Alongside painting, I enjoy writing words that rhyme – reflections on experiences, identity and the shifting internal landscapes within.
Written over the years.
Pluto
And if you sent my weeping paints and I to Mars?
We would make art out of the near-dying stars,
And if you want to send me to the moon?
My bags are packed and ready by noon.
I’d be careless if my next stop was the sun
Because chasing planets is bloody fun.
So I’ll buckle my shoes and twist my head back on,
And button my shirt to write you a farewell song.
For my eyes are wide and full of galaxies,
My dreams stand over me, tall as trees.
Life is fickle and they don’t get me here,
So ill stop by the sun, sure to be sincere.
I'll look my Sunday best for the moon’s craters,
For the mould coloured human-kind spectators
I’ll sit and count the rings of Saturn,
Rearrange the planets into a pretty pattern.
I’ll paint faces with funny eyes and crooked noses,
I’ll paint green and turquoise roses.
I’ll fall asleep on Pluto because maybe they’ll understand,
A lonely planet for a lonely man
Prevail
You didn’t fight so hard then just to give up now,
I’m not asking you to be bold, clever or loud.
Just hold onto your hope and water it too,
There’s always a cup of tea you can brew.
Life can be lonely, the odd one out,
But that’s your calling even in a drought.
Friends will come and go, but the seeds are sewn,
My love for me and my found family will only grow.
You have it within you to rebuild,
Time is of the essence, it’s the “now” you wield.
Sad days are granted, happy ones too,
Don’t simply sit in your sadness and stew.
Churn and burn your mind into something real,
Time is precious, its your own that you don’t want to steal.
Your body was born into strife and yet you strive,
Keeping that hummingbird heart alive.
Remember there is proof that you are loved,
Even by strangers long gone or Ivy above.
You can make an impact and set your own sail,
Show all lonely, last picked, odd ones out that they too can prevail.
Masterpiece
Take a step back, twist and bend it,
Turn the piece upside down for a new perspective,
Don’t you know babe? it’s all subjective.
Want to be a great artist? Keep going.
Ugly stages, all part of it? Keep flowing.
Want to start over? Hey, that’s fine,
It’s just a piece of art, there’s no finish line.
Frida showed us that we can,
Brush in mouth, there is no end.
Don’t ya dare yourself condemn,
Every brush stroke, worth it in the end.
Say what if and why not?
But your ego’s twisted, curdled in a knot.
Untie it, release your inner artist,
Trust me when I say it’s pure catharsis.
Wanna be like Van Gogh?
Darling, say it ain’t so,
Man went mental, had it tough,
Wish he knew he was always enough.
He painted for him, I want you to paint for you,
Get weird with it, just gotta see it through.
Wanna be a Wassily Kandinsky?
Darlin, be whoever you wanna be.
Redesign, rewrite, repaint,
Don’t let the critics leave a stain.
You don’t have to put it on a wall,
For it to be worth anything at all.
So keep going through the messy middle,
Some people might not get it, but hey,
It’s yours, your internal riddle.
Paint a dot or a thousand,
Yayoi Kusama showed you that you can.
Just keep going, not all art you gotta frame.
I hope you get what I’m saying,
It’s your own mind that you need to reframe.
If you put it on a page, it wasn’t there yesterday,
You’re a real artist to me, keep those bad feelings at bay.
Jean-Michel Basquiat,
Do you wanna be a copycat?
That’s fine too, take your inspiration,
But, darl’ make it your own creation.
Doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth it,
Don’t put a price on it, it’ll only curse it.
Just gotta start today, tomorrow’s coming soon,
Let the messy middle loom, trust it’ll inspire those around you too.
Young one, keep dreaming bigger than a page,
Make your life the canvas, the masterpiece and stage.
So let the child draw and doodle,
She’s trying to reach through to you.
Pick up the phone, she’s calling out,
Begging you to paint without a doubt.
Your life, a masterpiece call it a canvas,
Don’t worry if it goes different to how you planned it.
So many phases, different stages, going places,
Draft it out but don’t get complacent.
Don’t gotta sit and stew, it’s your canvas,
Don’t wanna be abandoned, not by you.
Where there’s a will there’s a way,
It’s your art and your life, you have a say.
Life’s a canvas and you’re the artist,
Paint it all out of pure catharsis.
Take a step back, look at the bigger picture,
Hole in the painting? Fix it with a suture.
If you make something that didn’t exist before?
In my eyes you’re a real artist, don’t make it a chore.
Wanna have a golden phase?
That’s aight, Klimt said it’s okay.
