Lavender

 

That shadow of yours still resides 

in the kitchen window

where the orchid used to be.

Was it pink?

I can't remember.

We'd make eye contact every time.

You greyed early.

I admire your pigment

or lack there of.

Your young face filled the window sill

with motion as I'd walk by.

Our eyes would cradle each other

for not long enough.

What if that window had been opened

and you reached out,

or my confessions came flooding into your grasp?

~Tina Meeks

Talking to Myself

 

Alone in space for peace and solitude

Voices carry over wooden frames of privacy

Only vision protected but auditory,

expected

Slender human thoughts excel through

time like lightspeed

-It's true

My thoughts have sinned

Where do I drift to in order to make something 

make sense

of the feelings that never leave

and left on the back burner?

~Tina Meeks

Wait For It

 

I froze.

You kissed my cheek daringly.

I sheepishly went for the crevice

between your lips and missed.

Then we both paused

and just let it happen again.

~Tina Meeks

New Adventures

 

Tickled by raindrops plopping across our bodies
faster than we could run.
Remember that one time we got
stuck in the storm
and couldn't find an overhead?

It's okay to be drenched, I thought.
Eventually, we smiled and just walked
in the down pour,
taking the evening as it was.

Often, a late night would take us to
the gelato shop in Downtown Berkeley.
I used to go there for lattes 
before my night class-
That was when I just started
drinking coffee.

Cat Eyes & Soulless

 

She's a dancer
Speaker in motion
Tender gliding on hardwood floors,
stirring lithium,
coming to life

Spectacle for the dead
A resurrection of hope and a silhouette
through the day
and unknown to many climates

"I am missing
I'm gonna start posting pictures
if you don't let me see myself"
she says

That was a glimmer of real time in public
when stripped to the bare bone
Collecting her objects like thoughts
and cradling them in her hands
so carefully like a child 
and rigidly putting them back down again

Through the car window,
she appears to be one of us
with a serious discussion
Who is around, matters not

Look closer,
you will see the Norma Jeane Mortenson
in her face
Storytelling eyes
that pierce a moment in time.

~Tina Meeks

A Snippet of the Morning

 

I must be a daydreamer.

Wandering under the sun and longing 

to be back to the cold mornings

with birds welcoming me.

The stillness roaming the streets like a drone,

soring to capture the moments that are craved.

In a daze time and time again

and putting everything into it

by being present enough to see the clouds exploring

and evolving

and changing.

Where's the ground now a days?

Only concrete swamps surface the city

and I belong in the dirt.

Unfinished Dreams

 

Trying to dive deep into dreams,
I only get so far with the Z's
Resurfacing every few hours for a breath
Check my pulse, I'm still here,
and how do I get back to where I was?

How can I remember that it's okay
to drift and let go?
To feel like a shooting star
amongst those seeming to stand still?
It's like I wanna dance in the night
and don't know how,
even with all my shedding of shrapnel

~Tina Meeks

Man Pt. I

 

It was enticing to see this man

with tight pants on

Pulled all the way up

with belt through every loop

Form fitting denim giving the best hug

to his legs and friends

This man smirks-

I hope my eye gaze didn't give me away

~Tina Meeks 

Dreams Pt. I

 

Dreams seem like isolated bubbles until we
wake up from the flow state
Or
Staying afloat on water, strolling downstream 
Being tickled by touches of droplets and burbles
Dreams sometimes have this way
of making life occur in another dimension
Painting happenings
the way I like to with words,
or
revealing details and make them believable 
before the story ends
Dreams are like the exodus of a journey
between worlds
If only brains were really dreamcatchers 
If only some dreams were fueled by steam trains
so they don't have to go up in smoke,
rather seep into our pores
Seems like only the good ones get revived,
along with the terrifying ones and their
summarized plots
and the rest
fall through the cracks
like crumbs
So, where in the depths of our dreams do we lie,
aside from the surface
next to out fingertips?
Where do the bubbles go the moment they pop?
And how can dreams be resinned to be something 
to go in the back pocket?

