The Big Thing

I used to think that he was the Big Thing, the key to my happiness.

I fell for my teenage crush like he was the sole source of ecstatic love in the world.

When my feelings were not reciprocated, my thirst for the Big Thing all but destroyed me.

Now I know that no one can give me the Big Thing.

Nor is the Big Thing to be found in any book or food or herbal supplement, not in any class or retreat, and not in any one place or experience if it is not in equal distribution throughout everything, everywhere, all at once.

I am the Big Thing, and so are you.

Eve

I loved you because I loathe myself.

I blindly pushed through the red flags you were covered with, armed with an explanation for every asinine decision.

‘You did what?’ you asked me, eager to pile on the shame men reserve for the women they dishonor with their advances.

I accepted that I made a mistake but I was mistaken that I owed you anything, let alone my life.

By eating apples, I realized that I am the universe experiencing itself.

I am the fruit of the tree of life.

Green Room

In the green room of life

We all sit down, take off our masks and laugh

We congratulate each other on another a good show

Seated on the other side of the curtain where duality dissipates

We debrief, recount, replay, tallying up the sacred lessons learned at the end of the day

In the green room, the oppressor and the oppressed embrace

Realizing that we are one, smiling at the absurdity that we ever thought otherwise

Recounting blows, former harsh words melt into knowing smiles 

Disbelieving that we ever forgot that life is a dream, a game with infinite lives, a simulator in which to act out our drama

In the green room, there is nothing to fight about

Life’s perfection is seen clearly and we remember that we are whole, that there is nothing wrong with us, that we are playing

And we play again, vowing that we will remember our true selves this time around

Bouncy Ball

Resilient sphere of color

I throw you down but you only bounce back higher

Dancing down the stream

You get caught on rocks and fallen leaves

I free you and follow you down the babbling brook

Your journey is again halted by forest debris

I dislodge you with a stick and you bound onward

Carried effortlessly by the water

I was told that all rivers flow to the ocean

I am determined to travel there with you, to see this through

Then I learn that water sometimes moves underground

Branch still in hand, we are both stuck on land

I didn’t account for this

Years later, I am an adult in a high-pressure profession

Just now pausing after years of running

As if I’ve been chasing a ball down a stream

Bouncing from one goal to the next

I am bewildered by the restless movement which only distanced me from my heart’s desires

In exchange for passing tests, I received more tests

No one ever asked me if I want to be tested

I value serenity and peace, meditation in nature

I was already where I wanted to be

When I was a girl with a rubber ball

Bring me back to that forest stream

I will stand in it

Let the cool water wash over my feet

Bouncy ball by my side

In stillness and simple satisfaction

We will stay

Flame

Your rage strikes my heart like a lightning bolt

Cracking it open and setting it afire

I am at a loss for what to do, so I warm my hands over the embers and wait

To transform, part of me must die

I cannot rush, only trust

How many times can one heart break?

As many times as it takes

To learn the sacred lessons

To consciously unite with the divine

Time and time again

Pain is pain, sensation is sensation

No matter the form or formal education

Lucid dreaming just before waking

I see a sea of broken hearts glowing in the dark

Each a floating lantern offered up

Burning with the same flame

Off My Chest

I need to get you off my chest

I’ve never felt relaxed in my life because you raised me in the war zone of your wrath

Bombs of panic explode in my mind all day every day

Choking me with your smoke and mirrors even though you are far away

My ears ring with your shouting

You were the biggest little tyrant

Not even two years my senior

Yet always more needy

Mandating, yet begging

I didn’t realize the power I had over you, and still do

You were the one dependent on me for affirmation, not the other way around

I didn’t have a choice then, but I do now-

To live a life without your storms brewing on my horizon

I’ve never slept well in my life because I thought you were going to murder me in my sleep throughout our childhood and adolescence

I used lie in bed wearing a cross around my neck with a note attached to it asking you to think before acting, waiting for dawn to break, dreading another day with you, feeling trapped and hopeless with no end in sight

I never felt protected, respected, seen or heard by our parents

In moments of desperation, I wish you had killed me

Instead you continue to torture me passive aggressively, and I am passive passive aggressive

Silenced, as if buried alive

I toss and turn, tormented between insomnia and nightmares

I’m trying to think before I act

I am upset that I’m even thinking about you now

I am upset about how you get upset ‘at’ me: you throw your rage at me and have me clean up the mess, time and time again, left to calm your ass down as if your reactions were justifiable or somehow my fault

It was never my fault

I am not responsible for how you feel

Leave me alone you evil bitch

I want to scream at you with the force of 35 years of repressed anger and tears

At the same time, I am trying to let go of the hot coal which burns my palm

I am trying to let the rippling waters of my pond be still

I am trying to not be irritated, for only then will you no longer be irritating

I am trying to take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings

I am tired of trying so damn hard

I am ready for ease

I am ready for peace

I am ready to breathe

Please, get off my chest

I don’t need to ask- I am responsible for how I feel

I’m not sure what to do next

I’ll probably meditate and self-medicate with raw emo poetry

Like the note pinned to my cross-necklace, you will probably never read this

But maybe those who matter will

Those who feel they are suffering alone

May find healing in this onion peel

And breathe just one breath more freely

For this I humbly pray

Namaste

Workaholic

I went into medicine partly due to heartbreak

The exhaustive training of medical school and residency was a welcome albeit ineffective distraction from my sorrow and loneliness

