Rocked
All my life
I live each day as if it were my last.

Savor every morsel. Every bite.  I choose to have a blast. 
Nonstop. In the moment, moving extra fast.

I go hard. Making it count. 
From the start living out loud – taking the scenic route. 

I turn it up.
Throw it down.
Twisting and shouting 
Till’ I pass out, sound asleep 

 all the fun I keep… inside. 

I live for the nighttime;
after midnight I shine.

Top of the witching hour,
my super power is staying up all evening empowered by the moonshine
 sun bright – Loving light. 

Going to sleep when the sun comes up…
Not a morning person except when I have to fill up my cup…

I make it extra strong, shots for all, by the seat of my pants
I dance and give it away happily for free, hitting romance sharply. 

I am smartly
Going long on the field, all for the love,

I present tough but inside, I’m a big pile of mush.
Yes, I live for the rush.

My five minutes of fame
Take all that adrenaline straight to the brain.
I am not ashamed.
My life will not be lived in vain 
On fire, I am the flame I feign 

Of course, I’ve always lived this way.  
On the edge.  About to leap.  

Pick a parachute. 
I’ve got plenty ready to go, deep and wide 
all across the board my mindlessly
making moves as I be 
shaking grooves on this moody ride.

Playing the good tunes twice just for 
the sake of feeling more alive.  

Tapping into my blood line. 
I hunt blind
and gather up what I find in my dreams to speak my beliefs. 

My subconscious screams to be 
living out its own schemes. 

On my own terms, 
I had to learn. When it’s all said and undone 

I’ve got nothing left to prove  

Except that if you’re not happy in the space that you are in… 
you gotta make moves. 

---

USED

Bruised.
Even the word doesn’t look right. 
(And they never do) Bruises.

It’s hard to spell. Hard to say. 
And they are hard to see, too. 

They come and go, easily, 
in ways you’re not used to lines bleeding.

Like what the fuck, where did that just come from, 
Did I fuck myself up? Last night?
Is this what getting old’s like?
Was I alright? Did somebody bite me…
or did I just live up to my own false sense of hype 
and knock my knee into the dresser in the night? 

Silly me.  

Maybe it was my fault? 
Maybe I hurt myself? 
On purpose? Or in self-defense, hard to tell.

Battling your own mind is a hard sell,  
at $150 an hour to talk to someone, hell 
I’d rather just buy more pills 
and numb the swell – dumb down this welling
up, dreaded knot in my throat, that starts to creep in. 

Blood shot eyes deepen to reveal, yes it’s true. 
I’m not weak. 
And I’m not unwell.  
But I’ve definitely been beat to hell. 

Bruises heal in time, still I know 
this dull ache won’t always feel so loud in my bones 
like it’s punching you in the stomach 
every time you sit. 

A constant reminder of why we feel the need 
to settle for a bruising to begin with 

When we am so afraid to get hurt 
that we stay in a the same place – 
You’re only hurting your self worth I’m afraid. 

---

Adulting 

Eating chocolate in bed at midnight
after you already brushed your teeth.
Making bacon at 4am just because you can cheat.

Eating peanut butter no spoon straight from the jar
and cookie dough with raw egg, I’m still alive so far.

Doing your taxes …
four months late …
for the last two years 
and still not owing a dime.

Having to plan to waste time. 
with no time to waste. 

Creating safe space. 

Shedding dead skin. Not having to always win.

Reinventing your face every few years.
I’m definitely adulting a bit too hard these days, it appears. 

---

Rafiki Sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely with your snuggly strength:
Your bark does bite the sharply spoken bray,
And yes, your leash has all too short a length. 

Sometime too sweet, your eyes of heaven wine,
And soft is his gold complexion silky;
And every hair so fair sometime defines,
Your tongue and heart to match your coat milky. 

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose esteem when over years you age .
Nay, shall death separate us from our graves,
You’ve been the best friend I can possibly crave. 

So long as men can breathe, our eyes will meet,
Long lives friendship my little rafiki. 

---

What am I going to do with you  

I don’t know what to do with you –
My muse, you schooled me, 
So beautifully, and a bit unruly

Now, in hindsight, it doesn’t amuse me quite 
Like it used to, smoothly 

See you blew me right over, cooly 
I fell for you, and your beauty 
When almost instantly you turnkeyed 
me, a bit rudely 

I dove in, making plans, 
growing roots in to a tree
Mistakenly carelessly, 

I believed in the musing of love – 
stupid me.

The thought of keeping you, fooled me, 
now the pursuit is no longer newly, and
I’m on a loosing streak, read:
You and I are living proof
that life isn’t always fair, foolery. 

It never is, the truth is now cruelly
forever etched on our personal movie 
narrative so brutally. 

I wish you loved me absolutely 
but you’re only here to do your job, 
to bemuse me 

And yet I can’t stop coming in for a closer looksie at 
the mirrored flame, playing with fire always wooed me.

My brain still screaming, bewildered amusingly
“Pick me, pick me, I’m a god damn ruby,“

While my heart knows, that you’re a diamond stone, 
always going to shine, shrewdly in your own light, moody, 

I know nothing else lasts forever, newbie
So why am I getting hopes up on a story line 
gone slightly out of tune key?