~Tina Meeks

A Loud Voice

 

Sometimes pieces break 

before the needle is threaded all the way through,

like popcorn strung sentences.

He sounds and moves words that give me goosebumps

and make them go away

again.

Rings on the right pinky and ring finger,

he can fist bump from the soul.

He'll never be lost under the sun.

Breath going in and out like everyone does.

Tormented like on elementary school playgrounds

mounted on a calendar to never

be forgotten, but marked

of that preserved time for when 

someone thought less of him...

~Tina Meeks

Perseverance Pt. I

I don't pedestal you

Easy on the eyes and so suave

Your voice itself

each time you speak,

you speak accolades

A voice with paragraphs between breaths 

spilling memories with father telling

stories with intimate details

I don't pedestal you

I admire

the pureness in your voice

The uncontrollable urge to

speak with hands and sway to convey

energy, feeling, time

You bend those things with emotion

and conviction

I don't kneel down to you, trust me

but I like the way you speak on paper

and now that you've shared your echoing tone

it's all I hear when reading your voice

~Tina Meeks

I'm Lost

My brain feels stunted and lusting over

a time that existed as a fragment or a clipping 

from a newspaper found in a box

under the bed.

Dated.

Timestamped in a place

that once was quiet.

~Tina Meeks

 

Sleepwalking

My dreams try to capture you at night

so I wonder if you sleepwalk with 

every desire on your sleeves,

or do you believe you're invisible?

~Tina Meeks

This is What I Think You Are

 

You are a moonless night

the loneliness of a cricket in the brush

and the curtains whipping in the breeze.

~Tina Meeks

Poets

 

You and I have been shifting

and gravitating

like the planets and sun

Your silent poetry struck me

Captured me

and gestured quietness in my dreams

You are the same there

Cautious smile

We didn't quite hug

You painted feelings lightly on my side

while I searched for your confessions

in the depths of your canyons 

on a Summer day

Blowing smoke absentmindedly 

in a farraginous bubble.

~Tina Meeks

I Am

If I were a poem

I would be naked.

I would be a hollow glimmer 

of the light seeping from a subway tunnel.

~Tina Meeks

These Days

 

A generic teenaged world.
Having not yet seen
the world beyond sheltered eyes.

Mother's arms lay open, harmoniously
and never shift position-
not even for an itch.

She casts innocence.
She bellows for her people.
Mother tucks her tail in if wolves
growl back.

Forgiveness drenches hands.
She gently combs fingers
through my hair after
brushing out what corruption has entangled me into.

I have hardly said much
after sifting through flashcards
and rejecting melatonin-filled nights.

These days,
reflection is tell all.

~Tina Meeks

Ode to Poetry

 

I don't spit rhymes,

and forget about a dope beat

Simple and poetically 

full of flow and empathy

Emotionally charged

atrociously 

devoted to the words

and imaginary metronome 

~Tina Meeks

5:30am

 

Today was a hard day

and my body harbors fatigue from head to toe.

Rolling out of bed before the sun touches my skin,

and my sacrificial breaths only get my so far.

My breath, floating up like smoke.

I hallucinate lightly as I pedal faster over bumps,

attempting to plan for the next 7 hours.

~Tina Meeks

Hiking

 

A deja vu shadow.
Stark breaths rupture behind face masks.
Emerald chartreuse forest.
Spiderwebs delicately glisten as the wind 
lifts them closer to the sun
the way flowers follow. 

Trust fallen trunks
and the population still grows higher.
Collection of komerebi.
Bird song playlist.

Prominent psithurism
then a light wind chime jingle,
thus, the power of the wind.

In The Wild

 

I believe you will always be someone new,

you will always be you

simply by wherever you're taken

The calm after the storm

You are the aftermath

The avalanche

The evidence of a committed crime

You are the pupil of this world

The terrene I wish to be

A collaboration of sites worth reaching

and whatever precipice you're up against

has nothing on resiliency. 

~Tina Meeks

I gotta admit, today was a tough one...

 

 Sometimes I think it makes more sense

to move backwards.

