Keep Calm and Carry a Calming Angel by Zoe Doyle

 Remember when you used to listen to the obnoxious noise of the dial-up modem for over 10 minutes before you could open your “aol” account to browse the world-wide-web? I do. I’ll admit I’m getting older and less patient. Nowadays, if my browser takes two seconds to load, I’m clicking that mouse like a crazy-person. I’m not sure if it’s an East Coast thing but everything seems to be so fast-paced these days. From rushing our children to activities, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the way home from work, knowing we have a hundred things to do once we get there to “seriously, that bill is due again?”; we never seem to be able to slow down and we’re always feeling the pressure. It’s no wonder companies make millions of dollars selling us products claiming to relieve our stress. In Kenya they do things differently.

When Leah Mitula came to show me the latest creations from Kenya she opened a small bag containing a miniature, soapstone carved angel and I was immediately intrigued. It was smooth, felt almost powdery and fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. “Soapstone is said to have a calming effect. In Kenya we believe that touching soapstone is therapeutic so holding these angels can calm you down when you are nervous,” Leah explained.

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Calming Angels were born out of necessity. Leah, a native Kenyan and a marine biologist based in Belgium found that the women of her village would always ask her for money when she returned home. Wanting to do more than offer a few bucks to a few women, Leah decided to harness the talent in these struggling local mothers and create a platform for them to sell their beautiful products. Leah would then market them during her world travels. These artisans not only carve soapstone angels but

create beautiful handmade jewelry. When they finish a batch, they take their pieces to headquarters and receive payment on the spot. Calming Angels is a fair-trade company which allows moms in Kenya to stay home with their children while earning a living wage. When you buy a soapstone angel you are not only giving yourself a charm, known to keep anxiety at bay but you are also helping sustain a business that allows women to support their families.

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What is soapstone?, you ask Geology.com describes it as, “a metamorphic rock that is composed primarily of talc, with varying amounts of chlorite, micas, amphiboles, carbonates and other minerals. Soapstone is typically gray, bluish, green or brown in color and often variegated. Its name is derived from its “soapy” feel and softness.” After touching nearly 500 calming angels as I put the recent shipment away, I noticed that my hands felt soft and almost powdery. So, where’s the magic? How does it work? Just as rosaries are used to help individuals focus in prayer and mala beads are often touched during meditation, calming angels allow us to take a moment to engage our senses and focus on something tangible 

during times of stress. Angels are known to comfort us during times of grief or suffering so it makes sense that this icon was used by our artisans.

We introduced “calming angels” in June of 2015 and since then they have been “flying” off the shelves. We innately knew that this product was something special. It’s not just a keepsake or a token, it’s a meaningful object that can be given as a gift to someone grieving the loss of a loved one, a person who is about to undergo surgery, or someone going away to college. Not to repeat the theme-song from “Friends” but “When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month or even your year…” you could probably use a calming angel. When you’re nervous about an upcoming deadline at work or you are about to meet that hopefully-also-cute-in-real-life guy from Tinder, you can hold your calming angel, take a deep breath and relax. Each calming angel comes with a story-card and is encased in a velveteen pouch, perfect for gifting.

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Overlyemotional

Overlyemotionalmelodramatic

Take the train

fly off the handle

I don’t care how you do it

Just get here

Now

Everything is so important

I’m telling you to fucking do it

Now

because the years make gaps

In my teeth

Spaces

Indelible

Marked with poison ivy

I have random heart palpitations

I’m not sure if any of this is fair

Pains in your chest

Go see a doctor

Life is too fragile

Seventeen

If I could do it over

I wouldn’t

It was perfect then

But now is a has-been

Have I ever tried to be less temperamental?

Have I ever rode the back

of a white horse

down to the court house

Perhaps in dreams I said, “Let them eat cake”

A real B-movie version of Marie Antoinette

But mostly I cried

Because every bump in the road

Was the apocalypse

Every chip in my nail

Was a chip in my shoulder

Every highway sign gave me

A panic attack which could later

Be traced to my time-of-death

I’m sure no coroner would even bother…

In the living room—

Yellow light shines

On cigarette stained walls

You click click click

With your thumb…

Joystick your way to

Beating a level

As I thumb my way to your heart

Click keys with the precision

Of a typist at an ad agency

But what I write is even

Less important

Days slide into each other

Gloomy or grey

At times I have contemplated

The inevitability of everything

The scenes I can unfold

Like origami and remember

Just how to fold it the same way

All over again

The scenes we play out

The roles I have memorized

And the lines like Hersey wrappers

Like gum wrappers with some girl’s

Name and phone number written on

Them in loopy cursive

We unfold and re-fold again

Three-fold is the rule

I’m not sure the religion

I have folded many holy things

On days other than Sundays

I am also very superstitious

But basically just a snot-nosed kid

Who gets overemotionalmelodramatic

When things don’t go my way.

I took a class on grammar and punctuation.

It reminded me about important issues

Such as the proper use of a semi-colon

And a dependant clause.

I still don’t know how to punctuate us

I’m not sure if it should be a comma

Or a conjunction…and….

Or maybe just an ellipses

You …

I wish sometimes that you were ugly

So I could make less shallow decisions

Your eyes paralyze me

You are my wet dream from when I was sixteen

And my regression at 25

And now I’m just trying to get tough:

Leather jacket, red nailpolish, drive-fast,

All night, smoker’s voice and the body of a

Stick-figure

But who was that girl in the graveyard

With the blue balloon

And is her voice fading to a

Hussshhhh

Whisper

When you were inside me

I was thinking about a center

Opening up

Not all the fake façade shit we

Pretend is important

No one cares if you owned 12 pairs

Of Nikes when you are dead.

