I’m calling forth every outsider, outcaste and outlier.
This one’s going out to the freaks and the weirdos,
The edge-of-the-bell-curve-dwellers.
The ones who go long.
I’m talking to you.
This is a drawing, a conjuring;
I’m calling forth your inner wisdom,
I’m outing you for your intuition.
Listen, screw me,
Take it from Rumi,
Who said to
Sell your cleverness
And
Purchase bewilderment.
My sweetest friend,
Can you afford not to?
Come out,
Despite the imminent threat,
The impending exile,
Despite your coolness,
The abject fear of looking foolish,
Despite being ostracized,
Despite your desire for acceptance from the tribe,
Come out,
I know all too well what it’s like
To be shunned,
To be shamed,
To be betrayed
And straight-up endangered and violated.
It sucks.
Come out anyway.
Leave your predators
in the pre-dated past where
they belong.
Trust.
Despite being burned previously,
Despite your mounting evidence to the contrary,
Stop slumming it with ghosts
Who don’t deserve your time or energy.
Walk out into the wide world.
You can only be brave
When you’re terrified.
This is the only game in town anyway,
Might as well get out on the field.
Come out,
Do it for the kid you used to be,
The little girl with crooked pigtails who loved to sing
until some grumpy grownup told her she was off-key.
The little boy in corduroys who wanted to dance so badly,
but locked it all inside his body.
This is your uncorking.
It’s time for your story.
Pop the top off your bottle of glory,
What are you waiting for?
We all want to see!
Set your genius inner genie free.
Come out,
I have nothing new to impart to you.
This is coming as an answer to your prior request.
This is your active remembering.
Come out,
Bust through the perceived prison bars of fleshly limitation.
Burst through your sternum.
Fill this room, fill the whole building,
Fill the night sky with your wild brightness.
Come out,
Would you deny
All the heavenly bodies
Of the galaxy
Their lives’ mission?
Why?
Why would you withhold from them their most fervent desire:
Simply to move in your sphere?
Come out,
The sky is spilling with supernovae
Who have traveled billions of light-years
Just to shine down on your countenance,
For the sole purpose of gazing upon your gorgeousness,
Just to commune with your witness.
Why play hard-to-get with the infinite?
Give it up, you little love-slut!
Save that standoffish behavior
For the haters, violators and naysayers.
Somewhere on the journey between birth and
This very moment,
Your heart got broken.
Life got thwarted and distorted.
Predators and manipulators did their dirty work:
They predictably preyed and manipulated.
You were wronged and that ain’t right.
You protected yourself as best you knew how,
The gestation was tenuous,
And now, Hallelujah, you’ve made it.
Now’s the time for realignment.
Crack your shell, my little chickadee.
Share your pretty with everybody.
Come out,
You are made of stardust
And you know this.
The outrageous unfolding of reality
Leaves you breathless.
Knocks you senseless.
You don’t want to miss this.
Come out,
We get this brief blink of an eye together.
Let’s keep it real,
Even though it means being vulnerable and permeable.
What other options have we got?
I’m raising the stakes,
And ripping a rift
In the fabric of time-space
To reach you.
This is our holy communion.
Come out,
I am placing rock sugar on the altar of your boundless potential.
I am burning frankincense by your hideout.
I am straight smoking you out.
I see the sweet believer in you,
The pearl of awe.
Listen, do you know
What you could unfold
From this peak moment of limitlessness?
Anything.
You could sing some Stevie Wonder and dance all crazy.
You could jump on a trampoline—trust me, it’s amazing.
You could eat some ice cream.
Even if it has to be vegan, organic, soy-free whatever, fine,
Just eat some whimsical freaking ice cream, please.
This existence is a menagerie of human-fleshsuit-sized
Miniature prisons.
I get it. Totally.
Yet how quickly this is all passing;
Nothing fancy.
You know this already.
Is there an out?
Is there a doctor in the house?
I am trying to say that you’re fantastic.
I am trying to say that the answer: you have it.
Come out,
Don’t end up mummified by your own cocoon.
Strangled by your best intentions,
Your attempt at self-protection.
It’s time to stretch your raw wings
Into the open field of possibility.
Yes, the air will sting,
It’s alright, its called feeling,
And you’re ready.
Come out,
How safe and impervious is the seed,
How vulnerable the first sprouting,
Yet, sprout it must,
And sprout it does,
And out it comes,
We were made to become,
We are made to become,
This entire universe is an act of becoming,
A holy rolling,
An eternity of unfolding,
Of not-knowing,
Of risk,
Of creation,
And yes, of potential violation,
Still, we persevere,
Shake off the cosmic dust,
Arise, we must
Continue.
The universe wants to show you your own light.
It’s reflecting it back to you all the time.
You can be fearless and wild.
You can shake your bootie.
You can strut your signature strut.
Your modesty is lovely,
It’s the shame that I urge you to shirk.
Do some spiritual clutter-clearing.
You can be as proper as you want to be,
Or you can be raunchy to the nth degree,
It honestly doesn’t matter to me,
I just want you to feel free.
Come out,
Do you, snowflake.
Do your one-of-a-kind.
Show me what you’re working with.
Let me see your light.
Come on little rockstar,
Come out,
And
Shine.
***
Photo Credit: “A Supernova Cocoon Breakthrough” (NASA, Chandra, Hubble, 05/15/12) from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Photostream.
***
This piece was written for my Write Club Los Angeles debut. My challenge was to write a piece on the theme “out.” I post it here with love and gratitude to my Write Club LA/Bootleg Theater family and Chloé Jo Davis and her GirlyGirl Army for supporting this work.
I am sharing this poem with you today because…drumroll please…it will be included on my brand new album! What?? YES! The entire album consists of poetry that has appeared here on Hevria, plus one poem which I was honored to debut on Nikki Skies’ blog for National Poetry Month. You can check it out here.
THE UPWARD SPIRAL
a collaborative project with producer Jaz1
on the M87ent label
will be released on 6/13 at 11:11.
Working with Jaz1 has been a revelation in joy and divine flow. We are having so much fun. We can’t wait for you to hear #TheUpwardSpiral, so we wanted to give you a teeny tiny taste to whet your whistle…
***
And now…your EMOJI DVAR TORAH! Special Bonus Redux Plus Ultra Superduper Nerdalert Edition!
Since my last Hevria post, there has been a long-awaited update to emoji. I have been really struggling with the “racially homogenous” nature of emoji (that’s putting it mildly) since its inception. In a twist of fate in relation to my most recent post, I was feeling a particularly intense longing for more multiethnic emoji. I knew I hadn’t truly done right by Rebbe Nachman’s quote. I am so glad they fixed this, thank you emoji! As such, I wanted to redo last week’s for you…so…here it is:
“The Exodus from Egypt occurs in every human being, in every era, in every year, and in every day.”
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
…and—of course—I want to share my new album’s title with you written in emoji…so BOOM! Here ya go!
Stay tuned for more details on #TheUpwardSpiral…I am so excited!
