Ānanda by Téa Nicolae

*poem published in ‘get well soon’, online zine put together by Dan Power, compiled with poems of shared experience from self-isolation. i’m very honoured to be included in this collection! 🌸 the poems are soothing and they will hopefully warm many in these uncertain times 💛

i allow myself
to feel joy,
peeling carrots
with my grandmother,
stroking my nose
against my doe rabbit’s
i allow myself
to feel beauty,
adorning my neck
with rose quartz necklaces,
gazing at the night sky
sliding itself into dawn
i allow myself
to feel stillness,
laying my naked skin
in fresh lavender sheets,
placing hands on my belly,
counting eleven deep breaths
i allow myself
to feel grief,
embellishing my knees
with tears, planting kisses
on the blisters
that bejewel my skin
i allow myself
to twinkle alive,
tulle pressed
to my damp thighs,
dancing with my
hands above my head

i
allow
life
to flow
through
me

*ānanda is a sanskrit word that means ‘joy’, ‘bliss’ and ‘divine happiness’. 🌼 the poem was inspired by Hareesh’s words: ‘There exists the possibility for joy (ānanda) in any and every experience. By joy (ānanda) I do not mean ‘extreme happiness’, but rather a kind of deep loving acceptance of any given present-moment reality’. 🌼

*from the zine’s foreword:

‘Self-isolation is a weird contradiction – we’re separated from the world, and across the world we’re sharing an experience. When the curtains are drawn, the outside world stays outside. What this collection hopes to do is to throw those curtains open, to wave through the window. We’re sharing our experiences to prove that we’re not alone, that all of this means something.’