The Open-minded Skeptic

I vocally moan 

Reading my past words 

Published to the stranger

A motherly instinct arises 

To nurture that little girl in the mirror 

I suppose that’s the pain my own mother must live with  

Wise enough to know 

That her words pushed me the other way

That rules were meant to break

That I just hadn’t yet learned 

Which confines to respect 

“Anti-everything” 

was the only option at the time 

One cannot love without differentiating 

Without living and choosing their own moral path 


I dropped out of art school. 

I always thought artists had to be fucked up to create

I read in Art and Fear that the artist only creates when the pain of not creating supersedes the pain of creating. 

But the pain of not creating only really comes when the pain of living supersedes the joy. 

When meaning is lost

so we must turn to the page 

To find something within ourselves 

To understand what makes us different 

But we’re all different, yet dependent on each other 

Yet somehow democracy and justice 

Have formed a negative correlation 

An open-minded skeptic.

An optimistic anarchist.

The alchemist. 

She/her they/them and the evident 

Labels that shouldn’t need to exist 

Polarized into socially constructed confines

The world has been simplified 

Into a grain of salt 

As seasoning for their homemade salad dressing 

While Toni waits at the corner 

Outside CVS 

For a human 

Beneath the mask 

Beneath the mustard-colored scarf 

I was removing from my neck 

Before she asked me where I got it 

I told her my mother gifted it to me 

My first Christmas in New York. 

She told me to keep it 

And to love my mother 

She called me Erin 

And asked me about my life

And she saw me clearly and I saw her 

Through her light brown wrinkled eyes 

Opened wide


The words used to describe joy 

Love

Are limited 

And often resemble loss 

And fear 

I abandon my creativity in those moments 

For the English language 

Doesn’t do justice 

To the depth of my emotions. 

When it’s dark, it’s easy

To isolate, yet connect. 

While the very word magic

Implants an image of a rabbit in a top hat 

Of falsity and foolery and deceit. 

I suppose that explains my creative gap. 

And my creative block in this moment. 

I choose to use simple words 

Just as we’ve chosen to process through categorization 

How we see white as the inverse of black 

Dog as the inverse of cat

Right-brained as the inverse of left.

We are told we cannot be both 

Intralatterally paralleled 

That we must choose our path as children 

And have a plan for our future

But the future is just a summary of the day 

And the day is a summary of a bunch of hours 


But haven’t you noticed that hours cannot be measured 

That metric is just another man-made category 

My father always told me 

Time is the most valuable thing in this world 

But if time doesn’t exist 

What else have I been fed, and thus, have I lived by and idolized in this figure?

This beautiful figure 

That prompts me to ask that very question? 

Whereas those who are not prompted are instead told 

And told 

And told 

Without questioning the origin 

Without acquiring the flexibility 

To shift, through experience. 

To be part of the whole 

To balance the universe


It disappoints me that the last three lines I wrote have been cliched into losing meaning.

That true meaning cannot be dictionized.

That the essence of communication has been simplified into words. 

When was the last time you hugged a stranger? 

Unfortunately, most children are taught that rules are meant to be followed.