The Poetry Marathon

What is the matter?

 

We are born from matter

We are made of matter

We will return to matter

 

The things that made us unique

Taken back into the bigger aggregate

And that matters too

 

To be matter is simply to occupy space

But to matter is to take the forefront

 

We are made of matter

And yet we get to choose what matters to us

 

Can it be a coincidence that a word

Used to describe the basest form existence

Is also used to elevate one person, event, or circumstance above another?

 

This matter of language and words

Prose and poetry

It too matters

Even when it is not made of matter at all

 

 

 

Note of vetiver
Splash of amber
Hint of tobacco

Breathing in
The scent of you

My very own Proustian Moment

It lingers on my clothes
Shoved to the bottom of my laundry basket

Unable to be suppressed
Sparks play with my synapses
Linedancing to my limbic system

Engaging my emotions
Mesmerizing my memory

Electrifying the skeletal structures
Of ideas left derelict

A warm diffusion
Radiating in the hollow caverns of my chest

When I was young I was quite the adventurous bundle
With wide eyes and chubby legs made to trundle

They took me many places

Into the sagebrush forest
Across cacti fields
To the umbrella tree

These were sacred spaces

I followed imprints in the sand
Howls on the wind

Some days
The sagebrush cut my arms
The cacti left spines in my feet
The trees did not shade me from the heat

When I could not keep up
I would return home
Tears in my brown eyes

My father would hear my cries
Bandage my cuts
Remove the cacti from my soles
And soothe aloe on my burns
He told me I would never be left behind

My father always had a solution
and wrapped in clouds of gauze
words of affirmation
and tender love
I never scarred

Not enough
Too much

A journey of delight my hands traverse
Plains and valleys
Curves and edges

A shame spiral
Button strained
Breathe in denial
Till I spill out

Im sorry

I should never have tried to make you fit
Its just that they told me
That you were unfit
Any bigger and they would have never even noticed you

They just didnt know
That you have never needed to fit
That your nature may be water
But you have never conformed to a container

If you must be contained then let it be in clothe made for you
Custom to your dimensions

My body
I have told you that you are

Not enough
Too much

I was wrong

I am sorry

You have been many things
and will be many more

Well if posting this introduction a bit last minute isnt a bit of an introduction… my name is Lily and I am going to be doing the half marathon with my sister. We will be completing the 12 hour marathon, but at our own pace starting at 9am and going till 9pm PST because we are both in Oregon. While we are super excited to participate we also cant be asked to get up earlier than 7am and both require coffee and breakfast to be human. We did this last year and it worked really well (though the humanity started running thin around the 9th hour). We are both excited to be returning a second year and cannot wait to read all the beautiful things. Looking forward to sharing this experience with all of you wonderous beings.

A child of fine artists
A sibling to painters, potters, musicians, and poets
A cousin, niece, and granddaughter to more
I am the heir to generations of
Storytellers, painters, jewelers,
Potters, dancers, and singers

Engineers who changed the world
Artists who created for kings
Creators with documentaries and odes
Renowned and beloved

Create I tell myself
Notebooks for unfilled
Create I say
Art goes undone
Create I cry
Stories go unwritten
Create I wish
Dreams go unmanifested

What have you made?
I demand
What beauty do you bring?
I question

Myself
I reply
Unfinished
Transforming
Evolving

I have created myself
I am the art and the artist

I am a worthy successor to my lineage

(also these 12 poems)

Give yourself permission
To take the moment

Let music move
Sound sway your hips

Let intrigue ignite
Curiosity captivate your mind

Let sensation seduce
Love lavish your soul

Allow yourself to be

She breaks like a wave
A spray of sea salt
Shattering against a civil rebellion

Fragments illuminated
Casting fractal rainbows
Lighting scattered shadows
Satisfaction and regret

Unfurling
This sea rises
Manifesting
This storm roils

Corporeal
This girl exists
And
This war rages

Infinite potential takes a root
In dark rich soil, it uncurls
Pushing at the barriers of the known
Emerging to bask in streams of afternoon light
The first breath of transformation

As the earth it was born from circles
The source that nurtures it
The seedling grows

From tender green
To tremendous grown

Towering amidst mountains
Believing it has achieved
All that a seed could hope for

Severed at the base
Rings exposed
Lifetimes worth of reaching
Cut down

There is nothing more to hope for
No branches to stretch,
No leaves to grow
The tree despairs

Processed and bleached
Inked and bound
Transformed again

Infinite potential waiting to be found
To grow thoughts
To stretch minds

An essence
Nomadic it shifts

Filling this echoing cavity
The hallows of hallowed bone

Meaning to movement
Intention to itinerant instincts
A higher form of self

Or is it?

Created of me
Alive within

An atmospheric shift
It rises up recalcitrant
Drawing up indomitable

A conflagration ready
To set the world ablaze