Hello, friends. If you were paid subscribers (which I am not asking you to be), I think it would be funny — clever, even — if I called you my organ donors. Anyway…
Happy July! Happy Bastille Day (vive la révolution pour toujours!)! Finally, happy New Moon in Cancer 🌚🦀🦪🧜♀️! I have a cancer stellium in my natal chart, so this is an especially exciting time to set intentions —the air is balmy, thick, and succulent in the way only a true summer afternoon could warrant. Anything could happen, and anticipation feels deliciously effervescent like a glass of somethin’ special. 1
I created a New Moon tarot spread centered on today’s Cancerian energy and toyed with it yesterday evening. A lot of what was signaled in the cards was a shift in my demeanor and a strong sense of self-worth and even stronger boundaries, which I pride myself on and am proud to have mastered after years of being complacent and silent. This is about nothing or no one in particular, but I just feel more like an adult, worthy of respect and not very tolerant of situations where I don’t feel good! I think Kim Cattrall said it best; see below.
At any rate, returning to the tarot spread I did for myself last night, one of the most interesting things I learned was that my inner child still needed some healing, especially regarding freedom and allowing myself to enjoy things — regardless of cost. My inner child has been on my mind strongly, as of late, phantomlike.
This past month, I turned 26 and have had 16-year-old me on my radar. Largely because July’s poem centers around my adolescent pursuit of comfort and being an angsty little recluse, but also because I wish I could have been kinder to myself a decade ago. While I still have lofty goals in mind (higher education, a stable career, and getting my poetry out and published) and am nowhere near settled, I’ve built a beautiful life for myself and have explored many places, have tasted love, have gained amazing friends and kept the same ones from high school, have gotten into a form of exercise that feels freeing and electrifying, and live on my own (albeit with two amazing roommates, but I am an independent lass nonetheless).
I think of my Romantic, definitely pretentious teenage dreams of glamour, of surrendering to something greater than myself, and, mostly, of feeling safe enough to bare my whole entire being to people without judgment or fear of being mocked. I’ve had crabby defenses up for as long as I could remember, but have, conversely, created a rich inner world for myself, my dreams, my spirit. Maybe it is this conservation of my inner world that has acted as the catalyst for my newfound intolerance of any bullshit, pardon my French. If it doesn’t serve me or others, why bother?
I’ve thought even farther back (two whole decades) to me at 6 years old: green, kind, and insatiably curious. My mom said I had a lot of questions. I still do, but I also have the wisdom to know when to leave well enough alone. Mostly, I think of how content I was to give in to imagination, and to be content with just my own company.
So much has changed since those days of letting ants crawl on my fingertips and of collecting Littlest Pet Shops. Additionally, I’ve grown from feeling confined to my teenage bedroom to needing to hide myself from the outside world. Though I will admit I still love my alone time, and still get the occasional reverie of something grander, only a little out of reach. I just know now that I can express these wishes to others, and can trust them with my heart and soul. I know I can show all parts of me, my broken body, and bouts of moodiness and seclusion without penalty.
This month’s poem is titled “Womb Interlude II” and centers around those aforementioned stuck feelings, as I’d never be understood for my hopes, my pain, and my truest self. I tried to make it as sensory a poem as possible and even included some lyrics from my favorite songs from when I was 16, so the accompanying playlist will include those and some other certified Maia classics.
I’m excited for you to see the artwork I have in mind for this piece, and I may even make a short video to go into detail.
Until then, enjoy the rest of this stupid hot month (I’ll take this over January any day!). Be kind to yourself.
- Maia
WOMB INTERLUDE II
Some moments seem imagined,
But never these ones.
Pure mornings and a velvety night.
These ones spent in a dimly-lit sanctuary,
Your bedroom. A diorama
Rife with the waxy, impressionable smell of candles,
And mesh slate curtains. They
Make me here. And you are made here.
Each detail, each little art print, each facet
Of the cluster of clippings:
A cut-out of Marie Antoinette from the Visitors’ Guide map to Versailles,
The formidably rainbow lineup of Sailor Moon and her planetary posse
Dr. Frank N Furter’s “Come Hither” stare
Must be perfect. Must be a facet of yourself,
Must make you feel centered,
Must cradle you, must comfort you, must spell out your name.
A Cancer and Second House stellium
Could explain
This need to create a space that’s beyond hospitable.
A soft thing
Preening their shell,
Their safeguard.
These precious things,
A space that is yours, and yours alone,
That waxes pearlescent, gentle, and defiantly soft,
That liltingly spills of your magic
And cradles you when
The Second Heartbeat comes barging through you,
Skewering you to your bed for the vultures. Prometheus in mom’s old Jägermeister T-shirt, this womb
Feed and fodder for the carnivorous birds inside of her. Self-mutilating, Self-regenerating little mass.
For this is my body, broken for you.
And this plush, dark space rose white, rose red within a drafty, old apartment complex,
Could also be your passive cry for help, could be your quiet clamoring for recognition,
Remember me.
My crucifixion
Could be your lasting enclave when you’ve sunken into your bed,
A piece of you, an outward projection of the life within when the other pulse covers up your own and makes your bed thump subtly. And it’s difficult to live, except When melted in this space. Low light, feathery smelling record sleeves, and a musty, mildewed oil diffuser, phantom odors of orange and clove
Lie in your wake.
In memory of me.
I am human and I need to be loved.
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flare ups vi - "womb interlude ii"
This is a subliminal appeal for an Aperol spritz. If you are reading this, please, can we get one together?
I figured out how to embed the visual part of the playlist last time, but not this time. Growth isn’t linear, guys!