Loving yourself is not easy
Thinking about it makes me dizzy.
My head spirals like the wind
I think about what could have been
Would my love for myself be different if I had not let society’s opinion take me on this tailspin?
I wish I were a dog
Not remembering their last internal sin.
Giving myself love should not be difficult
But my happiness does not come from within!
Relying on others for my happiness will never allow me to feel that “win”
All it does is cause me to throw my accomplishments into the trash bin
However, it’s never too late to recycle
Recognizing where I have been.
Self-love is hard
But life is like a sport
Always giving you a chance to get that comeback win
Before I throw my accomplishments in the bin
Not remembering where I have been
I certainly will remember this poem and its satisfaction.
I love myself because I know I can win!

You’re Confident
You’re Beautiful
You’re Loving
You’re Kind
This beautiful heart that has developed
To care about individuals as much as you do
The confidence you truly found in you
I’m proud and love the woman I’ve become
It took me a long time to get here
You’re a queen
You’re a goddess
You are it
No one can take this away from you
You made it Vision
You love you
You don’t doubt yourself anymore
You believe in you
I love who you have grown into
A true Vision of Love

My body,
What do you think of when I say that phrase ?

Do you cringe in disgust or feel a deep praise?

Whichever side you find yourself on the line..
let me tell you about mine, and how an injury to my spine..

Completely changed the way that I lived life,
I’m grateful to be a father, because my surgeons weren’t sure if I could give life,

Even though it’s uncomfortable I’m thankful for this steel wear,
because the alternative, was being 23 in a wheelchair,

This shit got on my nerves,
especially after finding out that I had nerve damage,
I wasn’t disabled but definitely at a disadvantage.

I had to change my vantage point, and be thankful that my joints and tendons and bones-
overcame their adversity to reclaim my home.

My body.

the only place I know I get to live in,

I need to start honoring it and begin to forgive it.
There’s things I deal with but maybe you’re different,

Maybe you can’t help that you have a genetic diagnosis,
my heart shatters for every woman with endometriosis.

Maybe you have anxiety and depression,
maybe you carry an epipen and dread the day you need to press it.

Or maybe you suffer from Disphormia, or anorexia,

Or adhd, austism, dyslexia

But then again
Maybe you’ve never felt sexier,
Do your eyes turn to stone when you pass by a mirror,
But please open them and to see yourself clearer.

Seek out , don’t turn the other cheek baby let your cheeks out!
Let your freak out,

Speak out, no! speak up
to your body and give it praises,
cuz even if you despise it, each day it still raises..

you… out of your bed.

So , get of your head if you can, because just like you, the rest of us are doing the best we can.

But i get it, not feeling in love with yourself.

Man I really use to be in incredible shape,
Then I got injured and really struggled with my weight,
I would starve my self and would hate what I ate ,
I could feel judging eyes removing things from my plate.

But now I’ve accepted that I no longer need to be that athlete, my varsity days are over, I’m not going to the track meet,

I don’t need to complete great athletic feats anymore,
just want to play with and pick up my son,

I need to be thankful for what my body can do right now, rather than miss out on what it’s already done,

Why are we so concerned with the way we look rather than the way we feel,
we put our bodies through so much pain and never allow them to heal.

Also,
Let me just shout out to all the mothers!
Because you should love your body more than all the others,

So what ? you may have stretch marks, those battle scars makes you look more womanly,
you are everything that a man couldn’t be !

For you did the most physically demanding thing there is and gave birth.
A woman’s body is the most powerful thing on earth!

Your body has gone through a lot it’s changed I understand, but please, don’t hate your body for what it can’t do, and love it for what it can.

Oh-three-thirty
the “am” is implied
it can be considered (in military speak)
as zero-dark-thirty
either way, wakefulness is present
outside the sleeping bag cover in camp.

Yeah, still dark outside
my hound and I go out
and the in the darkness
all one has to do is look
up. There is the splendor
of the night sky, clear, starry, unobscured.

Funny how neither of us even thought
about the night critters that may be about
he relying on my presence for safety
my reliance on him for his superior night vision
and sense of smell to warn.

What pictures are there painted in the dark
with steadying brush in hand, trying not to drip
dusky colors off the palette?

Looking up, at the show of night sky
there is no admission, save wakefulness
the theater is quiet, as if in anticipation
of the drawing back that thick purple curtain
still no noises, the dark is silent.

My eyes only see the the vision of the stars
that I am native to see
over the treetops to the left
are such bright pinpoints
close together enough to be a cluster, perhaps
one must be a planet, intense light from there
I shall have to find out which
still I realize that the visions
from the Webb space telescope
are far more lustrous, clearer.

Returning to the tent
the hot coffee is waiting
mist curling up off the coffeepot spout
like some close up nebulae in the cool morn.

I am full of wonder
not sleep, that was a thing of an hour ago

awaiting the sunrise,
and its chase of the darkness into the distant west.

Poem copyrighted 2023, Ray Whitaker

Dear, Unsealers:

Welcome to the month of December!

After the marathon that 2023 has been, we’ve reached the last mile. The finish line is in sight.

The first day of December is a very special day, as it’s my sister and I’s birthday.

38 years.

I’ve already been in tears twice today and I’m sure it’ll happen a few more times before this day ends thinking about it.

