Poetically Powered Newsletter, Metal Has More Rights Than My Body
Poetically Powered Newsletter, Metal Has More Rights Than My Body
Welcome to Poetically Powered Newsletter! I am so grateful for you to want my words in your mailbox.
One of my pleasures I get for myself is a cup of coffee, or a coffee drink. Coffee was a late thing in life that I got into, but both my parents are huge coffee drinkers. When I have a cup sometimes I think of I’m kind of drinking it with them. The way my mother would have a cup of coffee is recited in several of my poems. It’s a classic we heard around the space we were in, she hit the day, and needed that cup to get her started. I’ve found that coffee can trigger my anxiety to be worse, affect my heart, and sometimes accelerate acid reflux. It becomes a treat, something I do once in a while because it’s probably better to keep it out of my life.
I feel like this is a metaphor for life I could explore. I’ve slowly been writing without workshops with what’s been happening lately. A gun law gets passed that now open carry is totally fine here. Guns have more rights than my flesh. Metal has more rights than my bones, than my right to choose with my body. The poems start coming, disjointed at first, but the heart of it is I’ve been threatened before that if I produced children with someone I could never leave them. I would never have gotten out of something that I’m surprised I’m still here after it.
I’m slowly easing my body back into conditioning again. Being not well for a while did not help all the progress I’ve made. Moving my body is medicine. My poems I make on a hike have a different feel than my stationary pieces. I feel like sometimes to get inspiration you need to be present and engage the senses. You can do that at home, at your workspace, but some things will stay the same. While walking produces a new experience for every step you take. Birds singing and leaving, the crunch of gravel, the oppression of humidity, the taste of your sweat, the senses get activated and you can become more in tune with your surroundings.
I’ve returned to some hobbies I love that have always helped me reconnect with my body in a way just thinking doesn’t do it. I like to analyze, overanalyze everything that happens. Thinking about my feelings doesn’t feel them but at least I can understand “why” something set me off. We haven’t really been set off as much as exhausted or just shutdown. I think one of the scariest sensations I’ve known throughout my life is numbness. It isn’t pain, and it isn’t torture, it’s just existing while not existing. It’s a fog, it’s a cloud you can’t get out of but sometimes you don’t realize you’re there until it’s too late.
I was told before I show my anxiety in my skin. It’s true, I will break out easily or have my body turn into something that it wasn’t. Lately, it shows the most in my cuticles of my fingers. It’s been a hard go for June but we got through it and had some amazing things happen with it too. But, I’m ready for my body and health to be playing on my side again.
Some information on things:
I am published in Spark City Press, Poetry Cove, Freeverse Revolution VI, and I know a few others as well. I will be published in Blue Iris for their “Home” theme they had. This was about friendships outside relationships that make you feel at home. They chose a poem of mine that is about my best friend so I couldn’t be more jazzed about it! I will also be published in the Hope Anthology with Wee Sparrow Press.
I will be competing in the Worldwide Slam League with Write About Now Poetry for their finals next month, virtually. Watch to see when on my page and definitely come support the poets competing.
With my Merch on my site I recently created a shirt that is “Consent Is Sexy.” Because damn, it certainly is for me.
I may be bringing back Poetic Catalysts this month. We will see, June was just not able or viable to do with my health and everything.
I have a Patreon! It starts at $1 and has homemade, handmade, cards and goodies, full length poems, prompts, and the highest tier gets you into Poetic Catalysts once a month! I’ll be having some of the prompts for my class on my Patreon as well as an option you can tap into: https://www.patreon.com/sarahmentalpoet
*What I’m Reading: Girlhood.
What I’m listening to: Currently cicadas outside
What I’m getting ready for: Slamming in the Worldwide Slam League
*What I’m writing: Gonna try to work back on a piece that is “Metal has more rights than me”
*What’s haunting me: How do you bring back a body that needed to rest and now does it lose the work you put into it?
To all those who hear me, thank you. To all those struggling with kindness or self-compassion for yourself, I see you, I am you, but I know you’re magnificent. Be kind always to your mind.