Hide and Seek

Where did I hide the drugs?

I looked high and low, where did they go- where did I hide the drugs?

I looked everywhere, even under my hair, where did I hide the drugs?

There they are- brighter than the North Star, that’s where I hid the drugs

Is it even fair to call them drugs, they’re really just plants

They grow naturally for the naked eye to see

Won’t you have some with me

Then we will hide the drugs

Until such a day that the whole world will say

These plants are not drugs

They’re natural as a hug

Come give me a hug and I’ll give you a hug

Mother Nature will give everyone a hug

Hugs are a natural kind of drug

A fortnight will pass and maybe another fortnight will pass

And then some more fortnights will pass

Time goes when nobody notices

Next time we find a moment to ourselves

We’ll wonder where we hid the drugs

Where did we hide the drugs?

We’ll look high and low and nobody will know where we hid the drugs

You’ve got to look within and ask yourself where you hid the drugs

You already have all the serotonin and dopamine you will ever need

Run after those endorphins, rein in your substance P

Sculpt your body and your brain as you want them to be

Quench your thirst with sweet neurotransmitter rain, abundant and free

Neuroscience Love

How I’d love to go walking

Through the orchard of your mind

To behold fertile neurons branching ever more intricately

In an arboretum lushly laden with sweet serotonin

My fingers search restlessly for the roots of your dopamine

My tongue drowns itself craving your acetylcholine

I long to climb your axons and shake ripe neurotransmitters

From the delicate tips of your dendritic branches

I ache to see your potential in action

To be blinded by the searing speed of your electric signal

As it sparks from node to node

To be swallowed by the violent beauty

Of vesicles fusing with your pre-synaptic membrane

How I wish to be one of your post-synaptic neurons

So that I may feel flooded by your molecules

In the electric throes of neuronal excitation

I hyperpolarize when you are near

Gripped by GABA, I am mesmerized

I’m living to see behind your eyes

Depolarize me anytime

Carnival

Welcome to the carnival

I offer all manner of novelties to delight you

Are your thoughts as wild as a flying trapeze?

I’ve got pills to set your mind at ease

Does your heart feel like it has been trampled by an elephant?

You don’t need to use booze to get bent

I’ll flood your blood with chemical love and adjust the dose to fit like a glove

I’ve perfected my performance to be your ideal physician despite my perpetual exhaustion, hanger and burn out

Ignoring my own pain as I eliminate yours

Neither one of us is listening to the sacred wisdom of our bodies

I suffer long and hard so that you don’t have to feel a thing

In my side-show alley you’ll see that if you want more than an endless stream of candy refills, if you want me to be your shaman instead of your drug dealer, at any time you can feel your feelings instead of suppress them

Take a plunge from the high dive on the wild horse of your unmedicated body

Hear your healing lion’s roar

Let your self-expression soar

Allow yourself to fall into the safety net of the universe

Trust that you belong, that you are a star just as you are

Juggle fire and meet yourself with humor when gravity makes its presence known

Allow yourself to be shot from the cannon of self-doubt, trusting that you will be ok

