Title: Listen to yourself
Author: Jamie Heckert
Date: June 15, 2008
Source: Retrieved on November, 18 2009 from becoming-writer.livejournal.com
Notes: Jamie Heckert is a political activist and author of various works on anarchism and sexuality. He is involved in a number of projects including the Knowledge Labs, a series of research events based around ‘open source’ principles. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in 2005 for his research into an anarchist critique of sexual orientation as the continuous effect of everyday state-like relationships of representation.

Listen to yourself,
to the subtle flows
of emotion, desire
coursing through your body.
You need not conform
to any boxes, any borders.
Desires overflow
these simple lines
designed
to control,
to contain.

Love yourself,
what you bring to the world.
Voices may say,
“You’re not good enough,
you’re not doing it right.”
They speak
from anger
from fear.
You need not hold
these words
in your belly.
Let them go,
when you are ready.

Practice yourself;
do what moves you.
Feel your breath, your body.
Touch your heart.
Caress your skin.
Take in the touch you need
of wind and water,
earth and sun,
food and drink,
hands and mouths.