Piece of Mind: An Everyday Poetics

thinks, thoughts, and things

[pieceofmindep]

Weapons

wield love

in times

of woe

in times

of war

in times

of weakness

© Katie Burran, 2018 Sunday.9.9.18

[pieceofmindep]

Sleepless

sleepless.

i don't sleep well anymore.

your smiling haunts me in my dreams,

reminding me of endings of another reality...

endings in which things “worked.”

were things ever working?

i was quite sure they were

until they weren't...

but in dreams they did

and i exist

in reality in which i am happy

not merely a moment

but eternity.

But those are dreams.

You don't smile anymore.

© Katie Burran, 2012 Monday, December 31, 2012

[pieceofmindep]

Dreams

And so

Her dreams became nightmares

Taunting her with the whispers of promises lost to the wind;

Haunting her with images of what could have been;

Daunting her with images that should have been paradise,

But upon waking

Were not.

© Katie Burran, 2012 Monday, December 31, 2012

[pieceofmindep]

i set into this retrograde/eclipse season with the intent to get shit done surrounding healing traumas i’d been burying, and it felt as soon as my spells were cast and this journey initiated, i felt almost lost to space and time, hovering within and above and beyond myself...a feeling not uncomfortable but not comfortable either, beyond the duality of what is comfort and what is not...driven by synchronicities and symbolism

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i was having conversations in dreams with people that made waking life and being asleep seem to merge, and i felt i couldn’t get anything tangible out or down...

-

wild that while working on my mindfulness, i felt lost to the world...

but i needed to be observing.

it’s definitely mutable sign culture to step back from the world a bit to observe, reevaluate, and then jump back in, and my virgo ass has just spent so much time observing...

-

then like a rubber band being pulled too far and snapping, the word wake has recently bombarded my subconscious, calling me into hard focus with the ways that i’m working with the energy around me...

even just yesterday, while planning out this post, a song began to play that sounded like a mainframe booting up, and what was it called? Awake (and I screenshot the image at a time that adds to 12, another important aspect of this reading, a number of completion and recognition of divinity).

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all these synchronicities leading up to this need to start creating...

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but then i realized i already had been...

my subconscious had been firing for weeks, processing, alchemizing trauma into different energy, creatively engaging triggers at face value...

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i realized how much of healing is creativity, and how much of both are a process...

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last night, i huddled over my journal hours trying to get this sigil exactly as i wanted it, but after half an hour of wasting paper, i finally set it all back and left it for a bit...

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why was i even initiating this sigil and what did i want from it?

what was i evoking and what did i even want it to do for me?

what spell goes anywhere with no intent?

definitely not fucking sigils.

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then i realized how much i’d done for myself, dragging myself out of trauma after trauma, training in psychology, engaging my intuition, using numerology, tarot, astrology, and witchcraft to grow was some of the best creating i’d ever done. i spent a bit being bitter over wasting time in school when i could have learned a lot without it, but i think i failed to realize i used school to treat and heal myself, and that’s more modeling than any sculpture i could have molded of clay.

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i realized how much, just in the past month, i’d processed using astrology and psychological practice for myself, and realized how important the word wake really was in considering the alchemizing of energy i’ve been doing throughout my healing process as healing certain triggers awakened others buried farther down.

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numerology has been a key factor in connecting back to my guides that were stripped from me by a bullshit religion, so i looked at the 4 letters of wake and considered the twelve houses in astrology, and how all of these things had contributed to my awakening, so i decided on a sigil around a circle, 12 letters, the word wake 3 times, all powerful symbolism.

4, a number of protection/foundation.

12, a number of completion/divinity.

3, integration of mind/body/spirit.

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i realized the point, and suddenly, the sigil came together...

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i realized how much of the point was in the process...

of defining what i wanted and needed and awakening the information i needed to do that...

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but the word wake is so much more than that...

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i began a poem a few months ago with “wake wake wake

- mourn you, now dead

- your inner child puts you to bed”

and so much of healing is about losing old versions of yourself, so it feels like a lot of dying and resurrection, but also a lot of mourning...

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it’s said it’s hardest to move beyond trauma because you don’t know any familiarity other than that, because that frequency is so normal to be on that it’s uncomfortable to be otherwise, and there’s a lot of me i’ve been mourning, but like, i also fucking love the act of becoming and falling in love with me.

