The Caverns In My Bones
Five Haikus on Perfection
Welcome to Love + Travel where exploration leads to growth.
Check out last week’s, Through the Floor and Towards Myself, for a reflection on mental endurance or the entirety of my writing, here.
Most days I wrestle with my thoughts.
It always surrounds productivity. Am I doing enough? Exerting enough effort? Spending my time wisely? The thoughts slither, coiling themselves around my lungs, squeezing, until my heart is the galloping of racehorses.
I challenge them, reminding myself I am so much more than my labor.
They then slink back to the cold hollows from which they escape. Caverns of '“less than” formed within my bones during a time when self-concept, a soft thing, became enveloped under fat and muscle.
Internal conflicts are boring things, marked by inconsistency and frustration. A navel-gazing distraction from all the beauty and possibility that abounds. So I search for the access points to the recesses to fill them in. To fix - more doing, more productivity - sometimes panicked that as things are is how they will remain.
But even in the sameness, there is progress. To identify something is to stand outside of it. I hover over my bones. Waiting for the slitherings to emerge again. Welcoming them into the light of day. To remind them, and myself, I am enough.
-R.
PERFECTION I
I can’t hold myself
to an imagined standard
and yet I still try
PERFECTION II
I was fed a lie
being capable brings love
I still believe it
PERFECTION III
Digging into flesh
looking for a discreet spot
to bury the hurt
PERFECTION IV
The cherry on top
It is my finishing touch
self degredation
PERFECTION V
I don’t know what’s worse
the child left to self sooth or
the adult who can’t
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TODAY’S TIDBIT
Featuring over 30 works, Lorna Simpson: Source Notes is the first complete look into the acclaimed artists’ holdings. Known for her ability to create works that interrogate history, identity, and representation, the exhibition features major paintings, associated collages, and a recent sculpture. It will be on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through November 2nd.
LET ME KNOW
Are you a fan of haikus?
Did you know next Monday pops off this year’s 13 Weeks of Adventure?
How did you rest this weekend?
What’s the sweetest way someone has demonstrated you are more than enough?
Beautifully made, first time reading about haikus, in my very humble opinion I think it was very well done. I understand is about your own personal reflection but it’s so bright that reflects outward and affects other people just like myself and makes you think about your own struggles and ways to keep moving forward in life.
Thank you R. And please keep doing your thing in your own terms.