I might a well admit it, 
you will never choose me. 

All you’ll ever be is just a muse to me.  

---

When I fall in love, I fall in love forever

You said not to love you – 
I loved you anyway. 

I tried to prove that my love was real, 
but you said to go away. 

So I sat down in silence 
         and prayed 
that someday you and I would both find the kind 
of love that would stay,

Even if it’s not in the other’s love in which we played,  
Prey tell, I’m compelled 
to love you forever and a day. 

Hell, up close or from far away,
and not in a creepy predatory kind of way… 

Nay, don’t be afraid, see 
my love isn’t controlling,
not in the way you’re used to it behaving

My love is steady, brave and sweet.
It won’t ever ask you to say things you don’t mean.

Nor will I lie, I could try, 
but love this undeniable, it won’t just ago away.  

This isn’t the dress rehearsal for a wild play.
My love, is a compiled stance of romance strayed.

Even if you don’t ever want my love, that’s okay, 
you don’t have to take it, 
cuz in my heart it will live on safe, 
or possibly die on a stage, for now, 
that may be the safest spot for my display.  

Though I’ll settle for the page, 
where I can rewrite my own 
passive aggression play how I determine, 
bigger than any one person  or fashion or place.

My love, is not to be caged, 
or placed on hold, stale mate, 

not to be sold, no, this kind of love, 
can’t be foreclosed or late,
it’s never going to be for sale, 
let alone sold at a second hand rate 

Because real love can never be traded or erased. 

So when you say, with grace, 
“Don’t fall in love with me, okay?”
just know, that you never really even had a say,
because my heart knows and will always show 
up on it’s rightful sleeve, an obvious face. 

In an effort to protect it’s own rep 
in it’s very own protective case, 
up front, unapologetic, and impact braced
all the while leaving no trace 
back to any one heart chord, strait laced.

Yes, I fall in love quickly, deeply, madly, 
it’s all a part of this lovely character 
display of gravity

And sadly that doesn’t mean my mind can’t change, 
at any given moment, indeed, my love could fade… 
I mean that’s a very real part 
of putting your heart on parade,
you never know what’s coming 
or going next in this charade.

It’s like playing Russian roulette 
with a connected gut brain, 
my head and my heart at odds, God’s blood stain,
stuck strong together in vain, 
breathing through the pain…

All the while making claims 
like “maybe it was in the stars?” 

Perhaps it’s all just luck well played cards;
“  just can’t help myself” I thought, that’s the game,  
I think.  And I’ve come too far to retreat.  

I’ve learned that love oft 
is a play by play frought with 
“He loves me, he loved me nots”. 
Still I’ll take whatever shot I got, 
even if it means betting on the risk 
of scarring my own damn flame.  

No shame. No far away wish. 
I’m amiss –

Though I suggest you best not go asking me 
to refrain from saying “I love you” when I mean it. 

For it is because I took a chance on this love,
my life have been changed for the better;
Can’t you see it?

---

Much love to you all in the New Year! Here’s to falling in love with your life and making 2023 your bitch, right.

Love,
MissConception

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MissConceptions of a Modern Day Mash-Up

I laugh at myself (as artists often do) almost every time I practice my newfound art of DJing.  I laugh because I never thought at age 33 this is what I’d be geeking out over, but also I laugh because as a poet at heart, my DJ flow is an extension of my poetry.  Whether I am spinning hoops, weaving words or mixing tracks, I find poetry and laughter in each art form. As a DJ, the poetry flows from my own consciousness as well as from blending other people’s cherished words together (more often than not, the words accompanied by music in the background) to put together a unique and experimental set.  Call it hip hop, call it vocals, or poetry, whatever; I have fallen in love with the art of blending the sounds of other people’s words in a way that takes the listener on a new and mystical journey, and it totally cheeses me out.  And now here I am BLOGGING about my LOVE of DJing WORDS as a POET… the irony layers upon layers of “WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE DOING” seems to spin me around saying boldly that in this wild world of art, I have, and will again, come full cipher.

“How did I get here?” I often ask myself that question.  At first glance it might appear that my white girl entitlement woke up one day and thought “hey, I think I’ll be a rapper”. On a deep level, where one must look honestly at ones privileges and entitlement,  I can admit that there is an element of truth to that; however in all honesty the evolution of MissConception has really has been so much more.  Allow me to spin a tale of truth, take you back to my youth, and share why I dare be so bold as to tread instead on this blazen path of creativity.  See, I was born wanting to defy any and every stereotype imaginable, but I wasn’t always so brave.  When I look back, there are a few crucial moments in my life when I distinctly remember thinking “I am going to be an artist, blow some minds, and have a fuck-ton fun doing it”.   I didn’t realize it was going to be so hard, despite everyone’s warnings.  (Sometimes when you’re not even trying things come easiest, and then you start working at it and the challenges show face).

