Duality Read online

  DUALITY

  Sage Leroux

  Duality

  Copyright  2021 by Sage Leroux. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2021904652

  ISBN: 9798595979320

  For my past self:

  Look how far you’ve come.

  Also dedicated to every girl

  Who keeps hoping that things will get better.

  They will.

  DUALITY

  Sage Leroux

  Content Warning

  This poetry collection contains references to:

  Anxiety

  Depression

  Intrusive Thoughts

  Sexual Assault

  Trauma

  Religion

  Body Image

  And fighting through pain.

  This collection also contains references to

  Healing

  Empowerment

  Acceptance

  Confidence

  Love

  Hope

  and Grace.

  Please take care as you read.

  Contents

  Part 1: Light……….……….7

  Part 2: Dim……….……….47

  Part 3: Dark……….……….89

  Part 4: Grey……….……….139

  Part 5: Golden……….……….190

  PART ONE

  LIGHT

  Wild one with a fire for a soul,

  Promise me you’ll never dim your light

  To help others find their way to ignite.

  Does it ever get easier?

  The wanting to belong…

  The ever-present feeling of being lost?

  Famous monarchies and houses alike

  Have always chosen fierce animals to represent them.

  Lions, wolves, snakes.

  And if not fierce, then cunning. Smart.

  Birds and brethren of those with fierce wit.

  I wonder if we cling to these animals

  Because deep down

  We want to feed the beasts that live in all of us.

  I wish I knew how to be softer,

  to bat my eyes and control my tongue.

  I wish I knew how to ease into conversation,

  Tuck my heart away so it’s not on my sleeve

  for the whole world to tear from my sweater.

  I wish I knew how to let my crazy out slow.

  I wish I knew how to lie the pretty lies of “I’m fine”

  And how to leave people wondering, wanting more.

  I wish I knew how to be less honest, less loud.

  But wishing makes me more of another

  And less of me.

  To the ghosts of old friendships:

  All you know of me now

  are small squares on an outdated app

  (the horror!)

  Do you think I’m still who I was in 2015?

  Am I permanently locked in at a certain level of

  maturity?

  Of haunted memory?

  I think the girl you knew doesn’t exist anymore,

  And you’re looking at pictures of a spirit instead.

  And this spirit doesn’t really care to meet you.

  I find myself longing for an understanding or pondering of the complex

  Despite my need for routine and simplicity.

  It’s like my mind handles the depth and my body needs the simple.

  A balance of both

  To create beauty from the brokenness of this world.

  Often it feels like a curse to feel things so deeply,

  But other times,

  It feels holy.

  I tell my students who say they’re “bored”

  that I wasn’t put on earth to entertain them,

  And that education will not always be fun.

  In a culture that values humor as a marketable value

  and an example of success,

  Maybe I should tell myself that too.

  Heavy are the chains that the world clipped to my wrists.

  Heavy are my emotions that have grown too greedy with power.

  Heavy is my head with the weight of a thousand, hard thoughts.

  Heavy are my heart and soul: broken things still carry weight.

  These things are too heavy

  For us who were made

  to walk in light,

  Those of us who were made to fly

  Anxiety:

  Goingandgoingandgoingheartbeatingchestshaking

  While not moving an inch.

  Heart racing, your body expecting the worst,

  While sitting safely in your living room.

  Depression:

  A thick fog clouding my day,

  Making the laughs muffled and the sunshine shadowed.

  The opposite of rose-colored glasses, navy-tinted shades.

  Intrusive thoughts:

  Your mind is not you own anymore.

  It belongs to your deepest fears and desires that aren’t yours.

  You will never think a happy thought again.

  Mental health:

  Learning to live with your demons by tightening their chains

  Giving yourself grace,

  And accepting your whole, broken spirit as a mosaic soul.

  My self-doubt is a spy,

  Sneaking in to the corners of my mind,

  Sniffing out the scandals and trading bribes for secrets.

