Crazy can be wildly expressive. 

Crazy can be too calm. 

Crazy can be solitude. 

Crazy can be all wrong. 

Crazy can be panic.  

Crazy can want to die.

Crazy can be gaslit. 

Crazy can't sleep tonight.

Crazy can be hidden.

Crazy can be mentally ill. 

Crazy can be F.I.N.E. 

Crazy can be eccentricity 

fulfilled.

"Crazy Can Be" by Sophia Elizabeth 

~ 

Crazy and I have spent a lot of time together; we grew up together. We've hid in trees together. We've screamed together. We've made blood pacts to do it alone together. 

You might know Crazy by its other names- dramatic, shrill, hysterical, moody, unwell. Or, you might know Crazy by its extremes- too loud, too shy, too emotional, too weird, too soon.

I know Crazy like my picked skin, subconsciously scanning myself for imperfections. 

I know Crazy like a functioning cog.

I am 

Fucked up,

Insecure, 

Neurotic, and

Emotional, 

but I'm also just fine, so don't worry about it. 

I know Crazy intimately.

I hate Crazy like I would an abuser, but I love Crazy too because life would be so boring without its bright colors and dark rooms. 

I know Crazy in response to Crazy. 

It'd be crazy for me not to be.

~Sophia Elizabeth 

12 years later ~ a mother ~ crazy grateful and happy

for everything 

Crazy can be. 

Try it out: Write about how others may negatively perceive you, and then justify it from your point of view with poetic authority. 

• Start with the words, "They call me ______________," and then fill in whatever comes next without following any rules. It can be an adjective, a noun, a name, a metaphor, a descriptive list... you choose. Ironically, it is not for others to decide what they call you in this poem. 

• Experiment with commanding and confident language to produce an authoritative tone, and play with repetition, both visually on paper and audibly with your cadence, to drill your message in.

•  Make meaningful stylistic choices and experiment with diction, grammar, and syntax to manipulate semantics, such as with utilizing capitalization (or a lack thereof) to denote deeper meaning behind a particular word. 

  • • For instance, in the poem "crazy," I intentionally wrote the "i" in the line- and i got fucked up in it- in lower case because the version of me I'm referring to is small, child-like, and lacks self-worth while that self-worth is actively being reclaimed by the poem itself with a title not worth capitalizing nor giving it its own line. 

I woke up on Valentine's Day distracted by routine and a long to-do list. After a busy morning of breakfast and chores, I put the baby down for a nap and the T.V. on for my toddler so I could work for a couple of hours. 

But then I yelled at my toddler for whining once I turned it off, and then I lost my patience with him at the lunch table and again after that, and then again a little later... for acting like a toddler!

So he and I took a time-out together to talk about screen-time etiquette, me working too much, both of us needing to take a breath when we get angry, and how we are both trying our best to do better. It all felt somewhat sorted out, so we hugged and moved on as though it were any other Tuesday...

Until a realization knocked the wind out of me: It was 2pm on Valentine's Day, and I hadn't even mentioned the holiday once to my 3 year old! I was devastated and mortified and utterly guilt-ridden. I fell to my knees, and I asked my son to accept my formal apology.

I told him that I was sorry for yelling at him, for losing my patience, for preaching deep breaths while failing to take one myself, for getting mad at him for whining about the T.V. when I was the one working on my computer for hours, and for forgetting to tell him that it was Heart Day and that he was my Valentine! I told him that I loved him and his brother more than anyone in the world, and that it was time to celebrate our family's love.

Then something phenomenal happened. 

My son's body inflated like a balloon filled with joy as he looked at me and said, "It's ok, Mommy," and threw his arms around me in a humongous, Heart Day hug.

He pulled away to announce through his smile, "I can hear my heart go boom!"

The world slowed down around us at that moment, and I asked him if I could listen too, expecting him to put my ear against his chest, but instead he put his ear against mine and whispered, "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom."

We stayed this way (frozen in Valen-time) for about fourteen seconds before he let go of me and said, "Do you know why my heart goes boom?"

"Why?"  

He beamed like the sun, "Because I love you!" 

We cheered and embraced and made plans to bake pink cupcakes for Dad's arrival from work as we gathered our materials to craft paper hearts.

~

 I will forever cherish the memory of my son and me listening to his heart go BOOM together. His heart raced because my apology mattered to him, indicating just how integrated a child's developing nervous system is to their primary caretaker's actions... and inactions. My apology helped him feel safe again. It repaired whatever bonds had been broken between us after I failed to juggle my responsibilities and properly regulate my mood earlier that day. 

Because "Once in a Blue Moon, Insommy Mommy Breaks Down," but acknowledging it can make all the difference.

This poem is simple in style and was written several months ago after another incidence of lost patience. I come back to it as a reminder of what my values are and what I strive to be as a mother for my children: patient, caring, strong, kind, understanding, and safe- while also reminding myself that some guilt can actually be quite productive. Despite my imperfections, I will always have opportunities to grow because of them, just like everyone else does. 

That's why some apologies are necessary for repairing and maintaining our connections to others. While I wholeheartedly believe it is best to pursue life unapologetically as ourselves, I also believe an apology means more than I'm sorry. 

An apology can also mean, I understand you and I see you too. 

