The artist has starved for too long

A sanctuary is not truly a sanctuary

When disruptions prevent you from feeling free

To express the cave that lives within you,

Noise and static pierce the flesh

And you lose focus on the world that wants to breathe from your hands

You hand your ideas over to the invisible realm

Before you can even begin to feel what it's like to create something that comes from your unique perspective

You let responsibilities be the excuse for no creation

And it becomes second nature to abandon the colors that creates art

To leave the paintbrush cold without your touch

You feel the fire form

Yet you don't step into the flames

To burn away the voices of limitations

A statue fades into the background

Left out in the sun

Unable to move

Until it answers the call

Tangled like a fish

The snake skin peels off at a rapid pace

Solid ground doesn't feel solid anymore

When I realized how much the programs

Pumped through my veins

Altering who I was at the core

I thought I knew who I was

But the loud chaos echoed in my ears

Pushing away the voice of my inner self

Until I was left grabbing ahold of sand

Even as it fell between my hands

I didn't notice the pain I held onto

Until I was shown mirrors

Whose purpose was to bulldoze the false layers

A safety net that wasn't actually safe

But was a form of my own limited mindset

Meant to keep me tangled up like a fish

The caverns of possessiveness, obsession, and attachments

Possessiveness strangles both the weak and the strong

A giant octopus waits in the dark waters

Waiting to take ahold of it's prey

With tentacles that doesn't favor one prey over the other

There is a sour aftertaste

A disillusioned reality where love is not love

Only dressed up

To perform it

Attachment hurdles towards obsession

A subconscious belief that holds fear,

Loneliness

Worthiness

A sense of control

In a world that tests you

To see how much you can handle

Without cracking open

Into a million pieces

Without losing the softness

Grown from the heart

The purging of the Lion’s Gate portal gave me clarity

I felt the shift

As if I could see it clearly

Since the fog faded away,

The heart stretched it's roots

And I had no choice but to strip away

The fake version of myself,

The one who performed to fit in,

The one who couldn't quite fully express herself

But I see what my soul wanted all along,

Truth

Without succumbing to the judgements

Of a world built on suppression

The relief felt like a calm fire

That never burns out

I purged the stagnant energy

That kept me stuck

In a validation loop

But my heart knows it's rebellious side

The side of me

That refuses to wear masks,

Or force something that doesn't feel right,

Or wear clothes that feel like static

That's not me

And it never was me

Alchemize what is feared

The only way to keep the dark from consuming you is to channel the energy into creation

A creation that holds no completion or rigid rules

Because it is a gift

To alchemize what is feared

The process in itself is an art form

Often misunderstood

But holds true power

An act of healing that demands presence

With the self