Lunch 🍴 

baby spinach// garlic roasted broccoli// curried garbanzo beans // and raw walnuts for some crunch 🎉🎉 if you're like me, you can never decide on just one thing to eat... so I kinda just add EVERYTHING together and make a messy bowl of heaven 💁🏼💯 story of my life 😂

Ode to a lover

Wishing and wishing into a star-less night

that you will take me away 

to that place where you’ve hidden your cosmic gems

in fear that the shadows will shake with laughter

and devour them whole

don’t you know it is only amidst the darkness

that you can ever see the moonlight

and

 I am not afraid I tell you

to journey through your dreams

Let’s wander 

and assault the deadly beasts that cry 

in the shaded parts

of the forest you’ve grown inside

the hollows of my heart 

 colored the same as yours

except

The things I fear are not what you’d think

they are the little things 

like how long will you stay, 

are you with me on this ride?

#wordsonwednesday (even if it's Thursday)

Why is it that you fear? 

 I ask because it seduces and captures each of us, 

but on the other side 

You can dance in the chaos and the fear is but a flame with no food 

So, Let it starve 

As you rise from the ashes!

Wear your beasts upon your head 

Like festive furs for the world to see 

And with trembling hands plucking at the stars,

adorn yourself in strength

-K.V.K.

Rainy day thoughts

Today, I have found myself feeling both the pleasure and burden that comes with great epiphanies. It’s something similar to the discomfort that follows the next day after a deep tissue massage; you would think that since you are “fixing” the problem areas you would feel rejuvenated, even stronger when they have been manipulated and set into their right place, but instead it is painful. It hurts. It hurts in ways that make you wish you had just left the gnarled muscles and tendons as they were. It isn’t until later that you reap the benefits of the work you have done to your body, and the same seems to be said for this epiphany that has bestowed itself upon me. 

It’s a seemingly simple adjustment, this new thought I have come across. I  merely realized how pivotal, and absolutely necessary, it is to be cognitive; it is so utterly vital to never forget we each are living, and perceiving, life through our own personal lens. It is in the same moment that we must also be aware that when we are looking through our own lens, we can sometimes lose sight of how another person is doing (or viewing). My current emotional status is completely independent of yours, but at the same time it is interconnected and can be changed by your emotional status. 

We find ourselves in this perpetual state of  paradoxical “isolated interconnectedness” where we must endure in our own personal way, but can still permeate that boundary without even knowing it. It is at this point in my introspective process that I realize how much easier it would be to plea ignorance about this knowledge, but alas it has been called to my attention and must be addressed; the backbone of my being thus got the proverbial adjustment it needed. The most wonderful part of the whole thing is that the lesson was actually taught to me by someone completely unaware of the fact that they were doing so, thus strengthening the lesson itself that we effect others without even knowing it...

I already know for myself that when I am stressed out I tend to withdraw from loved ones; I break plans, and let my outward affection fall at the waist-side.  I am currently sitting in a Starbucks as I write this piece, and I am here with my boyfriend of a year. We are sitting face to face at one of those tiny round tables most likely meant for only one person, but here we are nonetheless. Two laptops, two different coffee elixirs, two different hearts. I reach out my hand across the tiny overcrowded table and grab his wrist as he types up his essays for medical school applications. He looks up and says something along the lines of how he is happy I’m finally the one showing affection again. It isn’t an angry statement, it’s not even colored with a lecturing tone. Even so, my heart is saddened; it made me realize that while I am on my own side of the table stressing about my overdrawn bank accounts and the impending doom of being 22 and not having an exact career plan or medical school essays I need to write...I have been building walls around my heart.  I must’ve forgotten that while I am stressing about my feelings of insignificance, he has been stressing about feeling insignificant TO ME. You see, we all operate in a crazy way; perceiving the current state around us and calculating how we feel about it, or what we need to do, but as we do this SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.

  After this exceptionally brief exchange,  I went and sat next to my person and gave him a big hug; we embraced for a long time. Two solo entities, completely different thoughts and emotions, yet still connected and effected by each other. Broken and mended by ourselves and others.  I am reawakened again, on this day, by the awesome power that we each hold to share love and how it knows no boundaries.  I am here today to remind you not to get lost within yourself. 

What I'd Rather Be

If you must know

I will tell you

the decision I made with myself

I’d rather be broken and bloody

than warmed in a realm of just comfort

I want to feel rage, to fall amongst the stars

open and raw

shaking

fire and ice all at once

I’d rather the scars and the burning

than numbing to hide from the fear

I want it to singe the edges of my sanity

Let me die of heartache

and be reborn by the magic of the sea

washed to shore in pieces

but stronger than ever before

I’d rather be broken and bloody

because the marks left behind 

will sing of my rebellion

the dirt under my nails can whisper the tale 

of how I clawed out of my own grave

and from time to time

I might crack

I might waiver

but in my earnest refusal

I will rise

for I was born in the belly of a storm

and I am a child of its carnage

and when you are choking on the ashes 

you can see the way hope has etched itself into my spine

amidst the tears and gnashing teeth

in between the skewed heart

in that middle place 

I have woven myself back together

And you can see

in a brilliant contrast to the darkness

the stitches

you can see my unconquerable soul

I used to be the one laughing with glass shards in my mouth

howling hollow words into the night

and feeding the sickness

the idea that we are porcelain

perfect 

unmoved by this world

and I looked out from eyes that refused to see

ate my unsaid words 

and gorged myself on fear

It’s funny to think of how starved I was

how I neglected the fruits of truth 

So, my dearest ones

my fellow stumblers

thats what we are

stumbling about through the wreckage

licking our wounds and setting fire to our bones

let us feast together on things of substance

let us rejoice in the trials

we can dance together until we have ground our feet into dust

we can tend to the truths and mistakes

and cry and be broken 

we can acknowledge regret and

 then lay it to rest and move forward

in our imperfect dancehall.

Let’s each take a seat side by side

join hands

and let ourselves unravel

then stitch ourselves back together again

as one

I’d rather be broken and bloody

with my brothers and sisters alike

be weak and then become strong

sing to the moons

and burn with the sun

and delight in the changes we have begun

As long as I’m here

I’ll be dizzy and lost

searching for the steps to the song

it’s slow and deranged 

and I can’t get enough

and I won’t stop until the Earth claims me

I won’t stop until I am one with the Frost

Kate.V.Kenney