Take inspiration, and you’ll inspire one day.
Even the greats, they’re human too,
Their morals shining through showing a dark hue.
I’m not saying separate the art from the artist,
Just take your own inspiration and harness it.
You can wipe that slate clean with a bit of paint,
Stay inside, paint a world of colour on a rainy day.
Critics will come, sharing their lonely hues,
Don’t they know you paint for you?
Not for their validation, regardless,
You’ll crave it without hesitation.
Everything adds up to something greater,
If there was just one thing I’d say to her:
Keep on drawing, keep on doodling,
It’s your ego that needs a little loosening.
Paint your world a little brighter.
Don’t wanna lose sight of her.
Little girl just wants to draw,
Let her out, hear the colours roar.
Cope
The bad days will come, they always loom,
Alike the sun, the lover of the moon.
The future calls to you if you care to listen,
Picture better days through the tears that glisten.
For you never know what’s around the corner,
So don’t condemn yourself to a life of being a mourner.
Look for the exceptions to the lies you tell yourself,
Read this, if anything, on that dusty bookshelf.
It’s not always easy, I know it all too well,
Let the currents do their thing as they push, pull and swell.
The map is undefined, but choose your own path,
Always stop to share a moment with a stranger, if not a laugh.
You’re more than your bad days and tears fallen,
You know it within you that you have your own calling.
To inspire hope in spite of a dark day,
That’s always been your will and way.
So don’t stop, instead shift and persevere,
The child wants to draw, so let her.
I know it’s all easier said than done,
But make her proud, that’s how you’ll know you’ve won.
She believed in you, I do too, hope will prevail,
It’s your own self you have to start to unveil.
I have hope, even if you can’t see it now,
Sitting lonely under your storm cloud.
It feels impossible and I know you’ve tried so hard,
But don’t be the one to yourself - discard.
You can do this, even if right now you can’t picture it,
It takes time to heal a hole, even if you suture it.
Let time take its toll, learn a lesson each new day,
For you know it’s the very SJ-way.
You won’t always be alone, little hummingbird,
Even if that reality feels distorted and blurred.
Worn Thin
You become the guiding star for others but not for yourself,
You procrastinate the things that will master your mental health.
You become the poison in the place of love given.
Know it’s your life and your head that you live in.
Others will make their choices and create their own path,
Regardless of your kindness that churns into wrath.
Be a noble person and take yourself for granted.
Leave yourself all twisted, turned and mented.
The tea gets colder by each day, slowly losing my way,
Knowing this isn’t who I wanted to be.
But if being mean means freedom, maybe that’s the key.
I’m tired of my kindness fading like a sunset,
If I could readjust my moral compass to a complete reset..
In a heartbeat I would, just to stand taller.
Reality knows in moments like these I stall her.
I want to water my own garden, be my own friend,
The kind I have wished for time and time again.
Plane Ride
Being stuck is like a once soggy book with it’s pages dried,
I can’t move and my skin feels tight but for now I’ll sit and abide.
I’ll follow the rules and accompany my seat as my curls caress the headrest,
My hair pulled back hiding the branches of the bird nest.
So I’ll do my best to stay still, even when my bones ache.
And I’ll pull myself together like leaves being met by a rake.
One day, maybe one day soon I won’t have to stay quiet.
I’ll be able to let loose and participate in the violet riot.
Maybe I’ll learn to breathe, relax and settle into myself,
Or maybe I’ll let my anxiety collect cobwebs on an untouched shelf?
Mental Health Palace
We sit and gather like dust,
Unravelling layers of rust.
In beat up camp chairs,
Sharing our worst nightmares.
The mental health palace,
Sharing stories of untold malice.
Absorbing each others pain,
With no growth and no gain.
The change starts when reality begins,
With no acceptance comes no wins.
We dwell in the current of the cesspool,
Trying to play calm and act cool.
When the masks come down,
Tears fall, in anger we drown.
Resisting change, resisting reality,
Testing the bounds of our holy morality.
Unveil it in ourselves, sit with discomfort.
Too busy hiding from our own love for it,
But once we peel the curtains back,
Realise its only courage we lack.
Self awareness can seem jarring,
One realises it’s themselves they’re harming.
We stare each other down to reflect,
It’s all smoke and mirrors when you dissect.
A mosaic of stories and mistakes,
Shared feelings of remorse and disgrace.
Repeat scripts, repeated stories at bay,
Those who know they’ll be back by May.
A second home, a saving grace but to some,
A place they’ll seemingly never escape from.