If healing is a series of flaming hoops

The transformative way out is through

Show yourself what you can do

Dance to uplifting music every day

Cultivate strength and flexibility in body and brain

Remind yourself it is normal to feel insane

In this seemingly crazy world, only you can take the reins

Be the ringleader of your life

It ain’t me, babe

Though I have the hard-won power to prescribe the goodies you crave

To be in control of ourselves we must give up control of everything else

Welcome to the big time

The show can’t go on without you

I applaud you

My eyes are open to witness your marvels and miracles

Rock

When struggling through life

I met the waves head-on

Gasping and nearly drowning as adversity slapped me in the face

Dragging down my body and my morale

Slowly, painfully, my ego was chipped away

Now a smoother stone, when the forces come at me

I bunker down in the stream bed

And let them pass over me with intentional non-effort

Challenges will always be a part of life

I used to be a leaf tossed by the wind

Now I embody the ever-present rock within

This is a practice, not a perfect

My ego still protests in victimized shame

I send a softening breath to my hard-headed brain

And soothe myself

You are OK

This is hard

You are doing your best

You are more than perfect: you are human

Humans get to live the beauty of learning from their experiences

Just breathe

Orderly

There was seemingly so much order in the house

I didn’t hear the echoes of screams or shouts

Silence deafened the din

The ticking clock was the only sound within

All those books lined up stoically on shelves

Couldn’t hold back his chaos from hell

Every room was clean and neat

Her living nightmare uncontained by crisp white sheets

Grandma, you lived with abuse all those years

Warrior-strong, I never saw your tears

Grandpa’s explosive anger was unjustified

You finally have peace now that he died

But you can’t turn back time

You can’t take back years of your life

From your struggle, I have learned

I depend on no man for what I earn

I prioritize how I feel inside

Over how others perceive my life

Spring cleaning starts in my mind

My relationships are full of ease, not strife

I know you had your reasons

And I thank you for your sacrifice

I honor you by living my best life

The Warrior-Princess and the Dragon

Once upon a long enough time
There was a Warrior-Princess who could spin mad rhymes

She slayed other people’s dragons, as she earned a dime
Solving problems for fun, in her spare time

She invited all possible stress into her life
She felt strong as she stood amidst the onslaught of strife

She gathered knowledge and skills
To prevent and cure ills
But one thing seems to evade her still-
Overcoming the fear of her own dragon self

Every princess is also a warrior
Though she may feel trapped in a tower
Or a hospital corridor
Held captive by her fear of disappointing others,
Our heroine kept the fear of her dragon-self near

Our warrior-princess, while a vanquisher of things big and scary,
a master of getting into situations quite hairy,
was scared to death of her inner dragon,
she was terrified to speak her truth- to let out her desire, spit her anger-fire

The warrior-princess is me, and I’ve come to see
that the fear of dragons is all in my mind
My dragon has been my dear companion this whole time
ready to make noise if I’d only let it be free

I’ve let my reptilian brain keep me in trouble
when I could have been riding my dragon
floating like a bubble

For too long I shut my dragon down with stress
I felt so helpless and under duress
My dragon was ready to roar all along

I let my mammalian brain drive me insane
sticky emotions pulled me down the drain

Yet somehow my spirit persisted
My healing couldn’t be resisted

I’m ready to rise up and vocalize my voice, choose my choice
That may sound like a no-brainer,
but actually it’s a neo-brainer
Our Neo-cortex can function and rise above
When we trade our fear response for love

I’m ready to breathe my fire, let my power transpire
Let my dragon protect me
Instead of keeping it hidden
For too long I cowered as I became more trauma-ridden

I’m ready to become the Dragon Princess Warrior
Gather up my best, and leave the rest

I’m ready to combine the finesse of my Princess
with the courage of my Warrior
and the fierceness of my Dragon

Si se puede!

Yes I can live my best life

For so long, I sang a sad song
I silenced my self-advocacy
When as a young child, many molested me
I thought my dragon abandoned me when I yielded to the dragons of others
My dragon was protecting me the best way it knew how, the only way which I allowed it to- freeze, collapse, play dead

I am afraid of my dragon self,
and it is my fear to own
It is my fear to express through a poem

I’m ready to give up my crouching chameleon life
Shed my reptilian and mammalian skins
take my sweet hummingbird and eagle’s flight

To the fear of my dragon-self,
I bow in gratitude for the sacred journey
A-ho!

And A-ho! to us all
as on the journey we heed the call
to balance our inner princess, warrior and dragon
We have within us everything we need
and by balancing ourselves, we help bring balance to all, yes indeed
A-ho!

Shout-out to the mighty mitochondria-
I hope you’ve enjoyed the wild ride inside me
Thank you for all the ATP-
divine light energy
A-ho!

Fleeting

Where do ideas come from?
When I get inspired it feels like an itch
Irresistible to scratch but if I don’t promptly act…

Where do ideas go?
Sometimes I get a flash of what appear to be                                                                 profound, brilliant, and wildly creative thoughts                                                                       Just as quickly,  they vanish into thin air
Faster than ice evaporates on a hot day                                                                                 Before I can write them down, they’ve already gone on their way

My brain is beaten down by sleep deprivation and stress
So it makes sense
That it would hold thoughts
As efficiently as a sieve holds water

Still I wonder
Where do ideas come from,
And where do they go?
As they disappear through the door of my conscious mind,
I want to say to them, ‘Thank you, come again’