even have the chance to speak?
Also….
what else has to be said before men
can comprehend that comparing my skin and my body to chocolate
and to meat is NOT a complete.
It’s dehumanizing.
Just. fucking. stop.

Ethnic women do not exist for the male gaze
or to be the starting point for your think pieces on feminism.
We are more than our bodies
and more than our skin tone.
We are the spirit
We are light
We ARE the blueprint
and the curator of most things
that you know and love.
Put some respect on our names
and treat us as such.

she’s naturally the girl that people talk to.
people see her
and open up with a little joke
or anecdote.
they feel her
and know that she is peace.
she is safety
she is a temporary home
for the fleeting feels
and thoughts
that are bursting to escape from their heads
they know she’ll politely smile
and keep them safe
allowing a tidbit of advice to come through
if they are willing to pay the price
a small fee
in the form of
identifying and accepting
what it is that she sees in them
because she connects to them so deeply
her eye is trained
to see right through their exterior
and the initial few layers guarding their interior
all the way to what lies deeper inside
they see her and open up
Because for once in their life
They know, they don’t have to hide.
there’s no need for the disguise
or to fight the urge
of the people pleaser who lives in all of us.
for once, she makes them feel ok
to not think about “us”.
her vibrational pull
and gentle nature
make them gravitate toward her
because they know she did nothing to lure.
she seeks nothing from them
but has the capacity to give everything,
yet very few ever give in to greed
because just a few seconds in her presence
given them all that they need.

to answer the question.
the thing that makes me strong is

empathy.

here’s to a year
of feeling lighter
of practicing
& only pursuing the things
that set my soul on fire.

here’s to a year of intentionality
of manifesting my truest reality
and not settling for anything in “actuality”
here’s to a year of “no”
of no longer feelings afraid of taking my time
and moving slow.
– slow, intentional movements are the only way we can grow.

but also,
here’s to a year of “yes!”
of falling in loving
of trying to not add to my own distress
by avoiding the things that make me feel best.

here’s to a year of authenticity
of simplicity
of consistency
and only engaging in actions
that will lead to my prosperity
and ending 27 debt free.

here’s to no longer denying my humanity.

here’s to another year of peace
but in this one,
I will fully trust
and leave
indecisiveness
worry
and inaction
in tomorrow’s dust.