Try it out: Write about something you regret doing or saying to someone else and apologize for it. 

• Which emotions are triggered for you as you write your apology and in which parts of your body do you feel it? 

• Reverse the approach and write an apology that you desire from someone else, one that you may never receive. 

• Ask yourself, what power does an apology hold and in whose hands does that power lie? 

• Write a poem apologizing to yourself. What for? 

I often stare at a blank canvas or empty page for months on end feeling intimidated by the potential of something yet to be created, while at the same time, craving the reimagination of my experiences and the world around me through the abstract shades of paint and poetry. 

Like procrastination, Canvas, in waiting is a poem stuck in the indecisive loop of an artist's anxious, chaotic, or bewildered internal narrative. The canvas is personified to be feminine, moody, and coated in the desire to be saturated in new perspective and textured with emotional substance... because that's what the artist is.

 The canvas waits eagerly on the precipice of creation while the artist daydreams in her ambivalence, feeling both hopeful and hesitant, proactive yet repetitive, in the face of something new. 

It's a poem that posits, "How do we break the cycle of waiting and actualize the visions we have of ourselves tomorrow, today?"  

Try it out: Write about what's waiting for you on the other side of trepidation. procrastination,  self-doubt, or overthinking? 

• Write a poem about an item or project or task that you hope to one day complete.

You can begin with:  "____________, in waiting"

• Personify that thing or project.

  • Write from its point of view.

  • Give it pronouns and use language associated with people's actions and interactions (i.e., hope, believe, worry, shake hands, eat lunch)

•  Write about what completion would feel like after weeks, months, years, decades of waiting. 

• Is the tone of your writing patient or impatient? Write another poem or journal entry in the opposite tone. 

Do you consider PLAY to be a basic necessity? 

The root chakra (also known as Muladhara in Sanskrit) is located at our seated foundations in the perineum. It serves our most basic needs for survival, security, and safety with its red energy flowing like magma heating the earth's core. 

When I close my eyes and imagine that redness moving through me, I feel child-like and fearless, and like I am safe to roam free and curious. I remember running outside barefoot with sun-chapped lips and knees burnt from falling and climbing and surviving the day with play. Pushing the limits with play! Questioning everything with play! Nurturing my soul with play...

Try it out: Write about your root chakra and what it means for you to be grounded. 

• Imagine sitting atop a fire, unscathed by its flames, feeling warm and safe as red colors flow freely throughout your body, pumping in and out of your heart and lungs, wrapping their red hues around each cell, and weighing every morsel of your anatomy down to the ground with a heated foundation.

• Write about what you envisioned. 

• What fuels your most curious and wild self? 

• What does getting grounded mean to you? 

• What ignites your inner fire? 

• Write a poem about your inner child. What makes your inner child feel safe and secure? What makes your inner child feel playful? 

"Dissociative Identity Order" is a new poem that (despite its short length) took me several weeks to mull over and craft.

The writing came later as the creation of this poem inspired my personal essay, "The Order Within," as well as the entire "Metacog-Gnosis" issue of Mother Crow. 

One of my favorite methods for writing something new is blurring the lines between poetry and prose. Most of my poems begin as journal entries, essays, stories, or messages... before they go poetically awry.

Poetry is a language of heightened emotion. Whenever I sit down to write, I usually get carried away or emotionally overwhelmed by the topic or process, so my syntax and diction become increasingly more cryptic, rhythmic, and wild. Literal sentences start morphing into figurative verse and what begins with paragraph, ends in stanza. 

I then have the option of continuing with the piece as a whole or separating the poem from the prose and editing each individually.

I do this with my paintings as well, using one artform as the muse for the next. This approach lends to a very rich and holistic creative experience, one that encourages forward momentum as the passion from one piece ignites another. 

Try it out: Write about one topic, feeling, or memory in two ways!

• Write a poem inspired by something you've already written, such as a journal entry, an essay, a story, or a message to someone else. 

• OR! Write a journal entry, an essay, a story, or message to someone else inspired by a favorite poem or an old poem you wrote in the past. 

• Recite each piece and observe the differences in your tone, cadence, and mannerisms as you speak them out loud separately.

• Could you blend the two pieces into one?

• Add a visual element (drawing, painting, or photo) to round off the expressive process.

Thank you for joining me as I journey through the scribbles of my past.  Some of my older poems are timeless, some of them I want to hack apart with a chainsaw, and it feels as though I'm reading some of them for the first time...

I like "Emotion Sickness" because it demonstrates why I needed (and will always need) poetry in my life.

In times of emotional darkness, writing a certain poem can make me physically ill, but once it is done- once it is out of me- I can move past it with gratitude, edit it with objectivity, own it with acceptance, and share it with pride. 

We all need to express ourselves somehow! Writing poetry is a very effective outlet for moving forward through our pain into purpose, healing, and art. 

Have you ever rode a poem to get past a problem? 

Try it out: Write about the writing process! 

• How does it feel to write something emotionally charged, such as a piece about grief or a difficult message to someone else?  Are there physical sensations of discomfort? Relief?  Anger? Euphoria?

• What does it feel like to read a poem that deeply resonates with you?

• Write a poem about your favorite poem. 

• Write a poem about what it feels like to write poetry.