This is an excerpt from my journal

I’m trying to reconnect with my spirit. It’s strange because I write in cursive as code, because my generation is the last to be taught cursive and also my words seems to flow more freely. I wonder if we’re typing to mimic machines, become more perfect, more able to produce, produce, produce. I sometimes can write typing, especially when my mind is free and uncaged, but there’s something important to me about writing on paper. Looking down now, my sentences resemble an assembly of rivers: thoughts ideas, ink, all flowing across the page. My mind needs water for nourishment.

I’m trying to decipher my intuition, read my muscles as maps. My jaw is a bear claw, clamped shut like an iron trap. The spikes sink their teeth into my ankles when I try moving. Why am I limiting myself from opening my door to voice?

I grit my teeth because I try and do everything right. I’ve been like this, a tight little ball, since I was small and just beginning to draw. I’d watch the grownups at aftercare and my teachers in school create beautiful images and was frustrated at my own hands for not holding steady lines. I seemed to be sporadic and I vibrated inside with shivers. I think I’m frustrated at my own body and mind because I don’t understand it. I am all I am and I do not understand my own rhythms, or at least pay attention. My eyes are windows, always looking outward. I need to remember to nourish my plants within.

It’s strange because I am a body of work that needs to be undone so that I can look at the pieces and see inward again. I need to inspect my molecules and memorize my fingerprints.

So what do I want? I’m debating about my degree and want to pursue creative writing and jewelry. There’s something beautiful about how both these things work with my body and mind. With jewelry, I work my mind on a design, a vision and bring it to fruition with my body. To be honest, I’ve been lacking in taking care of my vessel, my body. My shoulders are tight do to not sitting properly at a desk, but rather on the floor. With poetry, I am able to rest after making a poem. I become restless and need to write, something gnaws at my doors that needs to be said. For that, I am grateful poetry teaches me to listen, teaches me to listen to my intuition.