listen to the audio recording | listen to the soundtrack on spotify

when she finally leaves, you will not want to let her go.
when she finally leaves, you will not be ready.

no matter that you thought you were fine
no matter that you thought you were moving on
and even healing and shit.

sometimes the heart plays tricks like that

when she leaves you’ll know better.

and no matter how much control you like to wield
over the proper folding of the towels
and the direction the toilet paper goes on the roll.

you won’t get to have a say in this one.

you’ll want to think that you’ll handle it with grace
but you won’t.
you’ll ugly cry.
you’ll drink too many whiskeys and not eat near enough food.
you’ll beg. and plead and send ill-advised texts and show up at her doorstep
unannounced and uninvited
your hopeful heart an earthquake, ready to take the house down to the foundations

you will not drive away happy.
you will drive right over your heart, splayed on the hot august pavement.
you will drive away not knowing if you will see her again.

when you get back to your apartment
make yourself some tea. add honey
you need to learn to give sweetness to yourself now
play all the songs that speak her name
sink into the sad like it’s the only home you’ve ever known
you’ll be living here a while
you might as well make friends with it.

don’t try to convince people you are trying to forget
when you are determined to not to let go.
when you’ve got a box tucked beside your bed
filled with two and a half years of love notes
and a hell of a lot of empty space
it’s okay to hold on for a little while
demons are not exorcized overnight.

but just a warning
what comes next is not going to be easy.

soon you’re going to have to forget her phone number
forget her birthday
forget the way she smiled at you first thing in the morning.
the way she said ‘sleep good’ and you bit your lip every time to keep from correcting her.
the way she poured a whole mug of coffee and barely drank any of it.

your memories will play tricks on you anyways
turning ordinary moments into magic.
and right now is no time for magic.

right now is time for hard truth
and tough love.

it will take a few times of ignoring good advice before the hurt is
deep enough for you to listen

please remember to be kind to yourself

listen
i know you don’t want to hear this
but stop texting her.
everyone will agree with this.
they will say that if you need to – you should get a journal and write your love letters there.
where she will never see them.
better yet. write them on your own skin and let them wash away in the shower
somethings were never meant to stay forever.

listen when they tell you that you are romanticizing things
listen when they tell you that it’s all for a reason
listen when they tell you that it’s for the best.

it doesn’t matter if it’s true right now
it just matters if you can believe it long enough to get through the night.

next:
change the playlist
change your favorite coffee shop
change the sheets
you deserve cloth that doesn’t hold the memory of her skin.

bolt the doors
stop waiting for the sound of her knock
it is not coming
she is not coming.

do you hear me – she is not coming.

walk alone at night and remember how safe you used to feel.
make the food she never liked to eat.
don’t go to the grocery store near her unless you know she’s at work
it’s too early to risk a run in with a ghost.
make new memories.
make new friends.
get a tattoo
get another dog
go dancing. go to the ocean. go to sleep earlier.

god knows, our bones could all use a little more rest.

and listen.
for real this time
stop trying to cram your heart into the hands of girls with clenched fists
stop trying to cram your heart into the hands of girls with open palms

there’s safe space somewhere between holding on too tightly and letting things blow away in the breeze.

someday you’ll learn this.

but or now, don’t even think of trying to give yourself to the next girl you see
she deserves better than your heart in pieces
she deserves better than your mouth still shaped into an echo of the past
and anyway, it’s time to stop being afraid of your own company

and cry as much as you need to
it’s okay to be all the way broken.
that’s the only way to let the grief do its holy work
so go ahead
cry so much that the rivers flood the oceans
and the forecasters announce that the drought is over

and then be done crying.
be done.

steady up girl
you are way better than this

_________

The post steady up girl {you are way better than this} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

It has been one month since the massacre at Pulse Orlando. One month that has seen more death and devastation and violence than I can possible process. One month of communities ripped apart, here and abroad. One month of divisiveness and unimaginable pain and the rumblings of revolution.

Perhaps it is always this way — it is just that it takes events like this — events that hit us hard, and close to home and personally — to fully get our attention.

Still, there are some periods in this world where it all seems to erupt, all at once. And the grieving and the hurting and the righteous anger and the protests and the memorials and the demands for reform eclipse all else. As they should. As they must.

That week, much like this last one. I could not look away. Not from the news stories. Not from my social media feed. Not from the political response. Not from the attempted erasure of the color or sexuality of the victims. Not from the names and faces and stories of those lost and those who survived and those who were there to do the saving.