Safe to say, I pretty much came out of the womb dancing.  My grandmother Carol used to tell me about how she would take me to brunch on top of the Alameda hotel and I would sing and dance and put on a show for all the guests with the piano player on deck.  I choreographed and performed my own dance in 2nd grade for a talent show.  I wanted to be Aretha Franklin at age 10.  (My parents put me in singing lessons when they heard that.)  I remember my whole childhood full of adults telling me I shouldn’t sing because I was, plainly, annoying.  Nobody used that word, but I could tell they didn’t want to hear it.  I often wanted to put on shows that nobody wanted to watch.  Time and again I participated in ecstatic plays where nobody cared to hear me out.  Entire lifecycles I role played out in my head, alone.  Though my parents did offer dance lessons and school play auditions, which I readily appreciated, I couldn’t help but feeling stifled in hindsight.  I wanted to bring joy, but I was told to hush, like many children.  “Don’t be so silly,” they warned.   I distantly remember a time in 5th or 6th grade when even though I knew deep down in my heart that I was an “artist” of mystical meanderings, that the power of the universe was within me and I had all the knowledge I needed to make the world a better place, admist along all of that confusion, I decided I would put it all away, as to not bother anybody. The sadness in not feeling welcome to be ones self, I know it well.

Yes, I put it all away alright; through high school in dance team I opted to be in the back row every time. I didn’t try out for parts that had singing auditions, which were almost every part.  I didn’t want to call attention, for fear that I would be told I wasn’t good enough.  All of those things we are told as women, as children, as adults that we “aren’t pretty enough, aren’t smart enough, didn’t make the cut” echoed through my head constantly.  After all, wouldn’t we rather do nothing at all than fail?  “If you don’t do anything you can’t fail,” I thought.  (All this coming from a straight A student…). I never really felt like I fit in, or had a purpose, and it was very confusing for a child who was asked constantly “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Until I found the misfits…

I signed up for a poetry writing class at KU, mostly to avoid British Literature, and I remember my classmates seeing my love of creativity and word-smithing, encouraging me to go to poetry readings and let my words be heard.  I didn’t believe them at first; THEY thought I was worth OTHER people’s time??   As I began going to readings and putting myself out there slowly people started asking me to do it more.  The local jam band asked me to come sit in and flow during their Monday night jam sessions.  I started calling poetry circles in the park, where strangers would come to just hear words exchanged in the moonlight.  People BOOKED me!  I started attending secret midnight readings, hosting events and finding serious poetry slams, with jazz bands and professional poets encouraging me to “work harder to find the right word,” which is what a professor taught me once.  An endless cycle, nonetheless, I was hooked.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t poetry that dragged me surely out of my sh-ell (sheltered-hell), but rather, it was a hoop.  I was in college and my friends started learning how to hula hoop, this oldschool-made-new fitness craze; but these girls were learning tricks, dancing and meditating with the hoops.  Dancing, having always been a vertical expression of a horizontal desire (said Rita Dove), became an immersive experience. I had always been a lover of play and movement, so I followed right along in stride with the other hoopers, learning how to work with one, two, and up to six hula hoops at a time.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but later I would light them up, and set them on fire!

 

“The irony spins in hoops yearning to endear our ears to truth” – Stella Dreamwalker

It was using these plastic rings with a “give-no-fuck” attitude that gave me the courage to really bless the mic the way a mic should be blessed.  Well, the hoops, and many poets and artist that I encountered who each inspired me to the stars and back.  A little bit of self-confidence was the ignition I needed.  Fueled with my words of love, I combusted and in 2009 I made a decision to start taking myself seriously, as an artist.

Over the years, I’ve casted many nets and caught a lot of fish, some very lucky minnows and some sharks. I knew carving out a niche as an artist was going to be difficult. It was going to be full of disappointment, misunderstandings and with plenty of people telling me I couldn’t/shouldn’t/wouldn’t be successful. I knew I was fishing in waters deeper than I had fished before. I also knew that there was no other option for me but to try. I was a guppy who wanted to move mountains with art. So first learned to walk on lands and then I learned to fly… and then, mountain hunting I went.

I remember the night it dawned on me that if I was going to do this, which is when I started diving deeper into hip-hop.  I realized I had been embodying many of the elements of this loved art form without even knowing it… DoJing and emceeing, art (graffiti/stenciling), bboy dancing, and the consciousness of it, all touched my heart; the pain and the sadness right along with the badass gladness.   “My Main MissConception” was the first spoken word performance piece I wrote and my roommate deemed me the name MissConception.  #miccheck

Special thanks to Alex Chase for recording and mastering my first track.

Since I was little I had always loved rhyming.  Shell Silverstein and Dr Seuss were heavy influences as a child , and in middle school I memorized all the words to a Jurassic 5 song and then the rap at the end of TLC’s Waterfalls.  I was obsessed with cadence and delivery.  After flaming hoops unleashed my inner confidence, I took to the stage saying the thing that nobody at least nobody who lied like me) wanted to say.  Passion and truth flowed naturally like water from my lips.  Largely, I wasn’t the most popular act in town, especially in the thick of the spoken word and rap scenes, despite my emphasis on social inequality, the environment and gender equality.  I wanted to change the world, and again it seemed nobody wanted to listen. Eventually a local producer, DWILL, offered to make beats for me and record my first album.  In  2008 he helped me to debut my dream, Self Titled: MissConception; I was ecstatic.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be making a hip-hop album. He believed in me, and that is sometimes still hard to believe.