  She pulls from my memories, disguises them as ‘evidence,’

  And taps on my mental illness, shaking it from its slumber.

  She takes the things I love and turns them into a source of stress, of fear,

  All while moving in the shadows, lurking in the dark.

  So I guess it’s time to turn on the light,

  And let the flames burn the fear, and let my power ignite.

  I wish my fairytale books had told me

  That the bad guy isn’t always a wolf

  Or a witch, an evil queen

  Or a tyrant ruler.

  That instead, the bad guys can be

  Boys with messy hair

  Polished public speakers

  Or the reflection in the mirror.

  If I had known,

  I would have clung my red riding hood a little

  closer to my face

  When passing a man in a button down,

  And would have opened my hand

  To the wolf that secretly had a heart of a gold.

  There is beauty in pain

  And there’s value in hurt

  And there’s art within sadness.

  But there is also joy in revival,

  And creation in happiness,

  And liberation in acceptance.

  And I don’t think we have to be sad

  To have something to contribute to the world.

  Don’t tell me I’m pretty

  That my hair glows and my skin is smooth.

  Tell me my ambition turns you on,

  My determination evokes goosebumps,

  And that my inability to give up on what I care about makes me radiate.

  Tell me that when I cry for tragedy

  and scream for justice,

  Your heart swells with pride and admiration.

  Tell me you value my kindness,

  The effort I give to be gentle to those who are tough

  in a world where we’re quick to toss four-letter words like knives.

  Tell me my mind is sharp enough to tear you to pieces,

  Tear apart your arguments like scissors on paper

  But my touch is soft enough to turn them into a mosaic.
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  Tell me my passions set your soul on fire,

  And then maybe mine will burn for you.

  The trees have always felt more like home

  Than the lumber walls that I grew up inside.

  The howls of the wolves that live on our land

  Have called to me louder than the sirens of the city.

  I can feel the Earth breathe when I run barefoot across her,

  My fingers tracing the bark of the trees,

  Hair a tangled mess and neck craned to howl to the moon.

  Wild with a heart whose home isn’t within walls.

  Make sure you make time for “self care,”

  Say the companies profiting off of your pain.

  Buy this bath bomb to fix your depression.

  Do a face mask to calm your anxiety attack,

  (Just make sure your tears don’t wash it off on

  accident).

  Use our app to reduce screen time.

  Treat yourself to chocolate, clothing,

  You deserve to spend some money on yourself.

  Make your skin smell like sugar and flowers and rain

  And maybe someone will want to touch it.

  Watch this yoga routine done by a smiling, beautiful

  instructor

  That you wish you looked like.

  What? Our products didn’t fix you?

  Try another one tomorrow

  Just to be sure.

  In my quest to help people,

  I sometimes feel that I’m emptying the sea

  With a cracked and broken teaspoon.

  I’ll probably spend my whole life

  Trying to fill a cereal bowl’s worth,

  But at least I didn’t waste it staring out from the shore.

  All My Friends Are Getting Married

  All my friends are getting married.

  What the hell? We were supposed to be in this together.

  No, I’m sorry. I really am happy for you.

  It’s just that you’re a part of my heart

  But now your heart’s priorities are shifting.

  Our priorities used to be one another.

  We are good friends.

  We check on one another, comfort one another.

  And I know you will still try to do that,

  But it’s not the same

  Because now you’ve got a person like that

  Built into your existence

  And I do not.

  It’s not that I’m jealous,

  But more like, I’m grieving what we were

  As you celebrate what you’re becoming.

  Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for nostalgia

  But every time I watch a couple cut a cake,

  I feel like they are cutting away

  Parts of who they were before

  And I don’t fit into this new life they are building.

  I know I’m being a buzzkill.

  But I am both happy for their love

  And sad that I don’t have my own.

  Sad that I don’t get to have my friend like I used to.

