awaken, my love (2019)

acknowledgments

After witnessing the second law of thermodynamics play out in real-time, or at least, align so that in my mind I could make the connection and see the bigger picture, I knew I had to write a space opera—in the most literal sense of these words. A homage to the cyclicality of nature packaged in four lofty poems about an extraterrestrial being serenading her loved one from across the universe.

At the end of March 2019, around the time the snow in the northern hemisphere was thawing, I tuned in to the frequencies of the blades of grass as they righted themselves, and the groaning of dormant trees as they shook off the snow, and the jubilance of insects as they awakened their senses to the resurrection of the world. I noticed Mother Nature give birth in slow, excruciating steps as winter transitioned into spring in a way I had never noticed before. At the same time, thousands, if not millions, of teenagers were marching in almost every major city in the world demanding action against climate change, and it felt more important than ever that I put my ear to the ground and listen. What I heard I associated with the melodies I used to sing to kill time as I trekked to and from school as a child. Melodies that because of my lack of skill in the music department were accompanied by the chirping of birds, and the wind stirring the grass and the leaves than any real instrumentation. Thirteen years later and the same organic sounds, now a lot more professionally produced, would play from my Airpods.

Björk's ninth studio album, Utopia, was the catalyst for two things coinciding in my mind at once. I had the briefest of thoughts looking outside the library windows at the aspen tree that only yesterday was bare of leaves but today was decorated with puffs of dangling pollen. I thought: you know what; it takes so much effort to give birth, yet the universe, always striving towards a state of disorder, makes death so effortless. To act takes courage, to create takes effort, inaction requires no input of energy, and so passivity is to wilt the same way a flower wilts.

So, to every one of my heroes who've inspired me in my journey; to the first poetry collection that for me put a brown female face on what a poet could look like: Warsan Shire's Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth. I will never forget holding that thin book in my hands and feeling like someone sucker-punched me after reading the title. To Björk who taught me to look convention right in the eye and say, "fight me, bitch" and who's always 100% authentically her in everything she creates. THANK YOU. I always say that if I could make music I would make music instead of writing. I'm like a hen, I have wings but I can't fly very far. But it doesn't stop me from admiring the swans of this world and taking inspiration from them.

Lastly, to the aesthetic poets on Wattpad who have awakened my childhood love of rhyme and inspired me to pen this collection after reading some riveting works that will be seared on my heart forever, thank you.

And to anyone reading this who's on the fence about creating something or putting yourself out there, not to sound too cheesy, but, do it! Be brave, be authentic, you don't know who you might inspire.