And most of all, not from the eyes of my fellow queers. My LGBTQ community. My family.

One week after the attack I went to a bar. My bar. My home. A lesbian honky tonk with it’s weathered wood dance floor and the bartenders who are like friends and the people that know me the best. The place where my muscle memory knows the music and my own feet have done their part to wear the floor smooth. The space that had sheltered me from the earliest days of my coming out. Of course we would be there.

Where else would we have gone?

We were afraid. We were hurting. And more than anything, we needed to be together. To be there. To defiantly claim this space. As safe. As our own.

And there, on that Saturday night, there was a time of silence. And in that moment, my friends and I hugged and we held each other and we took very deep breaths and we closed our eyes and opened them and just took it in. This crowded Saturday night gay bar, completely silent in memory of what had been lost just a week before. And then the music began again and we did the one thing that we could do. We danced. We danced and we danced and we danced — just like those 49 souls did that night at Pulse. We danced in safety and we danced in celebration and we danced in defiance and we danced in revolution.

I got home very late that night. Wet with the sweat of a night of spinning around and around and around that floor. Gritty and heavy and light and hurting and healed. And when I woke the next morning — it was with the words of a letter filing my my head and right on the tips of my fingers. And this came out — one of those times that the entirety of a piece has been gifted in the liminal spaces between sleeping and waking, and the only challenge to capture it all it before it is lost into the ether. And so I lay there in bed, and furiously punched out letters on my phone until my thumbs were aching, because to get up and get paper or computer was to risk losing what needed to be put down.

I recorded an emotional audio to send to a friend and later that day recorded a much more composed video version. I intended to share it right away. But I couldn’t. For some reason, I just couldn’t.

It was all too much. Too fresh. Too vulnerable and exposed. My queerness is not a secret, not by any means. As a writer with 15 years of online presence, when I came out, I did it publicly and wide open. My queerness — though often invisible unless I purposely call it out — is personal and political and refuses shame.

But this? This was raw-edged grief right on the surface of my skin. Grief mingled with gratitude and knowing and solidarity and a new awareness of what was possible. This was as wide open and bare as I could get. This letter was everything I was feeling, laid out in audio and video. No filter. No hiding.

And so it sat on my hard drive, and I wondered if I would ever share it. Today I woke up and sat down to work — and immediately saw that a month had passed. I knew it was time.

Two weeks after the Pulse massacre I was in San Francisco for Pride. That morning, I wandered The Castro on my own. I stopped by the Orlando Memorial. The candles, still burning, wax spilled all over the sidewalk. The pictures and the names and the flowers and the scrawled messages of love and support. I had my own moment of silence there, with the giant pink triangle on the hill above, feeling the echoes of Harvey Milk’s footsteps and the history — my history — heavy in the air.

That afternoon, in Delores Park, I melted into the crowd — this mass of jubilant queer bodies — claiming their celebration and their space and their pride. And later, in the company of two women I had only just met, sunburned and glittered, hands and lips sticky from the sickeningly sweet Smirnoff Ice grabbed from the slim options at a convenience store and carried in a ripped paper bag, I joined the Dyke March. And with thousands and thousands of others, we spilled into the streets.

And yes, there must have been hate somewhere in that huge city. There must have been. But there was no room for it that day. And there were people on the sidewalks and leaning out the windows and yelling from the rooftops. There were signs and chants and hugs from strangers. And there were bodies. Queer bodies. Transgender bodies. Bodies of allies and families and friends. All of us pressed together and moving as one.

The post A letter to my queer family // Pulse Orlando appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

But then, I came across this article. And as I watched the video (please, please watch), of this beautiful, fiercely alive transwoman of color moving so free – to the beat of drums and the chants of the crowd and in the face of the line of guards in front of the Governors mansion – my body and soul started moving to the rhythm of the dancing and my voice rose with the chanting and I got to thinking big about resistance and revolution.

And I watched her dance, completely mesmerized and overcome with how this particular revolution moved through her body and translated into the crowd. How everything became one – the dance, the chants, the drums.

How everything and everyone was so fiercely alive, pulsing with movement and resistance.  Everything and everyone except for those stationary guards doing their jobs. How did they feel, I wonder? Did they have to still the natural movement of their own body? Did they question the side of the line their jobs had put them on?

Did part of them just want to dance?

We make meaning of our stories and our struggles and our fight for visibility in so many ways. In every moment of resistance from the beginning of time. There are some things that carry across language and culture and country.

