“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

-Mary Oliver

After giving birth to three boys in quick succession, I found myself changed in every way possible. After being told I have a “way with words” for my entire life, I suddenly realized that when I had no space or time to make any other art, I still had my words. After a severe depression, I committed myself fully to prioritizing writing on a daily basis, and it has saved me.
  • I began writing poetry in the notes section of my phone in 2020. With three babies under 3 years old and an insatiable desire to create, they came out raw and whole, often in the dark of night. As my children grow, poetry allows me to create written snapshots of moments I would otherwise forget. My hope is to share these with mothers everywhere, and give rise to a new genre that I am calling “Domestic Poetry”

  • I am currently working on my first fictional novel. Having had a lifelong love of cameras, history, and magic, I've always wondered what a camera would sound like if it was alive? Better yet, what would it sound like if it actually took in the souls of its subjects (as was initially believed in the mid 1800s upon the advent of such astounding technology)?! Think magical realism meets historical fiction with a little surrealism thrown in. This achingly long process has been equally thrilling and exhausting, but my goal is to complete a work that transcends genre and finally scratches my age-old itch at the origins of memory and how humans survive because of it.

  • The term “newsletter” has become synonymous with the word “spam” in recent years. After withdrawing from social media in 2021 for my mental health, I longed for a digital outlet that allowed me to stay in touch with, share my musings, and current projects with those I had met in person over the years. My newsletter became something else entirely- a weekly practice in vulnerability, storytelling, and open invitations. I continue to use the term for clarity of format, but I encourage you to read some of my past emails shared below and draw conclusions for yourself about it!


Domestic Poetry

  • I didn’t get a break today

    You said

    As if

    You expected one

    As if

    You could stop

    Every need

    From everyone

    Including yourself

    As if you could count

    On a soft warm bed

    Halfway through

    To “recharge your batteries”

    As your mom used to say

    But that isn’t how it works

    You’re the parent now

    And you’ve just announced

    That you have to poop

    So you could write

    This poem.

  • What gift says

    Thank you for cleaning the shit off the walls

    What gift makes up for the sleepless nights

    The lines stretched into skin

    The hair clogging the drain?

    What sale could possibly compensate

    for a career put on pause

    for those first precious years

    before someone else is in charge

    Of an entire education

    Is there a card on the rack

    That speaks to the hope of morning

    And desperation of night

    A wreath to adorn the door

    Of the home that feels both like a prison and a sanctuary

    It’s endless loop of days so poetically represented by a string of evergreen

    Here, I wrapped this for you

    This totem in my hands

    Is nothing

    is nothing

    is nothing

    But me trying to say

    Thank you

  • What did you do today

    You ask

    I want to tell you the truth

    That I called my friends

    That I took a nap in the car

    That I took a walk

    That I blasted my favorite songs from high school and sang over them with tears streaming down my face

    That I stared at the way the wind blows the branches

    That I looked at the clouds moving in the sky

    That I walked into a bookstore just to feel the spines run along on my hand

    Because all these things are what I needed today

    But I don’t feel like I can tell you that

    Because how can you ask someone

    Please

    Watch my children

    So that I can hear the sound of my own breath again

    Instead

    I keep this all to myself

    Because I live in a world

    Where it is not productive to touch the earth with cracked fingernails

    The days in which I had time to stop are over

    You are a parent now, they say.

    It is your child’s turn to play

    And when they stop and dig holes in the ground

    You are supposed to say

    Hurry home, we have to go

    I cannot dig for worms with you

    It is no longer my place

    For I must feed and clothe and work

    That you may notice the birdsong

    without me.

  • I lay on the bed

    In the home of my youth

    The sounds are the same as they’ve always been

    My mother’s voice through the vents

    My father’s work in the yard

    I know how the light hits every doorknob

    Every bedspread

    At every time of day

    In every season

    Of every year

    I know which windows don’t have a shade

    And which curtains my mother has replaced

    I left in search of my own life

    I bought my own bedspreads

    My own curtains

    And returned with arms full of children

    And a heart full of gratitude

    For when I lay on this bed now

    I hear my children’s laughter through the vents

    I hear the hum of their toys

    I lay in the bed of my youth

    With the exhaustion of a mother

    Knowing that this is the one place

    In the entire world

    That I get to be

    A child.

