I Write These Words by Jenna Frisch

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Jenna wrote this beautiful piece in a Green Windows workshop on May 27, 2020, in response to the prompt "I write these words."   Thank you, Jenna! 

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I Write These Words
by Jenna Frisch

Dive in. Mess the page up with ink. 

i write these words to show myself to myself, first
to tease out the ideas / images / impulses & fixations that stir
& sometimes settle in the folds 
of my soft tissue, sometimes 
i write
to take a chisel 
to long held beliefs & feelings 
calcified to bone

i write the way i run
one word, one step at a time
one ear to the body, one open to the world 
with curiosity, care and abandon

i write i run 
to lose myself 
find myself
lose myself
find myself 

a seamless & sometimes labored act called 
l o v e 
self-care
respiration

i write i run 
to get clear
to lose myself 
on streets i know on streets i don’t know 
on blank pages
i empty

on filled pages
i find myself 

some version of myself i know or used to know
i find myself

in the swiftness of the pen & on hills i’ve run a hundred times
noticing new cracks, noticing old cracks

i leave 
pieces of myself on concrete & centerfolds

i write i run 

to express
elucidate
eclipse
unfurl
expose 
shades of experience 

the Walpiri people don’t have a word for color, he said
they see textures & shades have felt sense like

fresh rose petal blossoms
feet that grip & a mind that floats 
sometimes tugging insides in two directions
sometimes meeting gently in the middle
like a hot sun laying itself down 

at the edge
of the pacific
across clear skies

fire meets water 
& the Earth is held
in darkness & in light

setting sun reflecting heat off water & there is respite from cool before the air gets cold again
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