Decades ago, when I was in my teens, I loved to write. I sat for hours with a blank notebook and a high quality smooth gliding pen just writing my fantasy world into existence. Creating a world which me and only a select few had access to. An escape from teenage angst and depression. 

As life became mundane rather than fantasy, my writing was replaced by bottles, diapers and taxes. Overtime became my new hobby. I signed permission slips and doctor's forms instead of my own work. 

Adulthood arrived waving a white flag and overdue bills.

On January 20th, 2021, I watched a young lady read what she had written in front of millions. 

Words created. Not generated.

Weaving sentences like a prayer of hope and joy. A subtle spell to wake the creators of our world and inspire with poetry.

That day, I picked up an old notebook and one of the many flimsy pens from my doctor's office and began to write again. 

My pain, my hope and my fears formed my poetry meant for me and my soul only. 

I was writing again.

A secret ritual to the gods of humanity.

Four years later, my soul poems became cries and screams as I watched as, piece by piece, the soul of our nation was sold to the rich and powerful. Offered like a sacrifice to a deity that only blesses the cruel and unjust.

I couldn't write about the soul because it was gone. None left for me. None left for my family. None left for my neighbor.

None left for Americans.

I stopped writing again. 

The notebooks are now sitting in a landfill next to cheap phones and plastic toys are discarded like the workers that have lost their usefulness in a soulless greedy factory.

My life became mundane again. It became similar to the AI platforms that are stealing art and expression all while stealing life from our water and soil.

I existed to consume.

Like a good American.

Right?

On another frigid January morning, I opened my usual mind numbing app to continue to consume. Hoping to see videos of cats or watch someone else's curated life. Accepting offerings of time, likes and attention. 

Instead, I saw myself murdered.

White, middle-aged, mother, queer and, although non pratcing, a poet.

A wordsmith.

An artist.

No. 

It wasn't me. It was another woman with whom the muses had touched. 

A creator.

 Someone who still held the pen of her own life and wrote herself into existence on paper or at least a Word document program.

And she was good.

Another January inspired by another poet.

The irony was not lost on me. The poet in me saw and understood the metaphor in the act of violence. 

Kill art.

Kill expression.

Kill a that which does not align with the collective hive mind of consumerism. 

Bullet holes in a canvas.

Stop creating!

That is meant for the algorithm and the ones who peddle the next weight-loss drug or firming ass cream.

Don't read poetry.

 Don't create art!

 Buy the next thousand dollar handbag made by slave labor in Asia somewhere and slapped with an "assembled in the U.S.A." label. 

I picked up the pen again. 

I opened my notes app. 

A beautiful notebook sits on my couch. It is a lovely notebook with a printing of an old, possible Italian map in it.

It screams rage now when opened.

It is not cursed. Rather, it's blessed with sacred rage and holy despair. Anointed with a few drips of coffee that came from a cup held by trembling hands.

Hands of a poet reborn. 

And hopefully the poet will not die again. 

For every artist, splatted in red rather than paint colors of the spectrum.

For every wordsmith holding tiny hands and running rather than a pen.

For every voice screaming in fear and pain rather than singing a song of hope.

You are holy, and your art is your altar.

Create! 

Even if your creation is only for your own soul. 

The gods of the algorithm can't see your creation created in the shadows. They can't demand your sacrifice of offering your art to the hive mind.

Pen to paper

Brush to canvas 

Voice to song.

We offer our souls to the spirit of human creation. 

-Kalypso 2026

Photo citation: Calliope Mourning Homer - Jacques Louis David (1748-1825)