My reality is a dream
I sit in everyday
I ran from it
and now
I grasp it as tight as I can
I don’t want to let it go
I don’t want to be anywhere else
Here with my loves
Among their blooms
Among their thorns
Is where I wish to be
-Saschia
My reality is a dream
I sit in everyday
I ran from it
and now
I grasp it as tight as I can
I don’t want to let it go
I don’t want to be anywhere else
Here with my loves
Among their blooms
Among their thorns
Is where I wish to be
-Saschia
The gates of her garden are left open to wanderers
They say she’s too friendly and she shouldn’t be so trusting
that matters of love are a waste of time
But that isn’t her
The roses died and bloomed
and dried out
They’ve been over watered,
pruned too early,
and forgotten,
But come spring they show their rosy pink faces
As if all those things
could have destroyed a blooming rose
-Saschia Johnson
The twigs snap and the leaves crackle beneath me
This is where I recharge and reboot
I don’t always wish to be there
but it’s where I end up
Beneath the breathing branches
and budding leaves
-Saschia Johnson
Don’t stop here keep reading… Returning
A farm land churned
and over cropped
Fruits of labor plucked year to year
I have no regrets
I’ve fed and nurtured
new life I’ve cradled vulnerable
seedlings not yet ready for the rays
of light that
brighten and burn
Tucked away silent inside
warm dark loved
A symbolic womb with a pulse
pulse pulse
-Saschia
Love, peace and prosperity to all
-Saschia
Listen to the wind
and the piano key floorboards
and the breaths of the sleeping
Some are caught and
the missed ones as silent as the answer
It’s all here in the room with me
-Saschia Johnson
While the shaded lilies stand rigid
I under the sun thaw
Swaying with the wind
We rooted in the same soil
Drinking in the same nutrients
Me pounded by friction
Withered wilted until again I bloom
-Saschia Johnson
Gold paint was left unopened beneath the microwave
Butter knife around the edges to release the magic
What shall I paint?
To My dismay the purple roses I planted for my grandmother
have turned pink
do they no longer honor her
Will they bloom again this spring?
Passed the roses are dandelions
passed the dandelions are dead leaves
left over from fall.
I tip the bucket and drizzle them gold again
golden leaves in the spring
discarded hedges
the ones off to the side where no one is supposed to look
I painted them.
And they glistened in this hidden place
dead leaves
discarded hedges
an exchange for boredom
-Saschia Johnson
This piece was inspired by Sculpture Grounds located in Old Lyme Connecticut.
I walk in after speeding to get my daughter’s cake which was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen since Willy Wonka, and notice the tables aren’t ready. The plates are still in plastic wrap and so are the table clothes. Panic struck me like a piano falling from a third floor apartment. I hate dishing out commands, but it had to be done as quickly and gently as possible. I’m at least trying to have cake table ready because that’s the thing these days. But plastic wrap and boxes and purses keep appearing on there. My mind is everywhere trying to do everything at once. Finally got the table set and the cake table decent. Kids are every where and since it was three or four different communities some kids were left out but so goes life. I finally get the cake table decorated with gifts (which I’m super grateful for). We round up the kids and prepare for the feast to begin which is a giant subway grinder neatly divided between four tables. The tables are adorned with a fairy, blue, and gold theme. You’d think feeding the beast (beast as in a mass of children shoved into a small room) would tame it, but let me tell you I’ve created a monster. My daughter (of course) begins some chant that sounded something like “pop-the-balloon” and you should have seen the fear in the adults faces when they came together in unison. My plan was to keep it moving by lighting the candles on the cake. So I grab the cake which was pretty heavy and lug it over in front of my daughter. The chanting grows louder and there’s an air in the room (which would properly be described as fear) of what was going to happen next. And somehow it shifted, it was no longer about popping a balloon. I pull out a match and whoosh a gust of wind which I think came from the thunderous chanting, blew out the match. I now realize why people can’t light things in horror films. I search the room for my closest friend who mind you has military experience and she gives me these eyes. They were big and I gave her the eyes like Save me. And I waved the matches as if they were a white flag. She (eventually) came to my side and we lit the candles together and the chanting slowed. Because fire does that. And then together they sang happy birthday in a way I was much more comfortable with. Thank God for best friends and creating monsters, because without them stories like these would never be written.
There’s too much snow
It’s to my knees
and everything I need
is hidden below
I have to plant seeds,
side the house
and these gutters
won’t clean themselves
My days are spent salting and shoveling.
Cringing from the snow
that fell in my boot
I liked it in the beginning
I liked it during winter
but now
it’s just too much.
-Saschia Johnson
Someone do a spring dance please. I don’t one but I’m willing to learn.