You probably clicked on this website link because you’re interested in learning about Lewa. I suppose you could be hate-reading, in which case; welcome! Hate readers are welcome here :)

I look at this image and I see the product of ritual. Everything about this is systems working in tandem to produce an outfit. I wear the overalls because I write & I read & having that chest pocket to store my notepad, eReader & pen is beyond useful. I wear the jewelry to keep track of how I was feeling this morning. Even how I got the image onto this website was a carefully crafted system created to ease the friction of the creative process. To me, toolmaking is the point of life. Refining my systems continually forever til I am no longer alive. If this all sounds interesting, then you might fuck with what I’m up to right Now!

The news is bad, people will die

and I'm terrified of my choices
do I stay in this place?
with a monster who hates me?
I already am so vulnerable, because I'm already so unsafe
it's so bad that it's already killing me
a poison so deep, of fear and despair
& no matter what I do, I cannot purify my heart
because I don't know a way
to stop hating the people who did this to me
what dark magic could cleanse this?
I already know
it's doing the things that we've always done
to sing, & to dance, to spend days in the sun
to read, and to speak with immaculate beauty
to move ourselves to the rhythm
of matka's heartbeat
to look at the moon, and have fun
we are the children on the earth, and we will be okay
because in this great universe, this place has emerged
a place where food grows on trees
a place that has oceans, caves, and beaches
where water will be always moving
and if by some chance, we fuck it up so bad that billions will die?
someone will be left
and it is our duty to ourselves, to survive this,
admit our mistakes, move on, and grow up
at the end of the world, there's still a story to tell
a friend to sing with
and people with warmth in their hearts

take a journey with me inside my mind,
We'll travel from the depths up to the divine.

You'll reel in terror, you'll die from shock,
only to wake up again, before 9 o’clock

Let's start in the past, my “father” died,
they all said sorry with sorrowful eyes.

but how sorry were they? I may never know,
just like my mind to you, I can't fully show.

There was no love for me back then,
I was a child, alone, no parents, no friends.

I was hurting & hated, I was silent & loud.
I was both too smart & too stupid, too timid, too proud.

too greedy, too sinful, but I wasn't enough,
I didn't know anything, but I knew too much.

I’m all these years later, still picking up pieces,
still confused & hurt, counting the seasons.

Hoping for the day when I figure it out,
when I find the key to my life, let me out, let me out.

There, there, there,
take me there.

That place of righteousness,
that place of light.

Where the sky will keep us company,
where the sun will feed us good,
where the flowers will bloom forever,
the place I describe is paradise.

I am there, but somehow I’m not.
Every second of every day,
wherever I am,
I am misery born anew.

Take me away from here,
here, here, here.

From this place on the inside,
from my own self-hatred,
from my own self destruction.

~ Lewa 💚

Spring Unsprawling Backwards

It always starts with an emotion. I’ll pretend it’s not there, then it will get so loud that it’s screaming, & I’ll realize that I ain’t gone on a walk in a few days. I start walking, mulling it over, enjoying the sights, the sounds, the fresh spring foraging. Then a line in my head, if I love myself enough in that particular moment, I’ll write it down. But that’s just the spark, If you want to burn your fire hot; you gotta keep it alive. Keep feeding it words, feeling it out. Speak the words, listen to them, they will tell you what they wish to become. & before long, you get to witness the beauty of a flower of words blossom into something wonderful & unexpected. The pain of today is the poem of tomorrow!

There is beauty in the pain, but you've got to look for it! To be simultaneously staggered by one's finality, & in awe that it happened at all. Just like the pretty words bouncing around in my head, just like the plant that came from the seed, the human that came from the womb. And, if it were not for this poetry, I genuinely don't know how I could have coped with whatever the fuck my life even is.

Sometimes I feel like I can’t open up to anyone, even myself. That’s a really scary thing to feel. I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone other than a rock named Matka.

That’s sort of how this project was born. When I ended up jobless, I just planned the next week to be for writing, smoking weed & listening to David Berman. It was a good week, ‘bout half of the poems from this project were made in that one week period. This is not healthy art creation, please don't be like me, I have a mental disorder. I just knew that I needed to write some poems, and a lot of them, & spring has a wonderful way of sucking the words straight out of your skull with a straw. In fact, I’ve written about that too.

I’m going to include a couple essays about art that I like, one about Hamnet & another about David Berman. Please do enjoy them too if you like essays & art.

So without further ado, please enjoy Spring Unsprawling Backwards.

~ Lewa💚

psst, here’s a link to the canvas file I been workin’ on! I think it pre cool...