Since then, I’ve performed on hundreds of stages, hosted showcases, self-produced several more albums (Ostentation, Saraswati, Saratonin, Serendipty EP, and my new release coming in 2020 titled: Saramony); I’ve worked with some very talented producers, and I even had the opportunity to release my first chap-book of poetry in 2016 entitled: Class Action (because who really wants to go to law school anyone when you can be a poet). #poppoetry #12poetsin12months.  (I still have a very limited amount of 2nd edition signed copies left #classaction)

Yes, it all looks so pretty on a website, and yes I have wanted to give up over and over.   The truth is for an artist, it is a constant internal battle of your mind as to whether or not to keep going or give up, and an external battle with everyone else.  Almost every day I doubt myself.  And almost every day I have someone reach out to me telling me that my words changed their life.  “Have you considered getting an agent?” is the most grateful and yet painful question; lord I wish I could find an agent who would understand this hot mess of an artist.  But just knowing that so many people now believe in me; what a blessing. On the other side of the same token, I receive more messages than I’d care to admit that my work is trash, founded in ignorance, and  I have no business as a white woman in hip-hop, or that I’m chasing a dream that no longer serves me or my lifestyle.  One thing these hoops and ciphers have taught me is that each of us has our own fires to burn and our own lessons to learn.

I learned long ago to not chase the dream.  Follow it. Show up for it.  Be ready for it when it comes knocking, but don’t chase it.  Desparation is a heavy stench. The thing I keep coming back to as an artist is that it doesn’t matter who likes or doesn’t like my art. The art is made FOR ME, by me, because of me, and through me.  It’s there if you want, take it or leave it.  You don’t have to understand it to appreciate it.  Sometimes the parts of creativity that we MISunderstand are actually the POINT of making the art.  The more healthy discussions that spark from these dreams come alive the more fuel for the art.

More often than not I wake up lyrics in my head from a dream and scribble them down before I forget.   I am not necessarily a writer, dare I say that I am a channel? I always tell people that although I may write down the songs, they don’t exactly come from me, they come through me.  I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t ask for this.  I just simply cannot help myself; and thus another misconception was born.

Album Artwork painting done by Wieteke Waterborg, 2008
Ceremony | Saramony Release Day January 1, 2020
– A projection of desire and reflection of the fire –

In preparing for my new album release, Saramony | Ceremony in 2020, I collaborated with a group out of the Twin Cities called the Gypse Freq Circus for one track; several of the tracks were written by a producer named Eisenhauer, and a few parodies in the mix that just fell out as well.  (Parodies are my favorite!)  Recorded and mastered by Jonathan Larson of the Tenderloin Studios in San Francisco, this is some of my darkest and most conscious work yet dare I say?  It is set to release on January 1, 2020. #2020vision

I’ve always said that there are two rules of ‘Show Business’: 1. Shock Value –  and 2. Always leave them wanting more.  Say the thing that they don’t expect you to say and then leave them hanging on the edge of their seat baby so they come to your next show. These 8 tracks I am hoping will tug on your heart strings just enough to help me fuel the next round of creativity, whatever that may be.  I’m always paying attention and ready when the universe calls.

Another professor once taught me that “Poetry is the art of paying attention” and he could not be more right.  Paying attention in a century where attention-spans are the length of twitter tweets is a nearly impossible feat.  It’s asking a lot of people these days to cut through the clutter and really give your mind to one train of thought for more than five or ten minutes.  How about, just one song even?   Listening may or may not save your life per say, but it’s CERTAINLY saving mine.  Here is a sneak peak of the title track off my new album, entitled: Gypsy Freq Circus

Gypsy Freq Circus 

Being an artist and performing original work to an audience that appreciates said art is truly the greatest give in the world; the highest of highs abound.  It has become my mental health lifeline.  Booking an artist is somewhat akin to saving their life in a sense… it’s our purpose, striving art. It’s what we live for.

“Art is why I get up in the morning,” said Ani Difranco, “but my definition ends there you know it doesn’t seem fair that I’m living for something I can barely define…and there you are right there in the meantime”.  Art is the process of defining what there is to get up in the morning for.  Whether it pisses you off or inspires you, at least it’s doing something!

 

❤ Thanks for the love during the last decade ❤

If I’ve realized anything about the beauty of performance art, it’s that it’s an incredibly hard sell, almost especially so when your tool-kit is full of a variety of tricks; often people don’t know what to do with me as an artist.  I’ve been told, “I’m too spiritual for the hip-hop heads and too hip-hop for the yoga teachers.”  I don’t write my own “music”, I write the  words.  I take other people’s music and words that flow through and mash em up often serenditiously.  When they ask about my work style I tell people, “If you put Ani Difranco and Jurassic 5 together, you get one hell of a MissConception”.  And I suppose I’d have it no other way; after all, my name is MissConception; the element of mystery and elusivity is part of the practice.  You’re supposed to interpret art, not be told what it is.   “Just what is she trying to do?”  Truth is the magic is in the mystery.

