The Aftermath

Written in the late hours of Election Night 2016

The words flow out of me like a river, like an ocean of tears for the broken peoples of this land. For the broken windows and doors and ceilings and floors. For the heart sick and power drunk. For brothers and sisters at the edges, whose terror grows. For the great mother whose body aches. For my own despair.

The words burst forth like fire, RAGE. You! Me. We did this. Burn it fucking down righteous fire. Lick the hallowed halls of liberal ignorance and corporate culture. Scorch the insidious machinations of racist hate and capitalist greed.

The words fly out like air. Like a gale force gust of thoughts. What could we have done? What convoluted cross section of corrupted systems has brought us to this crossroads? How could we have hid from this truth? Been so blinded? How can we heal this spiritual crisis?

These words cushion with me like the earth. Love thy brother. Ford these wide canyons and uncover what fills the space in between. Take up vigils in the places that make us the same. Love thy Mother. Give blessings for her gifts and use your hands to reclaim her world. Hold those hand in prayer and love and alight your voice with song.

I sing for the love I know we need most.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia leaves us with

the rosy hued

sepia toned

pretty pictures

of pasts that never were

and can never be again.

Yet I find myself reaching into my memory banks,

I search and search

and I dig and dig

till I pull the picture

out of the box,

and I can see the frame

Just as I remembered it

it looks just the same, but a little bit better.

Holding it in my hands

I hope that if I could somehow imbibe this photo

and push it down deep into the creative centers of my body

my loins would burst forth the human experience

that I wished it could have been at the time

and that I more deeply crave now

but it can ever be

and it won’t ever be

and that’s just the fucked up nature of Nostalgia.

Walking forward with you is impossible.

The bridge that led us to each other and on which I now stand,

when I look back to it from the days when we were together,

those parts of the bridge have already fallen

fallen in decay

for those parts of who I was that drew you to me

that drew me to you are dead.

Now what we have now are semblages of that love.

We have memories and affinities

and well wishes and good laughs.

But there’s no more adventure

there’s no more butterflies

there’s no more shared dream

the dream is dead.

And the person who must walk down this bridge now

and who will stand 100 feet further along this bridge 5 years from now

that person will have even less to say to you.

I see it

I see where I need to go

It’s  just there, ahead of me

it’s bright, and shiny, it’s calling me

But, I can’t help but feel my feet weighted down

wanting to stand in just this spot

so I can continue to smell and feel and taste

and just be buried in the residues of our love.

In what we once had and what you meant to me.

I want to camp out and pitch a fucking tent on the edge of the abyss of my bridge

because you loved me in a way that nobody else ever has

and there’s a part of me that’s afraid that nobody else ever will.

Part of me is afraid that I can’t walk forward without you;

that your presence was the elixir that gave me courage

that your belief  was the fuel that sustained my fires

or the faint wind that reminded me to look up when my nose turned black from digging it into the page in front of me.

This is what you have done for me for so long.

And in these months that we’ve been apart,  

I’ve done it for myself

but it’s felt chaotic and crazy and uncomfortable and challenging

and honestly there’s been a part of me

that thought it would end

And that you’d come back

and I’d have a place to sit again.

But that place is never coming.

We are never coming back.

You are never coming back.

And you will be in my bones forever.

My love will you will last forever.

The ways that you have moved me will be forever.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I love you.

Goodbye.

A little morsel of my poem Nostalgia from my solo show at the Octopus last night. Thanks to all the beautiful beings who came out to see it!

A post shared by Molly James (@msmollyjames) on Dec 18, 2016 at 7:47pm PST