The meeting of the juggler and the jester

Flying through the air
with the greatest of ease
the women on the trapeze.
Feel the weight of my nose
reddening not by choice
by a tactless back-and-forth
I overhear–
remind me again, who invited me here?
carefully honest non-offensive mockery
my loud chuckle’s a polite gesture
to make the bad joke less awkward
you guessed it– I’m the jester
you invited me here.

You drop a hint
Catch at my sleeve
left all the kids in disbelief–
who invited them here?
All the balls are in your hands
“I want to be cool just like that!”
and casually intense
the sixth sense behind a snake’s fence
you’re the juggler–
the glamourous lure.

Throw in the towel on me
pick up one of the women on the trapeze
with the greatest of ease
electricity between two hands
the juggling begins again.
My clumsy legs remember their way to the tent
though they all look the same,
they don’t all smell the same inside.
Memories of you reading my mind
a few too many times
for me to keep believing in coincidence.
I smell the smoke and the alarm goes off
nothing’s meant to burn down faster
than the meeting of the juggler and the jester.

For every you that creates so much internal suffering, there is a you that deserves so much better.

An open letter.

Dear Irla,
You are 5 years old and you don’t know why you feel excluded from your own family, but you do—they are all adults. Taller, bigger, and more sophisticated than you. Seems like they have all the answers of the universe and they’ll always bring down to you everything that’s out of reach. There’s something unspoken between these adults: something that none of them seem to see—but you do. You don’t have the words to explain how much it bothers you that nobody seems to notice it— you can just feel it. Feel what? The unspoken presence.
The moment you could speak, you started pointing out other people’s duality straight to their face—you’ve always been forward like that. You couldn’t stand the slight change in the pitch of their voice when they answered a phone call from some friend or coworker or distant family member. You never hesitated to point it out and call them fake. It bothered you so much for some reason, but you didn’t have the words to explain why—you just felt it. Your mother later told you that the name for it is hypocrisy. She was being a little extreme, but you got the point.
You love to play with your friends, but towards the end of the day, when they’re begging their mom for a sleepover, you don’t feel right, but you never say it out loud: you pretend you want them to stay—but you don’t. Even though you love the friend so much, you’re so relieved when they leave—you cherish the time you get to spend playing by yourself. You are in love with solitude and your rich inner world. You want the freedom to let your imagination roam endlessly limitless which only seems possible when you’re alone. You see nothing wrong with that, but nobody around you seems to think that way. They’re worried that something’s wrong with you—so here’s the genesis of your pretend.
The moment you entered the education system to the moment you left it, you were pretending the whole time—from first grade to the day you graduated from university. Nothing about the traditional school system sat well with you. You hated all forms of authority and role playing—all forms of sarcasm and cynicism in the classroom and above all, you hated from the gut the competition and comparison induced by the figures of authority. Nothing about tradition sat well with you. You never left your desk—the only freedom you could find was through writing. It was the only thing they couldn’t confine. It was the only thing that seemed to shut the noise off. Whenever you read what you had written, nobody made a sound. You fell in love with the silence of the room every time you read your own writing—you fell in love with the shift you induced; you made them feel something. You opened a portal for them into themselves and it felt so aligned with your purpose. The silence would last a few seconds longer after you’d breathe out the last word and they had nothing to say—they could just feel it.
The seasons went on and for a few years you tried your best to be just like everybody else by thinking you were not like them. Your love for solitude transformed into the monster of self-isolation rooted in the fear of abandonment. It took control over you and ate you alive. You started to reject your core and your focus became their opinion. You agreed with the bullies and believed that they were right about you. They were mirroring the self-rejection. You would chase them down and spent years trying to prove to them that you could and you would change for them. You felt like your existence made other people feel uncomfortable, so you decided to numb yourself. I am sorry. Truly. You chased the wrong thing infinitely, but it always seemed to run away so you ran out of breath and fell to the ground—but, to your surprise, you didn’t shatter. That’s when you heard the voice of your true self for the first time. You had all the words to describe it, but none of them seemed to do it justice—you just felt it. Presence. It didn’t feel brand-new, it was a return home, and you listened. Here’s what it had to say:
For every you that creates so much internal suffering, there is a you that deserves so much better.
Love,
Irla

virgin soil

if you used to spend your lunch breaks
having conversations with the school’s psychologist
instead of with your classmates
I am you

if you used to enjoy
conversations with your literature teacher more
than the ones with the crush who liked sports
I am you

She told you
to understand suffering,
you need to read more Russian literature instead
of all that American coming-of-age
you were offended by that
but that same day you went home
and read Turgenev
(I am you).

the goldfish you named Mel

I wish they understood
that the goldfish you named Mel
couldn’t make you feel better.
I imagine they would know
that you needed more validation
less conversations with Mel
about the stories from
your collection of VHS cassettes–
Mel never said anything back,
but I could swear she saw all of them.
You couldn’t understand
God’s words of wisdom
and their symbolism
feed from a pedestal,
but you could understand
a smile and a hug
from a healing friend
even more so at the age of 5
than you do now–
I could swear it has the same effect.
But instead they brought home
the goldfish you named Mel
inside a plastic bag
your young grip is proud
as you bring it to eye level:
little fish, from now on
you’ll be judge by your ability
to climb a tree
wrapped in invalidation
your fins
my feelings.