In the fourth episode of The Ashlee Craft Show, Ashlee spotlights her exclusive “Life is My Playground” pins, available at SHOP Ashlee Craft.
Check out the pin on SHOP Ashlee Craft.
Save 10% now on your entire order when you use coupon code “HAPPY” at the above link. Only valid when used on www.shop.ashleecraft.com.
It’s also available on eBay!
In the third episode of The Ashlee Craft Show, Ashlee reviews the Myakka River State Park in Sarasota, FL. She discusses the awesome canopy walk (aka “The Best Observation Tower EVER”), the trail, the “Yellow Freedom Meadow”, & a whole river filled with gators.
In the second episode of The Ashlee Craft Show, I read the poem “part two” from my poetry book, “A Beautiful Question of Where & When”.
POEM:
part two
I left the space open
to write a good-bye letter to you
& the empty page stared back at me
gasping & lurching & trembling;
it was broken, it was cracked;
the paper swallowed me whole
I thought about the last time I saw you
how you were despondently numb & begging me
the bird sitting still in the cage
it once previously tried to escape from
& I thought about the tenderness :
radiantly gentle & ardent in its fierceness
& I thought about you;
you believed in me when I was just a shadow to myself
my hand was trembling
& the conviction inside me rose & sang
& I could not write anything
I could not say goodbye, unclasp your hand from my own
I could not leave behind, move on
from one I’d loved so authentically
Here is the (awesome) first episode EVER of my YouTube web series, The Ashlee Craft Show! The video’s theme is POETRY & I read the poem “& I Embrace the Changes” from my newest book, Art Poems – Volume 3, which I released 6/24/17. Let me know what you think of it in the YouTube comments!
POEM:
& I Embrace the Changes
I walked alone on the beach in the morning before anybody was up / there were two places calling out to me I felt the inexplicable connection to though I’d never been there / I didn’t know exactly to where I was heading; there is a great big world out there & anywhere could be the place / but I embrace the confusion at last, & the darkness, & equally the confident light / & I embrace the changes
for a long time I tried to pretend that it wasn’t important; I buried it & muddled it & feared it & ran away from it / I put on the cloak & wore the dagger hidden where no one could see me; hid behind the curtains & sat in darkness because I would rather sit alone than with them / I cried at night & felt like a freak because they all sped by me in the fast lane rushing recklessly towards careers & eternal matrimony & I was alone & partially longing / but I never did want what they had anyways, & yet still felt left behind / but I have come to embrace the aloneness / & I embrace the changes
there are different things that have meaning to me / “still so far behind!” they wail in the corners / but I do not hear them anymore, & I do not care what they are saying when I cannot see them / let them have their opinions & make their conclusions; let them believe what they wish to believe / I am freedom, I am alien, I am independent, I am different / & all of that is okay / & therefore, I embrace the changes
I will never fit into their molds or want to sing their songs or want to go the places they go & do the boring things they do / I walk along the seashore each step a prayer propelled deep into the earth with vibration / each step is a declaration, a battle cry, a triumphant shout that I WILL NOT BE WHAT THEY WANT ME TO BE, I AM NOT WHAT THEY WISH I WAS, I DO NOT HAVE ANY INTEREST IN FITTING IN WITH THEM / each step is a statement of utter freedom, a release of the words I have been fighting for my ability & courage to say, the Phoenix pushing the ashes off the place of both its birth & its tomb simultaneously, shouting out into the night, YOU DO NOT OWN ME
& so, I embrace the changes