I hope they do, but I accept I can’t save them,
They spit self-fulfilling curses and themselves they condemn.
Buzzkill
Acceptance seems the only approach,
To save yourself from a fatal dose.
To know there is no promise of summer,
Is a buzzkill a certain bummer.
To know we change and grow,
And tomorrow there might be no glow.
But you’re sleeping in the other room,
And darling, I’ll come hold you soon.
For she’s young, wild and free,
For I am a flower, you a bee.
She stops over to collect my nectar,
She’s sweet like honey, but oh a collector.
So I’ll do my best to feed my fears,
To expect your absence and expect tears.
To never know if tomorrow will glow,
Because I understand things come and go.
Some days I’m not sure if it’s kind for me to entertain romance,
My history of bittersweet decline and a trail of overwatered plants.
It’s hard to explain why I am the way I am,
I give myself in pieces, one day I hope you can understand.
Alike early morning sun that hugs your curtains, seducing your eyes awake,
insecurities shine through, reminding me what’s at stake.
But if I’m ready to lose maybe I won’t be sour,
And if I get scared, I’ll laugh louder.
For tall walls with filled cracks look strong,
Even though to belittle and break, it wouldn’t take long.
Nail Biter
I don’t understand these people but some days I wish they understood me,
That the idea of leaving the house makes it hard for me to breathe.
My bed is made, but will I have somewhere to sleep tomorrow?
Floating in space is a planet infected with sickly sin and sorrow.
So Ill sit by the window and watch the apocalypse go by,
How they do it? I’ll wonder how, but more-so why?
Feeding my certain aptitude for anxiety, can it be justified?
Feeling certain that tonight here, I’ll stay with a cup of tea on my bedside.
And so, It leaves me wondering why?
Is everyone acting okay? Is it all a big lie?
For my world crumbles under the weight of my mind.
And to be truthful I have always tried to be kind
For when I act crooked and see shades of red,
I pray my karma finds me, while I belittle myself in my head.
Every misstep and mistake, a missile inward. Friendly fire,
I wonder who planted the seeds that made me a nail biter.
I remind myself often that it’s okay to have cracks,
Yet day by day I’m finding it harder to relax.
Broken Glass
I act in a vicarious vain,
yet not for personal gain.
It’s a simple way to stay sane,
With this pretty peculiar brain.
For I’m a drought with pending rain,
Just once more, says the addict numbing the pain.
My mind lacks consistency and I cop the blame,
And tell me, Is it my fault that I haven’t stayed the same?
That I am wild with no desire to be tame?
For my roots are rotten, yet my branches reign.
And you call me a babe, but I know I’m a bain,
I'm broken glass caressed by the window frame.
Scrapbook
What people don’t see it that this life didn’t fall into my hands.
When I was just a girl I created my own list of hefty demands,
A promise of something more and something warm.
Told myself I’d find the calm if I got through the storm.
I set the bar so high sometimes I thought I was drowning.
But now I look back and wonder what kept me doubting.
When I was five we ran away again,
We sold the lot and brought a van.
For months we called a rusted metal box home,
Through it all a family, never alone.
Each of my brothers guarding the front as they fall asleep,
My mother, sister and I in the back living cheap.
For its odd to feel small underneath it all,
Alas, a wary child carefully stepping, scared to fall.
The girl in the mirror, the same stare and the feeling that never shakes,
My heart and bones, built on a foundation of loss and aches.
It took me a while to become conscious of the difference,
And I know some say to forget it but they didn’t lose their innocence.
For when you’re a hungry child without a able mother,
It takes you a while to understand to how to love another.
You learn you deserve less then your peers,
And the other kids feed your fears.
I was born on an island that felt larger then life,
The bay a backdrop to the beginning of my strife.
To a mother of now 4 who believes in fairies and folklore,
It’s the thick layer of shame that follows,
Regardless of uncomfortable self-love and fake-it-till-you-make-it mottos.
My mother meant well in a senseless sense,
You’d understand if you could see her through my lens.
From one broken child to another,
From Daughter to Mother.
I’ll never doubt my love for her.
Regardless of her love for lively fox fur.
For she’s a dream, a dream whisperer,
And I hope I can one day prove to her,
That the madness she’s passed onto me - it has a place in this world.
My fists are clenched and my hair is curled.
A sad life or a life or of unlucky lessons?
Too much to share over therapy sessions.
Too many wrong turns and too many tears,
Just a lass whose been taught to have fears.
For life has shown me certain injustice?
Am I mad? No. For it just is.
SJISOKAY 