And dance – especially the dance of revolution – is one of them.

The last few years – we’ve heard a lot about revolution. We’ve called it uprising, resistance, revolt, or riot – depending on who we deem to be leading the charge and how we feel about their cause or whether we claim it as our own. We watch it from a distance and we take to the streets. And the personal becomes political and the political becomes personal.

And sometimes – at the end of it all, the facebook rantings and marching and shouting and campaigning- when voices are hoarse and spirits are united – no matter if everything has been won or all seems lost…

Sometimes – all there is to do, is to rise up and dance.

————————————————–

Revolution, my friends, looks like this.

Revolution sounds like the beat of drums and the rhythm of clapping and the sounds of wild cheering. It looks like dancing in front of a line of guards standing there to keep you out.

Because dance is always the way in.

Revolution is bodies – and voices – in motion.

Revolution looks like showing up for what you believe in. and standing ground against the things you don’t. It looks like staying – even when you’re weary of the fight. It looks like saying yes and saying no – and saying NOW. Not later. We have waited long enough.

Now.

Revolution says I am with you – and if this your struggle it is also my own.

Revolution looks like every protest sign I’ve ever held with my hands, and every single one I’ve lifted up in word.

Revolution is reclamation and visibility and the willingness to be seen.

It is fists raised up and bodies laid down.

Revolution says no matter how often you try to erase me, I will still be here.

Do you see me? I am still here.

Revolution is my birthright and my humanity and my responsibility.

Revolution is loud. It’s defiant. It’s the hard cackle of laughter that rings through the streets and the call and response and the demands for change. It’s the walk outs and the sit ins. And yes, it’s the huge risk it takes you to share that post on your social media, when you know there isn’t anyone who will understand or agree.

Because even small acts of resistance count toward the revolution. And even small acts of resistance can feel terrifying.

Revolution IS resistance.
Resistance – even your own, will sometimes make you uncomfortable.
Resistance asks – are you ready to be uncomfortable?
It is time for you to be uncomfortable.

Resistance has no time for your comfort zones.

Revolution is the small things viewed large and the big things made even bigger.

Revolution is righteous and disobedient and inconvenient and yes – sometimes it’s angry.

Right now I am angry.

Revolution is the amplification of voices frequently made silent. It’s the appearance of faces often invisible. It is arms linked and bodies bared. And the rumble that starts low in your belly, and rises up through your lungs and out into this world.

It sounds like the marching of feet on pavement and chants in languages and accents and voices too numerous to count.

Revolution is a network you will never unravel.

Revolution is truth.

Revolution does not ask what is allowed – it says I exist.

Will you still try to stop me?
Go ahead. Try to stop me.

Do you see me?
I am here.
And will not be going away this time.

Revolution is standing up and fighting back.

Revolution builds in the silence and the shadows left by oppression and privilege.

It is pride and desire and fierce determination – open bodies and unlocked doors and people spilling into the street.

The people will always, eventually, spill into the street.

And when they do, the drums will pound, and the voices will rise and the people…

the people will dance.

Eventually, the people will always dance.

Because sometimes, my friends. Resistance looks exactly like dancing.

And sometimes dancing is where revolution is born.

PS: Looking to give birth to your own revolution? I help passionate change-makers raise their voice and harness the power of story. Get in touch to learn how we can make your words dance.

The post Sometimes dancing is where the revolution is born appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

there is no way to save this.

there
is
no
way
to
save
this.

the ending
was written
long before
you ever heard
the tentative starting notes
no last ditch efforts
no swan song redemption
there is no rescuing
to be done
here

so, let it fall
let it all come down
crumble like earth quake
like forest blaze
like armageddon times
stand amidst the rubble
with trembling legs
and stardust skin

survey the damage
hold your grief close
usher it inside
name it truth
and go ahead
let it twist you
it has to
there is no other way

there
is
no
other
way

fall to the ground
let it take you down
on your knees now
so that the debris presses deep
into tender bone
marks your skin
with the harsh truth of
never again

because this?
this was fated
like the falling was fated
like the bliss was fated
like that night where
infinity touched your soul
was going to happen
no matter what
you could not have changed things

you
could
not
have
changed
things.

it’s not just good things
and beginnings that are meant to be
sometimes
endings
are written first
and we live
just to catch up
to the inevitable
finish

you know this
you know it lover
you held on
you repaired
you patched
and you kept it all together
as long as you could

but
now it is time
to let it fall
to release fists clenched
tight around emptiness
to open
to let go
to admit
that it is done

now
it
is
finally
done

forgive yourself
this ending
this aching unmet dream
do not name it
failure
or
catastrophe
it is not
another mistake
for you to own

it simply
is what
it is.
it is what must be
what was always
going to be.

lift your eyes
let it all out
all the full moon howl
and the primal wail and
the grief
you’ve kept locked
in bones.
let it all come
down now

let
it
all
come
down

release your walls
now
invite the potential
of wide
open spaces
all the way in
and know that
after endings
come the beginnings of things.

begin again, lover

always
always

begin again.