  I feel like I’m missing out on the fun part of adulthood

  Where you have someone in your corner

  Instead of someone to fight.

  I feel like I didn’t get to graduate into the next level of

  maturity

  And I had to stand back

  While my friends got diplomas

  In the form of diamond rings.

  Once you pledge yourself to another person

  People automatically look at you with more respect.

  Why can’t I get that respect on my own?

  When you’re in your twenties,

  People are always asking about your next step,

  As if existing in this hard, hard world

  Is not a big enough accomplishment on its own.

  I have to be planning my next big career move,

  Since I have no romantic moves in my future.

  Have to be one step ahead in my professional life,

  Because I’m one step behind in my personal one.

  When you’re single, people ask when you’re getting

  married.

  When you’re married, people ask about kids.

  Then about more kids.

  Can’t I just exist for a moment?

  Take a breath between bridal showers

  And bachelorette parties

  Before I end up breastfeeding in the blink of an eye?

  What is so wrong with simply existing?

  These thoughts fly through my head

  In the amount of time it takes her to walk down the

  aisle

  And by the time she walks back,

  She’ll have a new last name

  And someone else in the same town

  Will have a new engagement ring.

  Adventure is an idol that always lies out of reach.

  No life is wild enough to match her high expectations.

  So I told adventure that I didn’t want her false promises anymore,

  Because I needed the truth more than I wanted the whirlwind.

  And then I ran after the ordinary

  And fell in love with life.

  It is not my job to make you happy.

  It is not my job to make you happy.

  It is not my job to make you happy.

  Repeat as often as necessary

  and in response to particular family members,

  coworkers,

  and the world as needed.

  Envy is my bitch of a best friend right now.

  She spits poison into my chest

  When a friend accomplishes something grand.

  She cackles with glee as I scroll past photos with

  thousands of likes,

  And cheerfully reminds me of all the weddings I’ll have

  to attend alone this year.

  I keep trying to cut ties with her, but she is persistent,

  Lurking in the shadows of other’s joy

  That I wish was my own,

  That I wish I could take.

  When you love a writer,

  You will be immortalized one way or another

  In ink and pen.

  They may sing your praises

  And relish over your love

  Or write your transgressions in their own blood.

  Choose your legacy wisely.

  There is nothing more liberating

  Than the realization

  That you can start over

  Every

  Single

  Day

  If need be.

  I want to dine on the stars.

  I want celestial light filling my lungs to the brim,

  Stardust exploding through my veins.

  I want the constellations to tattoo themselves on my skin,

  Connecting the stories of my ancestors and your ancestors together,

  As we are all connected together.

  I want to walk across the planets in my bare feet,

  Feeling the rumble of power beneath their rocky crusts, their deadly vapors.

  I want to fly across these endless nebulas,

  Arms outstretched into nothing and everything,

  The whole universe and a vast, empty nothing,

  Both coexisting, inches from my fingertips.

  A Farewell

  When I think of you, I think of your hair.

  Wild, whimsical, carefree but controlled.

  I think of bright blue heels, chocolates in a trinket bowl

  As I cried about everything from my first love to the slashes on my 16-year-old arms.

  I think of how I made you cry

  (Just that once, and if I recall correctly, they were happy tears).

  I think of the first journal I was truly honest in,

  The one you gifted me to mark with pen so I’d stop marking my wrists.

  (I read back through that journal. Think of the girl I was…if she could see me
now.)

  I think of my teenage frustration, because therapy is HARD

  And if you weren’t talking, then I had to and I was

  So, so scared of myself

  And what would leave my troubled mind

  and broken heart

  through my mouth.

  I think of the friendship we had, beyond patient and professional

  Like an earth-mother, nurturing me into loving myself.

  I think of your dreams that came true and how they inspired my own.

  I don’t think of the cancer that took you, but instead what it couldn’t take:

  The love you left us all.

  When I think of you now, I lift up my eyes.