I know my voice, a chalking hallow

Of a steel drum,

The perfect needle scratch against

Parchment

The thread that follows the needle

The blood which precedes

I need more than this language to get through to you

I need more than syllables and

question marks and

subjects and

predicates

I need more than Freudian memories

And fatalistic delusions

I need more than fear to light a match under me

A certain roar from the tongue of God

I need to drive far without remembering where I am going

Without the sense to turn-back around.

Unafraid

I don’t believe in 25

The magic happens at 16 and possibly 17

a quick flash from a  disposable camera and then it’s over

left-over Chinese food and spilt milk

this is what I will leave you with

when I leave your house

the crumbs on your fire-escape

a trail to nowhere in particular

 

If someone had warned me that I would wake up

And suddenly feel old before my time

In a car in the middle of the highway

Bumps and clanks me around

And I am so far from the womb I came from

So far from the shrill cries of teenage angst

And whatever it is you people do nowadays

 

Once I wondered if I’d grow up to be a brighter bulb

And platinum bombshell queen of the underground

I grew up scared

Instead

I was a tiny scratch on your record

A whisper in the trees

A voice so hoarse and soft

Only your flesh knows the words

Your mouth cannot fathom

 

I told her that she’d begin to grow up

Just like me

If she made all the right mistakes

The ones with boys in cars

And the ones where she picks up the wrong thing

Smokes something

Anything

I knew there’d come a time

Where she’d wake up with a buzz

In her ears

Electricity

It would  seem

But the flicker is gone

And the static remains

Adjusting the bunny-ears on an old television

Nothing makes sense

Everything would fall like white snow

On a black screen

One day she’d wake up—thirty

With bills to pay and an unclean kitchen

One day she’d learn to pray

Hard and fast

Wake up in a pant—

“God grant me the serenity…”

One day she’d wake up in a haze of

Soup cans and one word answers

But nothing can be explained

Or solved or fathomed with one word

 

I was always my mother’s daughter

Her skin- alabaster white

I’d always aim to please

Bend and twist to suit her needs

I’d lay flat on the floor if she needed to walk over me

 

Once I wrote the melodies

You play on repeat in your heart

An over-used music box that knows the song

Slightly off key and a little bit delayed

My mother is magic and too big to fit inside a poem

Or a hallmark card

She is black boots and eyeliner

She is brash and spectacular

She knows all the answers

And she is nothing like me

Scared and shy, pretending to be

Unafraid.

This poem is by a fellow writer from 3AM magazine. Her name is Gabby Gabby and I really relate to her poems. I guess it's selfish to say but we all seem to like writers who write the same sort of stuff on the same topics we tend to: Check her out at: http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/three-poems-18/

How to live
On the edge of my bathtub I watch a girl
lick cum off of her face and smile.
I can cry while watching porn when it reminds me of sex
with someone that I loved who now loves somewhere else.
When the girl in the video kind of does something
that she thinks is sexy but the guy laughs instead of thinking it’s sexy.
When the sex is slow and it takes some time
to figure out how to change positions without pulling out.
My heart pushes up this heart stuff. I can feel it
when strangers that look like us are fucking.
We exist in there.
This poem isn’t going to teach you anything.
Look to porn to teach you about good living.

Dear Life

A psychic told me she’d read my palm On my lunch break
But I didn’t have time to know the future
I need it spelled out on my skin as I sleep
I need a lot of pain to know I am in trouble
A heart murmur and a bruise on the inside of my wrist I need you to reach for me and grip me tighter Maybe I need a bit of a dig Of your nail into my neck
A bright red bruise I need you to tattoo my name to the inside of your lip
So I can sit somewhere between your tongue and cheek
Or a little bit closer I need you for once to do what you say you’ll do
So you won’t be so god damn predictable
I can’t take your word on anything
All the phone calls that are intrinsic
All the nods that seem homage
To me but perhaps there was someone else there
That I didn’t know about Someone whose hair shines plasticine Perfect
Whose skin is pinched red and whose eyes gleam
Like candy cane Christmas Someone who sighs when you Touch her
Someone whose hormones don’t Control her life Someone who falls easy in to bed
Whose head rolls back when you fuck her In the mouth
Or in a stairwell Someone who doesn’t fall in love
But makes musical sighs Sounding somewhat like Beethoven
And a little bit indie rock maudlin. Maybe I am just holding onto you for dear life

Robin Hood

Give me one more day Sweet songs that sit at the back of my throat And refuse to budge Secrets that swim through the shell of me The highway which stretches all the way through this country Snakes through the dustbowl into this shithole town Drops you off and loses the keys Invites you for drinks and lovemaking Then slams the door on you when you are halfway in I don’t speak your language anymore Sometimes sign language can help But only in more benign situations You were sitting at my front porch waiting In the still frame of my daydream life You were moving to the subterranean crescendo Of deep blue longing Your hair was the deepest blue black And you got all my jokes Even the ones I never said If The highway is for gamblers the skyline is for everyone I breathe the dark soot of my cigarette Right down to its filter And you don’t care if I reek of smoke and lair du tempts the sun bleached stench of one who knows everything and nothing at the same time cover me be my backbone steady me against the imminent stretch of plate tectonics be my Robin Hood steal from the rich and give it to me

All the Things I feel for you