In closing, I just want to say a seriously great big thank you to anybody and everybody who has ever supported MissConception, myself, or any other artist that inspires you on any level.  Thank you for also sharing your art with me. Special thank you to my dear friend and editor,  Stella Dreamwalker, for believing in me and writing with me along the way.   I will be forever grateful for your love, and I will continue to offer my creativity and love to any and all who wish to share.  The only way out is in-word, and we are all in this wordy world together, spinning circles.  Let’s keep rockin’ into the twenties!

THANK YOU 

Love,
MissComeOn

www.themissconception.com

Healing Feelings

“Creating all this drama while running from our trauma” Professor Nightlife Jones

“Despite all my rage, Im still just a rat in a cage!” – Jai Love

I’ve come to love the sound of the recycling jingling in and out of cans outside my bedroom window on the street below…. not because of the environmental implications, I mean, but because it sounds like home. My home, now. Life on Clement. 94118. I chose this very place, of all the towns and cities in the United States, I picked here. The Inner Richmond. Why?  Many reasons. Fate. Chance.  Coupled with my proximity to work in Tiburon at the synagogue, and for a variety of other factors involving landscape, environment, proximity and creativity, this is my home of choice.  My sanctuary. My center. The eye of my storm.   

That’s not to say I don’t doubt myself everyday. Did I make the right choice? Pick the right city? The right job? The right part of town.   I KNOW that I picked the right partner, thank goodness, and I am grateful everyday for that clarity. So why have I been so…. disillusioned?  So unhappy.  What more could I want?

Yes, I do miss my family. But I like it here. I like who I have become.  I’m not as sweet as I used to be, but much kinder and smarter, I’d like to think.  Rougher.  More careful with my energy and time and space. Protective. A mamma bear.  I work out now, sort of.  I actively DON’T eat cheese at every meal.  I don’t smoke… near as much as I used to.  I don’t weigh myself down with unnecessary bullshit and small talk with people I don’t care about.  So where are these giant waves of sadness coming from? Are they a part of me? Or maybe much bigger than me? Generations larger than I can possibly comprehend, it seems.

And I am open to it.  I asked to understand, the human condition. I remember at six-years-old asking for answers of the universe.  I read Conversations with God and the Four Agreements at an early age, and lots of other spirituality self help type books that seemed reasonably informative.   I remember adults protecting me from the truth, for the same damn reasons we protect our own hearts and tune out our own minds when it’s convenient, which is more often than not these days.  Every night we feel the need to turn the volume up or down, it seems.  To alter our current state, because reality is not pretty. 

And sure, we can blame it on mercury in retrograde, or the solar storms, or claim we are just products of our environment, and that’s nice, to put a name on it. A blame. “Survival of the fittest”, gone wrong.  Of course, I am not niave enough to think it is all outside consequences no, I am open to it being all my fault. By no means is my life perfection; though I wouldn’t have had it any other way.  The amount of beauty and joy I have been shown far outweighs and exceeds the haunting of mistakes and misdeeds, that me and those who came before have scored. Everything we know is constantly in a stage of flux and transition; growing, changing, building, maintaining.  Disruption. Creation. On repeat. New twist.  Developed plots thicken. We grow sicker. We discover a cure.  It is true, that I have grown sicker, weaker, sadder. And it has been very hard for me to admit that to myself, because once you give it power, then it changes, right? 

Upon reflecting of my past, my relationships gone wrong, friendships failed, I have grown discouraged. Though admitting your mistakes is the first step to changing the future.  Please know that if I haven’t followed through or reached out to you lately, and I was supposed to, please forgive me. Life has been like a god damn tornado. I  lived my whole life in Kansas thinking I’d never seen a tornado, until I got to San Francisco and realized that the tornado was all around me. I was the calm. 

Somehow, I’ve thrown myself out of orbit. What was once an eye is now a limb, a gust, an upheaval of old foundation crumbled to new. As I continue to stumble down this dumbfounded road, seeing new walks of life, some pristine and some soot, I recognize my own depression is a result of years of neglect and emotional instability, from my own actions but also from the gusts of wind from other storms, other atmospheres, colliding.  Exhausted.  Worn. 

The storm comes and goes, and so does my vulnerability.  As I continue to try and be as present and available to others all the while taking care of my own sanity.  I want to do more. I aim to do more.  I will not give up on doing more, for myself and for my community. 

Sometimes it is as simple as switching your medication.    

Sometimes, it’s as simple as saying something.  Speaking up. 

Saying I’m sorry if you have to.  

Admitting your truth and finding your next step. 

Sourcing the pain, so you can work on healing the wound. 

My friend taught me a learning recently. She said “Sara, you’ve been so open, you’re forgetting to protect yourself”. And then she taught me to clear.  After years of being an empath, I now am aware of the consequences of neglecting that power. 

