About me
My name is Joanna Alizio, and, when I’m not hunting for worms with my seven year old or learning tween slang from my son, I’m writing, or at least, daydreaming about writing.
Blog posts
- Light switch on
When you feelnothingand want morejust wait a secondand walk outside.The birds will be louder.Listen to the birds.They’ll tell you about the path to take. You’ll follow itto the woodswhere pools full of mudlay stillfrom the biggest thunder stormyou’ve heard in ages.You might be afraid to look at your murky reflectionbut when you doyou’ll see he’s right there with you.He always was. Walk further.Hold his hand.Descend into the trust. When you do there’s joy you told yourself you should not feelbut you deserve it.There’s more joy than pain down there. Continueat a pace that works for youpausing when you need toto peer into dark thingsbut remember to keep goingto show him the bridgeyou’ve run on so many timesand wherethe frogs sang a funny delirious song for the both of you.You can’t see thembut you imagine the bandthat was playing the songyou’re creating together On your journey backthere’s a tangible reminderthat kicking the bucketwon’t be so bad when you are with him. But, sweetheart, those side-by-side rocking chairsare so far off.So, for now, keep the moon in your handand look up togetheron hot spring nightswith springs under your backsknowing all of itevery single secondwas leading you here. - Plucking words from the sky
I used to pluck words from the skyas they werefalling like shooting stars Straight from the abyssUnfilteredOrFiltered just barely soRight onto my paper But now they meet a new challenge:Cross crossing through my biasesAndSide stepping my bullshit These words play FroggerAttempting to cross the busy streets of my mindDodging cars and other obstaclesIn order to get home How chaotic it must be for these wordstrying not to make direct contactwith my monkey mindin order topass throughwithout my intervention It’s much harder nowto access I’m distractedby the tiniest thingthat brings me away from my truth I’ve been trying to come up with a remedyin the form of a mantra for the year:Presence That’s all I want nowTo be fully with meand fully with my people It’s harder than I imagined But I’ve been sitting in meditationevery day for monthsto softenand build a bridgebetween body and mind and universethat’s never quite existed before - Hand-me-down
I’m softer nowa lot worn outin all the right places just the right size loved beforeused beforenot newbutnew to you - Mama’s poem
A star so brightlike a light. What is it?It must be you, my big shooting star. Thank you for believing in me. By Alba Alba wrote me this poem last night and left it on my pillow. She has this habit of getting out of bed one hundred times to tell me her love tank is empty and she needs a mama hug to fill her up. She’s got the biggest, most beautiful eyes, and has one wiggly tooth jutting out of her mouth, so it’s hard for me to say no when she does this. However, if I don’t get a bit of alone time at night, I become cranky, so I told her she can’t get out of bed, but she can write to me. I haven’t been writing much lately (at least not for public consumption), but I was honored to get a glimpse into how poetically she thinks about the world, and me. I think this may be what I needed to begin writing again. - We three
Three seats on an airplane three weeks from now will be filled by three peas in a pod who will travel faraway together laugh together eat, sleep, and explore together get on each other’s nerves altogether but it won’t last forever because we’re birds of a feather we always come back together