As my sister and I weren’t supposed to survive being born prematurely. My parents didn’t expect us to live but we did. And through all of the challenges that life has brought us, we’ve thrived.

If not for my sister, I wouldn’t love traveling, live music and theater. She’s been the source of strength and resilience that I look up to every day. Most importantly, she’s the first person to believe that I’m capable of a lot more than my cerebral palsy lets on.

My sister is my twin, my other half, my best friend and my hero.

I was in awe of the whimsies and romance.
I yearned for my art to comfort and soothe;
For my art to hold the listener’s hearthurt the way my hearthurt was held,
For my art to share imagery with songs of love,
To create beauty in death as he created it.

I wanted to be Hozier, but I have to be Poe, first.

I have to walk through my Inferno to reach such actualization.
My shadow still screams. Still cries.
Pieces of my younger self scattered in nine circles.

I have to talk to her and make peace with her.
I have to parent her.
I have to hold her.
I have to become one with her once more.

I will blood, guts, and gore my way through,
Just as the horrors led my way in.
The girl that wants to scream will scream and
Embrace the gross and the weird and the upset.

I will not become my own betrayer, no. So,
I am no longer my own betrayer, mine own Nth circle.
Treachery at mine own hands, no more.

Even now sometimes i have my moments
Moments where i feel like
I’m gonna fall apart
Can’t let it consume me
Let it go
Breathe just breathe
You’ve come so far
To go back
I know it hurts
You cry when you don’t want to
It’s trying to release
He’s gone
Your dad is gone
In the wind
You severely question
How can he not love you
Not be there for their for you
To still have breath in your lungs
But alas be gone
I never thought you would leave me again father
Why don’t you want me
When i am made up of half of your DNA
I can’t even say i hate you
I Love you Dad
But i have to let you go
You abandoned me
Came back
Left again
Came Back
Left again
Why come if you never intended to stay
Leave
You can’t be the reason
Theirs’s no peace
I will always love you
I have to live
To explore
Without a painful memory of you
Here is our long distance goodbye

Dear Unsealers,

I wrote this on the tarmac of my local airport as I witnessed my 16 year old son take his first solo flight. He didn’t even have a drivers license, yet he strapped into the cockpit of a single engine plane and piloting towards the runway. I felt helpless, proud, scared to death, and wanting to run behind his plane all at once. After what felt like a heart stopping forever, he skillfully landed the plane and taxied in. This moment will always be surreal and magical for me.

AIRBORNE

You sail across the mid-day sky

The wind upon my sullen face

You climb to heights unseen

I feel weightless

Like a feather tossed along by the playful wind

My mind is blank, like sterile moonlight

Your heart is warm, like the velvety morning sun

I feel helpless and hopeful

You are falling, drifting, gliding across the open horizon

I can move and love, freely

You can feel all of Earth beneath your unmarred feet

I hold the Universe across my fragile shoulders

And the silence roars into my ears

Along with the bristling of my every hair

The windy tears dry upon my sunburnt cheeks

You are weightless, drifting, soaring

And after seconds that seem like fragments of eternity

Gently, you land, into my embrace

Loneliness, a friend of mine

They keep me company, they take my time

They visit often and stay too long

They whisper dark things, sing sad songs

They drink along and share my glass

Thus wishing that our time won’t pass

Loneliness, the jealous type

They shun the social scene and hype

Prefers to keep me in my room

To make my mind a heavy tomb

Of grey-scale thoughts, of shadowed dreams

And feed me lethargy in reams

If I reach out or you reach in

My friend’s departure will begin

And pull me to the Sun and light

They’re only gone when when you’re in sight

Dear Unsealers,

Kalimera, from my office cubicle.

It’s been four days since I’ve returned back to NYC from Greece. I’ve been alternating between being glad to be back home after the fourteen day trip and missing being out on the road. As this trip has been quite an odyssey, of the non-Homeric kind.

Never did I imagine being able to climb up the Acropolis and seeing the Parthenon bathed in morning daylight. Or the twists and turns at Mycenae, the elevation to reach the monastery at Meteora and the seas of humanity at Fira and Oia. But I did all of it.

Nor, did I imagine taking part in a Greek cooking lesson, and Greek dancing not once, but twice. Lest I forget, a soccer team, AEK Athens and their fans invaded our hotel in Crete with their chants bringing a smile to this soccer fan’s face.

And for the big finish, a catamaran cruise around the islands of Santorini.

With me at my most blissful state, going down the ladder with my shirt off into the water and not feeling self-conscious for even one second in doing so. Just soaking up the sunlight with my fellow travelers on a sunny day.

The thirty two travelers in the group began to be like family as the trip went on, looking out for me as one of the few solo travelers.

As I responded to the email from the customer service department of the travel company used to book this trip, I couldn’t help but feel sad after I pressed send. After nine months of waiting and fourteen days of travel, this chapter of the travel story is closed. I haven’t been adjusting well to being back on this side of the Atlantic, though.

The sadness of being home will pass. Yet, the memories of this trip will stay with me forever. And there’s always the next trip to plan for.

I’m hopeful that I’ll be back on the road traveling internationally at this time next year.

A heartfelt Yamas! to our guide Dina, to our drivers during the trip Yannis, Nikos and Vorgios, to the college students and professional dances that joined us in Crete and to the thirty one fellow travelers that joined me on this trip.

The company that one is with makes the journey all the more special, as this trip was.