“Thank you (insert higher being here)
for clearing all draining and negative energy chords
in all directions of time. “

» three deep breaths – then follow with «

“Thank you (insert higher being)
for shielding me with 1000 feet of silver light
in all directions of time. And so it is”

-From April King_

Ripples that we make go everywhere, in all directions. We make them constantly- some microscopic and some so big we can’t even see that it’s a wave.

I Invite you, to be careful what you put in motion, as it may not turn out like you thought. You may not even be thinking about it consciously at all. Luck is chance and fate is a game. Back and forth. Sometimes you win sometimes you loose and you don’t have to play. You choose to feel it all or feel nothing. Both have consequence. Balance is only possible with out attachment and then constant upkeep of the body soul and mind / space we occupy. None of it matters and it all matters we all could argue reasoning for both. We are that enlightened. And yet we are our own enemy. We hold each other back. We fight the way of nature. We protect what we have know we hold onto tradition and the sacred for dear life maybe for a good reason maybe not. Sometimes both. The complexities of chance and fate and intentions at work here are astronomical unpredictable. The equation is long and the ripples are strong. Waves so big you may not even notice it.

In this day of age we are all ripe and raw.  We are BOTH sides of the coin and the paradox. We are all misconceptions. We could all argue both sides of the fence. So be careful what you say and always tell the truth. If you have the facts and integrity and kindness you will come out ahead and if for no one else but yourself. Be your own karma. Don’t forget to breath through it all. I love you. I’m working it out just as you are.  Maybe you’ve learned something and have something to teach me.  Don’t hold back; please, we need your voice.

“It’s about planting a seed, letting it grow
Nourish it, flourish is, give it grow, flow,
Water it down until the roots take hold
from the leaves on the trees to our breaks get old
Cultivate relationship millions of years,
Keep it strong, erase thereof fears.
Don’t you let no producer tell you that you can’t,
Just make sure you’re careful which seeds you plant” 

-MissConception, 2009, Plantin’ a Seed-

Dear Suicide

Friends and loved ones: This is a poem I wanted to share that I wrote when I was in high school and was considering what it would be like to not grow up.  I saw back then and now how fucked up and sad this world was even from a child’s perspective, and I felt it all.  I still do.  Many of us do.  We feel every abusive relationship, every neighbor grudge, even if they are not our own. Every fear tactic, every mass shooting and every war.  Every disease.  When you feel it all, you just want to feel nothing, and that’s how I felt when I was 16 and just wanted to crash my car into a tree.  What were my problems then really?  They paled in comparison to what I and many struggle with now and what the world is enduring I imagine.  So I wrote this letter, as many of us do/did, to everyone I loved, and in reality everyone who I hated, at the same time.  This is in no way a reflection of the relationships that I have or had with these people, but more an overall arching of the opposite of the way I felt, and how much anger, even then, I felt from this cruel and yet beautiful world. Even surrounded by LOVE.   Think of what we could overcome, if we all were to listen to each other, and process, rather than black out and shame.  Here’s to reducing the stigma and talking about depression instead of hiding from it. -MissConvinced

Dear Mother, 

Thank you for letting me die before you.
I know you never wanted to see this day through
before your own
but this vehicle has crashed,
my body has been thrown.

Dear Father,
Thank you for giving me everything you’ve ever done for me.
Funneling your hard earned profit into my college funding –
For raising the sun out of your ass,
and for buying me this car so I could crash
it in front of my mother’s home
so she could see how much I hate
driving down this road alone.  

Dear Brother –
Thank you for never taking the time to hang out with me,
I know you had shit to do, we were both busy.
Maybe you never wanted to know me anyway because after this
I am just one less person for you to miss.

Dear Grandma Carol and Papa Sid,
Thank you for raising a rockstar instead of a kid –
For leading me to believe that all of life was one big,
yet very serious joke
and now I’m spoiled and broke…
I have all this SHIT and no where to go
when all I really want is to just go home.

Dear Bubbie Esther–
Thank you for giving me the opportunity
to stand in your shoes so I can see
just how great a depression can be once more…
After all, we are both products of a nasty war…
and while your strength resides in my backbone core.
I’m not sure I can carry this legacy any further anymore.

Dearest unborn child of my throne –
Thank for your patience in womb;
for allowing all of those who came before you to atone, |while I quietly bitch and groan…
Fighting so hard for a soul I didn’t even know
and I’m not even sure I can save my own
to ensure you’re happily ever after so for now
I’ll just talk to me: 

Dear Me,
The girl herself doesn’t even really know…
I’m not sure of I’ll make it out cold
or surrounded by loved ones of my bone,
but I can still stick-shift down this gratitude road,
Into the unknown, and hope… that I am not alone.

A Shortcut to Love

I used to think falling in love was the key to happiness… you think you learn every thing you need to know as a little girl… “he’ll be on a horse, just before midnight;  I’ll be wearing white, and it will be happily ever after”.  Right?

And then… you grow up.

Reality smacks you in the face, and if you’re paying attention, you realize that if you really want to fall in love in a HEALTHY way, you must find that happiness and love within yourself first. Quintessential, yes, just as the love itself is.  A perfect mix of idealism and reality.   There are no shortcuts.  There’s no magic pill or perfect weight that suddenly grants you the divine agape soulmate twin flame type of love you read about in the romance novels.  You do the work for you; you get to that place where you are SO ecstatic to NOT be in a shitty to relationship, to be FREE, and that’s when true love finally has the opportunity to open itself to you.  Even then, it’s not a guarantee.

