Hello Fear!

As we welcome and embrace autumn, I reflect on the past three months (summer). All the grieving and worry is finally coming to a place where I can find peace in these emotions. My brother in law is in the spirit world. We continue to mourn and ache for him. Every day gets harder and harder. Tuesdays are especially hard. He passed on a Tuesday (April 12, 2011). My little brother reappeared. We are thankful that he is alive and well. But there is still much work to be done.

As I mentioned a hundred times, the fear sometimes is greater than the actual thing or situation that you think you are afraid of. Fear is tricky, devious, and sneaky. It can mask itself as love, lust, greed.. It can even live within a person that you may hold dear to your heart. Fear is paralyzing but also necessary. Sometimes you have to look fear in the face and say HELLO!! I know you are present but I will work to lessen the power you have over me. Today, I say hello to FEAR! I hope you feel inspired to do the same. Here is some morning inspiration.


With Courage,
RPoeta

Breaking Silences

"...And there are so many silences to be broken." -Cancer Journals: Special Edition Audre Lorde

I feel a great deal of pain.

Pain for my sister who lost her husband two months ago.

Pain for my little brother who I haven't seen in over 3 months.

Pain for my mother, who aches for her baby boy. With the fear that she may never see him again.

Pain for myself. Because I can't stop the self-loathing.

I ache, ache, ache for my loved ones and myself.

This pain I hold. I hold tender in my heart. I hold it tucked in my mind. Like one holds on to a newborn baby for fear of exposing it to the pain of the outside world. I prefer to conceal the pain.

I hold on to my pain and fears. Rather than let them go. To let these things go would mean opening the cages I have kept locked in for far too long.

I re-read Audre Lorde's Cancer journals because I know she will help me see that silence is worst than the fear of showing my true self.

Image: Street Art in center city, Philly. Taken with Instagram (@sapphireshoots).


With Courage,
Rebel Poeta

Zenith

Lost in my thoughts
Hiding in the shadows
Surfing the waves
Headed to the unknown
My mind is
Like the Bermuda triangle
I may not return

To be searching
For sanity
In a state of insanity


Who will tell the little girl
That her future self will be alright?


Two lost souls uniting at zenith
A point of no return

An eternity of restlessness
On the hunt for what is true
For what is righteous

For love...

With courage,
Rebel Poeta


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

spreading negative energy

dealing with depression affects not only you but your loved ones. i find myself pushing friends and family away or making their lives a living inferno. a sunny day in Philly that i can't seem to see through these eyes. its much darker and foggy through my lenses. don't feel like my 'self.'

for some reason, i can't control these feelings and the ways this energy is diffused. i feel terrible to do this to them. which only makes me feel worse about myself and may make it hard to get over this depression. sometimes i think they are better off without me....but i know that is not true. i just have to get through this rough patch...

thanks for listening (and reading)!

with a pinch of courage,
RP

depression

i have relapsed into this abyss that i once thought was behind me. i can't sleep. i can't eat. i can't even think. without this fog that clouds my mind, thoughts, emotions...

sadness consumes me
melancholic rages
warp my mind
the clouds begin
to hide the sun
as the storm begins
the light no longer
in sight
the pain stings
the anger burns
tears invade my veins
poison kills me slowly

do roses really grow from concrete?
does the light truly shine through?
what really happens after the storm?
will i survive this?
is there an end in sight?

with courage,
RP

losing a loved one

someone that meant a lot to my family and i passed away almost four weeks ago. it was tragic and unexpected. but we are getting through it.

death has a funny way of teaching you how to live. you have two choices: you live your life in fear or live your life in/with love. after losing him, i learned that we must choose the latter. with open minds and hearts we MUST choose love. it hurts to know that this person is no longer with us in this world. but i know that he will be with us in a different form. i find comfort in that. i have been grieving in my own way by practicing silent meditations and expressing my feelings when i find the strength to. keeping it safe and secure within does not help me and those who care about me.

death has a way of teaching you to be fearless. we know that death is the one thing that is certain. one should not live one's life in fear of dying. but we should live with faith and awareness that while it [death] is inevitable we will live our life to the fullest.

i am grateful to have known him.. to have good memories and to know that he came in to our lives for a reason.

Blame the victim?

The mind is an amazing and powerful muscle. It never fails when March rolls around I go into a deep depression. My body does not feel my own. I think about the day I was date raped back in college. 10 years ago on March 5th. I think about how things changed for the rest of my life. I still have regret (like I could've done something to change what happened..which is not true!). A regret that lies at the core of white supremacist patriarchy. How we blame the survivor of assault. How we question her motives or say its her fault for the rape?!

I think of the 11 year old Latina from Cleveland, Texas a victim of gang rape..and the community's harrowing response. I think of folks who have all this sympathy for Chris Brown but still question Rihanna. I think of all the little black and brown girls who are survivors of abuse but never, never, never speak up because they know like I know that they will get blamed too.

As a survivor, resisting and making meaning of my traumatic experiences is a daily struggle for me. But I get through it by fighting and using the tools of self-love and resistance to get me through. And IT DOES!!

As a feminist, I am aware that the way I am made to feel (this guilt, blame, and shame) is a part of a larger social and oppressive structure that upholds and protects the abuse against women. Sometimes in my saddest moments I reflect and think that I could have changed what happened to me. But I cannot blame myself. And society should not blame a woman (or survivor of assault) for something her perpetrator has done.