    This poem is available for sale on my shop HERE

  • I kiss his shoulder

    Rest my lips along the curve of his neck

    He folds himself around me

    Limbs too long to crawl up

    And fit back inside

    Six years gone since our bodies split into two

    His size shocking me every day

    This body that I made

    This human that I grew

    Can barely fit in my lap

    Anymore

    And yet

    I still ache for the softness of his body

    I still hunger for the taste of his skin on my lips

    Just as I did in the days of rocking chairs and breast milk

    Just as I did in the sleepless blur of my own infancy

    The fissure of our bodies birthed us both

    And here he stands

    Six years later

    Reminding me

    That I, too, am sprouting like a bud

    Long and thin and sure

    For every time he folds himself into me

    He shows me

    That the body of a mother

    Never

    Ever

    Stops

    Growing ,

    Too.

  • I did the laundry

    And took out the trash

    While you did the dishes

    And fed our children.

    I thought to myself,

    why,

    this is the work of living.

    It is as though my tired body

    is connected to all those before me

    For when I bend to task

    I feel the shadow of thousands

    Of millions

    Of billions

    Behind my back.

    They rub my knots from my shoulders

    Brush the sweat from my brow

    And say to me

    O, dear one

    We have pushed through the barriers of time

    To tell you

    That you are not the first

    To hold each day as a trophy

    Hard fought and hard won

    Knowing that tomorrow

    It all starts again.

    We are not so different, you and I

    We

    Have lived

    The work

    Of living

  • You’ve never seen my hair down

    Last night the pain in my scalp led me to unveil it before you

    It felt so good to massage my roots

    After years of tying it up

    Holding it back from your grasp

    You cocked your head and smiled

    “So beautiful” you said

    I felt a tear forming at the corner of my eye

    You reached out to touch it

    My instinct has been to pull back

    But this time I let you stroke the length of my hair

    “So long” you said

    You had no idea that I had long hair

    I had no idea myself

    I had let the faucet of time run my split ends down the drain

    And so this...

    This was a really nice moment

    It was as if you were seeing me differently

    It was as if

    For the first time

    You weren’t just seeing me as your mother

    You were seeing me as a woman

  • What is the night if not another place for a mother to give?

    To contort herself to fit the needs of her children, her spouse

    To pretzel herself around bodies and cries

    What is rest if not another landscape we yearn for, an Eden always out of reach, a mirage before our tired eyes?

    Motherhood robs us of sleep early

    Before the Great Exit

    Before the hope becomes reality

    It marks you with tired eyes and frazzled bones

    It’s pillowed and soaking leftovers a laughing stock for anyone and everyone whose body has never made a person from scratch

    In the story of a mother, sleep is the villain

    Always taunting

    Always laughing in the dark corners of another endless night

    Another hour alone

    Here, our heroine battles

    Here, our heroine cries

    Unseen

    Unheard

    Again

    And again

    And again

    The sleep of a mother is an oxymoron

    It’s just a poem

    written by a mother

    In the middle of the night

    Who can’t

    For the life of her

    Fucking sleep.

Recent Newsletters

“Hallmark holidays: Not a fan”

“Let's eradicate the belief that we are meant to show our love and appreciation on a single day, and instead, let's show it every day.”

“The Mirror of Wisdom”

“Have I made enough progress in my hours allotted for nothing but progress? “

“Lunch at the Coffin Bar”

“I sit and look at the empty chair facing me, wondering what it would be like if my grandmother had come out to lunch with me today.”

Book me.

I believe that words are most powerful when spoken aloud.

Creating intimate, vulnerable, and productive in person experiences has become my goal. As a self proclaimed “analog Soul in a digital world”, my hope is that this website is just a stepping stone to something so much more powerful and so much more tangible. Please reach out with any ideas, events, or collaborations you may have.

Blog

COVID Funeral
Juliana Laury Juliana Laury

COVID Funeral

A poem that I wrote after watching my grandmother’s funeral online.

Read More