In the meantime, while it’s incredibly difficult to wait it out and trust yourself in this divine plane,  in all actuality, if you are not madly in love with yourself, then you have no business trying to love or support another human, a partner, let alone a child.  Even if it NEVER happens in this lifetime, don’t you still want to be THAT happy, that it doesn’t even matter?   I do.  And every day is an effort to meet myself in that place.

So many people are miserable in relationships, and also miserable alone. Loneliness is a slow death that will kill anyone’s spirit faster than it will kill a body; but what good is a body without a spirit alive? Falling in love with yourself, all the while letting go of attachment to things and places and ideas that will in theory ‘make you happy’ requires a good dose of proactivism; meaning, you’re going to have to go out and get it.  You can’t sit passively and wait for love to find you.  FIND yourself.   I dare you.

We look at couples who have been together for years and think, “Why them? How come they get to be so happy together and in their relations?  Why do they deserve it?”

First of all, if you are still thinking like that, then you’re not there, or ready.  You still have work to do within loving yourself.  Once you’re there, you won’t CARE who has what relationship or why they deserve it more than you.

Also, what we often fail to see are the sacrifices, or choices, one makes to be in love, truly. It requires a selfless that comes from selfishly loving yourself first; then that selfishness turns INTO selflessness for others. Loving another means not always doing exactly what you want because you’re putting someone else’s needs right up there with yours, which can look like a chore, but one that shouldn’t ever bring resentment.   This applies to familiar love, and the same goes for romantic love; there comes a point when someone else’s happiness becomes just as necessary for your happiness, though not dependent on it.  The second you depend on another to fill up your cup, that is the moment your cup will drain, and continue to drain, unless you re-learn to fill it up yourself.  This happens on a micro and macro scale.

So, how do we will up our cups?  One bite at a time. With a daily dose of self love and self care.  Eventually, when you start giving yourself SO much self love, you will begin to expect it.  You deserve it.   You already know all the ways; don’t let it overwhelm you.  Remember your worth; stop giving your power  away to other people – that is never true love.  YOU live in your power and in your own divine agape love.  Once you’re there, then we can talk matchmaking. 

Anything you would give a partner, give to yourself.  Anything you would WANT from another, choose to be that.  Too many people are sitting around waiting for love to find them, wondering why it isn’t happening. When was the last time you went to the gym, or got yourself a pedicure?  “Money’s tight,” you say?  Work out a work-trade for your local gym membership, or take up a part time job with all the free time you have not dating somebody and start saving those pennies for a well earned vacation and spa retreat.  Take yourself somewhere exotic.  Push yourself to harness your creativity and freedom to make the most of this trip around the sun, even if it’s alone.  We are born alone.  We die alone.  And in the meantime, we have all of these fabulous souls to get to know and experience on a daily basis!  Start inside.  Work your way out by walking your talk.  The only thing you’ll have to regret, is your own disappointment.  Start now before it’s too late, and remember, it’s never too late to love yourself! 

And Happy Valentines Day,

MissConsumed

 

www.themissconception.com

Do you have change for a button sir?

Imagine there’s this red shiny button, with no label on it… do you push it? Or not? Even if you don’t know what it does. 


See lately, I’ve found myself pushing buttons. Lots of buttons. All the buttons that we must push…

Including but limited to, my own and yours. For example:
I get up, and hit the alarm, first thing, snooze is on, twice or three times AT LEAST I’m gone back to sleep, to push that button again maybe catch another wink. Flip the lights. Then push a series of buttons and knobs, facets, electronics and different kinds of tabs, showered, dressed and ready to brave the street. I unlock the car with a button chirp, jump in the seat, ignition switch and hit the sun roof, then radio, then gps, then reverse, lights, mirror angle, gas action, and we’re down the highway bend.


Across a bridge, pusha button to pay the toll, my mother calls, do I answer the phone? Or click ignore?


Push the button to the gate at work; a code to enter, buttons to remember, systems of order and cognition, passwords to recall, and change as one forgets, don’t we all? Tapping the keys all day, buttons and letters and numbers all in array, combing through pages and emails online, I hit the send button, often to soon, I’ll admit it. I’m hot on the buttons, pulling the trigger out of impulse, and release.


Turn on the fan


Turn down the music, turn it back up again.

Microwave your lunch and then the copy machine parades it’s multiverse of button wizardry all afternoon.



Hit the lock button on the bathroom door, which sometimes I forget, yeah that’s happened before. You want more buttons, we got more in storage…



I am so tired, of fucking pushing buttons, and of people pushing mine – will we ever just chill the fuck out, let the buttons rest for a time?




Yes, maybe, just maybe I’ll let you push my buttons a little, on purpose, if you’re nice, but don’t rush it, until I trust it, otherwise you won’t be pushing it twice. 