I don't know if that'd be slowing down

or just going elsewhere with

different motivation.

I'm motivated to go at my own pace

and pay attention to the framed nostalgia

that mattered enough to become outlined.

~Tina Meeks 

That Feeling You Get When You Finish a Notebook...

 

**Isn't it such a good feeling to finish a notebook and move on to the next? A little cathartic but also a little sad to be leaving something behind? Well, I always save the last few pages of my notebooks to do a small self reflection on my journey through that book, and in a way, to thank the book for holding my thoughts and feelings. Sentimental value, so to speak. The following is an entry on the last 3 pages of a book I just finished. And now, on to the next...**

        And to conclude this book...
This book was taken through a wild fluctuation of mental stability challenged times. Somewhat painstaking paradigm of mandated self-preservation in isolation.

I do feel that there has been growth through this book. It does hold unique feelings that may have been touched on in the past, but more in depth now. This book also holds events that took place and new arrivals to my life, like people.

Musical influences, places, words. While I refuse to allow a pandemic to rule a tone over my life, I do acknowledge that it has played a role on my mental state and the amount of friendly interactions I've been holding, as well as places I've been to more recently.

 In order to maintain some level of sanity in a world that has shifted drastically and oddly, remaining calm, having light structure, and forgiveness of the self has helped a lot. I have found a new sense of community this time around, and I have, in a way, strengthened my poetic drive, at the same time as challenging it. 

This has also been a time where I have accessed a side of myself that has seen little light before. Being mixed is something I've constantly been aware of but feel it differently now, and want to embrace it, rather than feel like I'm tolerating it. Happy to be everything that I am and want to share these things.

With that, thank you for holding onto my deepest thoughts and hidden aggressions, fears, and pleasures. Without you, I'd be close to nothing.

~Tina Meeks

Tuesday Morning

I think it's important to preserve space for creativity.
Gangway!
Allow the mind to be taken into a place
that is not necessarily physical,
but it prevails on another level,
and sometimes this place which we speak of, is spoken
and unheard of.

Or wished to be heard through another voice,
because ones own is no good.
The idea can't come across in the same tone 
or manner that we wish.

At any rate,
I hope every single person has at least 
one place that is their own and safe.

Keep it to yourself or express the mind
and explain it's value that plasters your hands
or goosebumps the body.
There is no shame in pleasure,
and spill guilt over something else.

This time and in this place is sacred
and needs to be there when it makes sense
and feels so right.
Inspiration is transformative and comes to light
in life around us all.

Inspiration hurts, too.
It sometimes hurts like a one time lightning strike;
a one in a million fulgurite.

For me, there's a whole dimension 
of
                         falling
words

trying to find me fast enough
to create a sense of self and meaning
that I only sometimes pay my respects to.

I try to manipulate compilations of distorted
other humans that I hide in between 
to protect myself from the rain
of emotional distress and desire,
and I wonder what that means to other people.

What would my mother say about this?
This other poet I just met- how might they interpret that?
My third grade best friend,
do they remember my adolescent mind,
and is any piece of it tarnish-free and still here?
I don't know so much.

At a wooden desk,
my arms press into the sealed piece of nature,
and this is a space that feels safe enough
for me to let down a layer of defense
against some masses and release
the tension that's collected through time,
just waiting like bubbles to be popped.

It's a good time right now to allow it out,
not tomorrow at two O'clock 
or next Monday when I can squeeze it in.
It's time when it hits
and if I forget that,
it's a moment I didn't let find me.

~Tina Meeks

 

Him

 

Courageously grabbing bits and pieces

from his book of lessons.

Softly spoken theatrical waves in silent abundance.

Thoughtfully gathered words

interpreted into his own world.

Swaying like tall dandelions,

both of us feel "less human".

He stands with understanding the unspoken.

~Tina Meeks

Someday I'll Finish This

 

This synchronicity is a dance.

We are the swirls of a snails protection

and the opposite of frantic

but an impressive connection,

and you are imbedded in me.

You're intriguing.

I find you fascinating, 

which finds me curious.

~Tina Meeks