I have struggled to write, knowing that in the past my writing kept me strong, kept me sane. It helped me work out problems, figure out ways to move above and beyond the things that plagued me. I happened on an old poetry book, and some of the phrasings leapt into my throat, “love like lace and sphynxes,” “a leash of gossamer thread,”…how did all these things disappear from my life? How is it that they fade when magick has not? When magick is so fully a part of my life that I can summon it with a mental gesture? Where has my language gone?

I thought perhaps it was learning…that each new experience was so new I had to write it all down, the first time I fell in love with this one or that one, the first time I inhaled lover’s breath, the first time a scent knocked me to my knees, the first time I was ridden by drumming rhythm, the first time the first time the first time….perhaps there were no more firsts. Perhaps that is where my language went…the way of my firsts. Perhaps my day to day has become so…ordinary…that it no longer requires the language I used to have to describe it. Could that be true?

I tried to describe my ordinary, but the words would not flow. I described the writing block, but the words would not flow. I became content in myself for my love for myself and my body, but the words would not flow. I had tried to force it into poetry, you see, for that was the old medium. But I have changed. My words have changed.

I looked for my firsts…surely I haven’t stopped learning. I found my firsts to be so much more….personal. So much deeper. So much more vulnerable than before. My doubts in myself, which originally were about my own personal power until I learned how to grow past that, were now once again about my personal power…but in a totally different way. There was a time when I feared my power and refused to touch it because of what it might do to me. Because all the people I knew that had power were abusive with it, my mother being first, all the examples I had were not the people I wanted to be. I was afraid if I touched it, I would be transformed into an uncaring abusive thing. I had to learn that the core of who I was was stronger than my personal power, that it couldn’t change me into something I didn’t want to be.

Now the lesson is so different. Now it is about recognition…about how each dip into my personal power causes ripples that spread outwards. I believe so strongly I sometimes change people’s minds. I don’t do it on purpose…it just happens. I try so carefully to not cause people to believe the things I believe and instead to help them figure out what they believe. I’m not so sure I’m good at it. I’m not so sure that I can help it. I try to be one of those divers that causes few ripples, and instead I’m like a sprinkler that causes ripples everywhere all at once. I’m not so good at this. I forgive myself and try again. I have good intentions, and as long as those intentions involve personal freedom for everyone, I should be okay.

I should be.

Lately my firsts are evolutionary. I watch myself and my lover unfold, each intimate talk we share about how we feel, about what and why we think, each strokes us gently like sunlight, each time we unfold a little more, sometimes like an opening flower, and other times like a child rolling over in the womb. Each time I discover something new I feel like I’m blind and I’ve found a warm ray of sunlight, rolling over and stretching to find the confines of the space, inhaling the smells of it, feeling the words roll around on my tongue.

I’m not so sure who I am anymore. I know I believe in love, as intricate as lace, as strong as the strength of sphynxes. I know that the green calls to me when I smell her, especially after it rains. I know that my friends are my friends and I entrust myself to them completely. I know that mostly I am made of Love, that sometimes I am made of Anger and Rage, and that always, that anger and rage come from Love of my Self, and Fear. The fear changes…sometimes it’s fear of myself or for myself….fear of giving up. Fear of

Just.

Letting.

Go.

Sometimes it’s fear of being alone…for I have recognized that I am very much alone. We’re all alone, really. So ironically, I’m not alone in that. The secret, I think, is to know that you’re alone, and that’s okay. To know that we all shoot through space like electrons, sometimes bouncing and colliding into each other and making contact, but more often than not, just traveling through empty space. You can focus on the emptiness, or look with wonder at all the journeys around you. I choose wonder.

So it’s not that my language is gone. Maybe I can’t write poetry anymore…that’s okay. Maybe I just collided with it when I was younger, and the pieces of it, those lovely bits of language that I’ve left behind, maybe they can be used for other things. Maybe I’ve just evolved, and this is the new medium, this poetry/writing hybrid, maybe this is the new thing. Maybe it’s the new magick.

But right now, I’m colliding with it, and this is where I’m at. The faint sweet scent of cinnamon is intoxicating in this particular patch of sunlight. Pardon me…whilst I roll and stretch a bit.