Pushing buttons…
Clock out.
Wrap it up.
Take it home, I’m done,

But not before
I reset the buttons back for tomorrow’s pushing some more.

<3,
MissCompissed

I, too, am waiting…

 

I Am Waiting
A response to Lawrence Ferlinghettis’ I am Waiting

Preface: Since I have come to San Fransisco, every time I go by City Lights Bookstore, I walk in, hoping to meet my favorite writer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  I’ve yet to meet him, but this is a tribute to his influence as a poet and activist, and his magic still wandering this special city.  Thank you Lawrence.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

I have been waiting for you, since I rebuilt my womb,
with my mother, singing love songs in our native tongue,
that being English, I had to wait to become…

until age 3, about the time I could walk,
I waiting to learn the meaning of the infinitive verb “to wait” to talk…

at five years old, I prayed for my imaginary friends to take their turns riding Disney dialogues descending from my VHS, quality poor, I waited for Cinderella to stop waiting for her slipper and dress, so, what were you waiting for?

Still chipper, I waited for my charming Prince since age 8,
when I met a kindergarten version of myself inside a boy who chased me around a room, still waiting for his charming princess bloomed non-the-less ideally raised,

I kept them waiting.

During puberty, when my belly button sunk below my chest,
and I figured out how to use my hips and breasts, to sway their eyes,
just so they waited just below my heart between my thighs,
I waited for you without even trying.

Hungry, I waited out high school, not even knowing your name,|
but knowing you saw me every day beneath your eyelids,
channeling frustration into my dreams, I waited my turn patiently
behind my peers, watching their melodramas unfold before my untold waiting,
four years, I waited for your res-erection to disseminate all the pretty girls out and turn
to me.

I waited through college dormitories, inside bathroom stalls, revisiting concert halls, scratching your name into desks beside classrooms walls, tail curled.

Since I was a little girl, I can remember,
waiting tables for $2.13 an hour
hoping you will tip me a piece of your heart off your sleeve,
or at least a phone number, for a good time fall PLEASE
so I can stop waiting on these frat boys, torn jeans, dread heads,
even a few women with dreams of happening to wait upon you.

And I am almost through, waiting on these city streets,
trapped in subleases the middle of the United States
with the world revolving around yours and my fate
and I still cannot, will not find your face waiting back at me

so I wait..

Frustrated with Ferlinghetti, sad as Green Days, waiting for Guffman
and other five-year-old fairy-talers who wait with me,
people waiting like sheep for promises made
purely for surround sounds at home
so that maybe you can find somebody
instead of having to wait alone.

I still sit on my couch at home waiting for the chick-flick to end
so my tears can rightfully begin to pour
and I can know that so many mes wait for so many versions of you
to walk through that City Lights door,
we are all bracing ourselves, waiting through hell’s horrors
and then taking a break from that wait just to wait some more.

Waiting on park benches, lattes and cigarettes in hand,
waiting to exhale time and time again, waiting and willing
our souls to transcend, just as bewildered as mine,
see me still waiting for you to find me

and I am happily waiting forever and after for our souls to transcend
for that matter, see me still waiting for the pretend to end in rapture
until I can completely give into Saturn and

I CAN’T WAIT!

Finally,
I have been waiting for an epiphany.
For Abraham to finally talk to me.

Waiting for 2012 to bring wonder.
Waiting to meet my rain grandmother reincarnated into another…

See me still delving into the possibility of another virgin carrying the,
for I have been waiting on my knees for you, Manoe to take me PLEASE so WHAT?
Are you waiting for me?

I guess we will see?

Much love
they say
never dies
but prays
to above
for strength
in love
so I’ll wait.

With you. For you. Together. We’ll wait.

<3,
MissConception
www.themissconception.com

A Love Letter

Dear New York,

How I’ve missed you. I know it’s been a while since I’ve seen your face and I am truly sorry.  You have not been forgotten. There are just other places I need to be right now. I hate to keep you waiting, but we must trust it is in good faith.

Oh, I miss your skin. Your touch. I miss the way you smell, even before a shower. I miss your intoxicating allure in the evenings; the grunge and the dirt along with the beautiful city lights at night. You’ve always been a true romantic and for that I see potential. Most of all, I miss the way you hold my hand when I am afraid. Even on cold nights in dark alleys, you’re warm.

But I am never afraid of you. No, you are my inspiration. My muse. And I think of you often, wondering when will we meet again? Perhaps some day on a long awaited vacation? For dinner and a movie? Or maybe a more permanent fixture in the long term we could be together for real.

For now, California may have my soul, but you will always have my heart.

Take care. Stay strong. Eat your veggies and drink some tea or whisky for me and may it fill you with warmth and grace to know that even though we are far apart, we will always be together in spirit.

With love,
Sara

Mountain Earth

I study the mountains
like I study the curve of a woman

Like the way I stare deep into your eyes
looking to lift the disguise from your gaze

Like how we listen to old stories the
the mountains tell it…

Every rock and groove a lifetime of moves and slip.

Each hill a gift to the present.

Every dry river bed has a past documenting the history of lifetimes,
and oh, how I’ve missed you.

<3,

Miss Constance

www.themissconception.com