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balance has been an important part of my process, accepting and integrating the *divine feminine and masculine inside of me that were at war with each other, and as soon as this sigil came together, i pulled the 9 of Cups, King of Wands, and 10 of Cups when asking for affirmation that i was on the right path.

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The 9 of Cups is symbolic of fulfillment/contentment and good karma due to a grateful and giving heart. The King of Wands initiates confidence and inspiration and also shows expansion due to maturity and regulation, being driven to action and adventure. The 10 of Cups is also about balance/harmony and being blessed due to maturity and emotional interconnection to source and everyone else.

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The number 9 is about integration, while 10 (my last/future card) is about completion. All cards are from the minor arcana, indicating being part of the small-scale, process of life. The King of Wands is associated with action, passion, fire, and masculine energy, whereas the 10 of Cups is associated with emotion, intuition/spirituality, water, and feminine energy. (This deck also always ends up drawing the Emperor and Empress cards back together in the most phenomenal way, and they fell out when i was doing this reading too). So much of this integration, for me, has been about stepping back as well as out of my comfort zone and shutting the fuck up/hearing others, learning every bit of information possible to make something whole and not halfhearted.

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A few months ago, at work, someone anonymously wrote about me that when they thought of me, they thought of adventure, and it’s one of the most beautiful ways I’ve ever thought of myself. The King of Wands being my present card really speaks to that. I’m adventure and god and love and masculine and feminine all at once, and it’s been and will be a process/journey, but the universe even has my back on me being that bitch; my deck’s like, you got this 🖤🙏🏼

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when i asked my deck how to best go about the rest of this process, i pulled The Fountain and Wheel of Fortune cards. The Fountain card is special to this deck and is symbolic of simply being. There’s so much success and hope and good fortune in just learning to love and be you, even the dark parts, and loving the parts of me i’d been taught to hate has been and is so hard, but let me tell you i will never again allow anyone to diminish my being.

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to wake is to trust in your process;

to mourn, grieve, and let go.

to wake is to be.

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i’ve forgiven a lot of people and myself, and i’ve got a long way to go, but trusting your process and alchemizing and balancing your *masculine/feminine energy is what it’s about, and now that i’m awake, i’m so down

*i use this in astrological, not gendered terms

[pieceofmindep]

here rn

i hope

you know

you're so lovely,

but i'm in no place to focus

on anything more

than keeping myself

here

right now 🖤

[pieceofmindep]

A Neverending Story

you remember

a thing conversation promise plan

how reaching the ocean together wasn’t nearly enough,

and it absolutely breaks your heart

© 2016 k.d.

[pieceofmindep]

Seasons

she was my winter,

gone by spring,

but in that period,

i learned her

like a novel.

she opened

her pages

slowly,

and i studied

as if

the words

would soon disappear.

she was

an epiphany,

gasping for air

as she came to the surface

of a universe

never meant to contain her.

Spring wasn’t meant

to see her

in her cold glory,

and like a phoenix,

she left a fire

that i couldn’t put out,

not hot,

a cold burn

from within,

and as i tried

to repair

the wreckage

i thought,

“It’s funny

how much

things change

with the

weather.”

and,

as it was the south,

the seasons were one

in the same

anyways.

© 2015 k.d.

[pieceofmindep]

iscariot

iscariot

in judas’ betrayal he broke christ’s heart, but with apathy i wash my hands of you.

iscariot, were thirty coins adequate for loss of respect, or do you wish you’d pulled a peter?

© 2016 k.d.

[pieceofmindep]

Volume

hollow

husk

shell

dust

I cared too little

I care too much.

© 2016 k.d.

[pieceofmindep]

Income audiology

[pieceofmindep]

ʎʌɹnʇ-ʎspoʇ

think cursive write print living dichotomies not explicitly meant

she wrote in cursive he wrote in print ze wrote in passion they wrote what they meant

ze spits spilled spiels hir murmurs moments muted hirs pronounce prosecutions they dictate didactics diluted

they wrote with agency they wrote for redemption they wrote in reclamation, disregarding preemption

© 2016 k.d.