The post always, always, begin again appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

so, hold your capacity for melancholy
and name it strength
hold your righteous anger
and name it the pathway to peace.
honor your translucent skin,
your bone truth bruises
worship your geography of bones and scars
that roadmap of veins
the path to the center
the pulse of spirit
the gateway of want

Light torch to
bonds built from lies
let the flames build
ignite truth
and let it burn
merge ashes into melody
knit moments into worlds
howl visions into open skies
fold yourself into the endless rain
and call the wild things home.

sing rough croon
spill blood fever
coax magic spiral
nuture the fierce in your belly
let it expand
release the song in your pulse
let the explosion push outward
and rock your standing ground
let the quaking earth birth you anew

rise up, now

accept your catalogue of regret
gather close your imperfect history
this life can be violent crucible
grace doesn’t always look pretty
grief is a complicated ghost
and we are all
in some way haunted.

but this?
this is an invitation
enter your life now
build a home inside your hollow
cast a spell into the ether
evoke your own divinity
turn the music up loud
let it build
feel  the reverb
settle deep in your bones
until your spirit
pulsates

until the heat of it
permeates
your entire existence

and listen, you starlight seeker
listen jackhammer goddess
you’ve been holding on too tight
to things no longer yours.
loosen your grip, lover,
ease open your palms.
come out with your hands up.
this is not arrest.
this is the beginning.

and you
must not
be tamed.

The post poem for the world appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

There is a point when tears don’t work
to wash things away anymore.
Grabbing for breath has now broken my fingers.
I miss You so much some days
that I beg for the airplane to crash
with just enough time in the freefall
for scribbling “I Love You” across my chest.
That way – when they find my burning breast plate –
they will tell You how the very last thing I did with my life
was call out Your name.

The post Giant Saint Everything | Sunday Slam {Buddy Wakefield} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

“For any woman who’s ever been told she’s too much:
You, who broke out of the mold before they even cracked it
off you. You, who came out inventing your own how-to-scale-a-wall
with only vowels. You, who fireflash in the eye of so many
midnights, so many men who want to taste your hem, who dream
of being desired by an Uncommon Woman, if only because
their dressers are empty of anything but brand name cologne
and predictable portrait. Let them call you different. Let them bait
the minnows of you heart. Show them your heart is a school
of fish, a solar system of all moons. When asked, say,
“My heart is always causing the mating season.” When they call you
full of yourself”, say, “Yes.” Breathe in their scorn and breathe out
Atlantis.”

The post Uncommon Woman | Tara Hardy {Sunday Slam} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

“Love isn’t always magic.
But if I offered my life to the magician, if I told her to cut me in half so tonight
I could come to you whole and
ask for you back would you listen?
For this dark alley love song,
for the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies.
I wrote too many poems in a language
I did not yet know how to speak,
but I know now it doesn’t matter how well
I say grace if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat,
So this is my wheat field.
You can have every acre, love.”

The post Maybe I Need You | Andrea Gibson {Slam Sunday} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

“I loved you the same way that I learned how to ride a bike: Scared… but reckless with no training wheels or elbow pads so my scars can tell the story of how I fell for you. You see, I’m not really a love poet. But if I was I’d write about how I see your face in every cloud and your reflection in every window, you see I’ve written like a million poems hoping that somehow maybe someway you’ll jump out of the page and be closer to me because if you were here, right now, I would massage your back until your skin sings songs that your lips don’t even know the words to.”

The post Love Poem Medley | Rudy Francisco {Slam Sunday} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

“But I know she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby,
because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix.
Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix.
But that’s what the rain boots are for.
Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. ” 
{My rocking new friend Jill blew me away with a hard cover printed copy of this book for Christmas.  I will treasure it always}

The post Plan B | Sarah Kay {Sunday Slam} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.