24-hour shifts are a convenient justification for not keeping in touch with loved ones

Even though the real excuse is my social anxiety and sense of inadequacy

Living within hospital walls, I suspect that I am not the only physician who became a medical doctor to try to forget unrequited love, to escape the world of human relationships

My older colleagues work far more than they need to to make ends meet, far more than any reasonable person would work in a week

Who needs friends or feelings when you have patients and science?

Our skin grows pale under fluorescent lights

Our vision becomes shortsighted as the screens stare unblinkingly

Our hearts forget how to feel carefree

Our muscles atrophy as our brains hypertrophy

Our minds become boxed in with facts, our mental filing cabinets overflow

I am a recovering workaholic working alongside workaholics who do not appear to be in recovery

Perhaps they suspect the same of me

Heads down in the trenches, none of us can know another’s heart

We can only know our own heart, if we listen

We carefully administer medications, surgeries and therapies

We measure progress in numerical metrics of lab values, calculated scores and vital signs

We arrive early and stay late

We work day and night without a break

We always have too much on our plates

We deprive ourselves of sleep, fresh air and food

We know why we have irritable moods

Practicing medicine is an unhealthy, imbalanced lifestyle and we know it

We can only ever heal ourselves

I’m ready to show it

I am finally healing my broken heart

I found that I had to begin at the start

Childhood wounds tangle and bloom

Trauma begets trauma until we change our thoughts, words and actions

Breaking old patterns even as we hold traction

I am love itself, I am the source of what I sought

My cup overflows, it was not all for naught

Labor Pains

Give birth to your best self, America

Painful, messy, terrifying, raw

The most beautiful transformation you’ll ever see

America, you’ve been gestating too long to stop now

Humanity is bursting from your loins, America

Born of the brutal rape of racism

Blood spills on the ground

Fertilizing the soil from which you spring forth

You cannot go back to the way you were, America

You can only keep pushing forward

I am learning to listen to my heart, America

Though the change may not be obvious to you yet

Subtle shifts below the surface move mountains, America

I change my thoughts to change my life

Though the echoes of your trauma are deafening

Though the jaws of your mental imprisonment clamp down hard around me

I no longer strive to be your wounded warrior

I am your healed child, here to show you how to heal yourself

Even though you broke my heart so early and often that you left me without a sense of self

Yet my heart kept on beating

And loving

That is how you heal

Keep on loving

Love yourself, love your life, love your fellow beings and the whole Earth as yourself

Forgive yourself and others

Be kind to all, for we are children on a difficult journey that wouldn’t be so damn difficult if we were kind to each other

Pay it forward and see what happens

Love and kindness and forgiveness is the way

America is having labor pains today

I welcome your birth America, your infinite potential

You suffered so much hate that you became a hater but it is finally time to love, America

Thread

It is you again

Suicidal ideation, my old friend

You are the shadow lurking outside my window

You are always there in my time of greatest need

When my sanity is hanging by a thread

And I am tempted to see if I’d be better off dead

I hang off that thread and gaze over the precipice into the dark abyss

I let go with one finger, only four more, why linger?

My thoughts are a razor blade cutting into the thread like a sharp violin bow

Drawn across the thread of my sanity again and again

Though the depths call me and freedom beckons me to let go

I tie a knot at the end of the thread instead

I recall that nothing lasts forever, not even my shame, not even my pain

I know that I have infinite potential

I set my intention to direct my attention and begin my ascension

I climb, as I have many a time

Suicidality, old friend, thank you for coming to visit but I don’t have to invite you in

Over the years I have transformed, but you remain the same

I know you want only to relieve my suffering, but there are other ways to achieve liberation from suffering which do not involve breaking hearts

I meditate on that, to start

I feel my feet on solid ground again

I bow in deep gratitude to you, my friend

Absinthe and Abstinence

Instead of drinking absinthe

I wish I’d practiced abstinence

Absinthe passed through my lips

You followed suit, more than just the tip

I was butter and you were the knife

Wish I could take back that night

Spread out like jam on toast

On a Manhattan mattress, we did the most

It got so hot, we were the roast

But I was the one who got burned

Absinthe, you brought on sweat, blood and tears

Abstinence, you would have spared me much fear

Absinthe, why’d you help me undress?

Abstinence, you would have prevented stress

Absinthe, you never delivered that green fairy

Abstinence, your fruit is sweeter than the ripest berry

Absinthe, under your tutelage I’ve grown wary

Now I practice abstinence

From every Tom, Dick and Harry

and all the other men who didn’t have my best interest at heart-

You protested loudly when I told you we had to part.

You don’t have to understand

You just have to know that you’re not my man.