Open sesame

the word, the spell, on the day when we’re not supposed to say it out loud, all I want to do is write,

which is quite unlike me these days, I’m usually looking for excuses to get out of it.

maybe it’s counterwill

or maybe something powerful is trying to get out.

it’s 3 Iq, the day of the divine breath, Saaq Iq, in the Maya calendrical system,

but the breath can become a hurricane, so beware where the wind is blowing.

I’m tired of holding back, waiting for my chance,

waiting for the right format or platform, trying to find my audience.

I don’t know where to direct this energy, so it swirls around me

like a vortex, caught up in my own tornado

and I don’t know how to make it go

in one direction, trying to focus this scattered attention

makes me dizzy

tossed upon the swells until

all I can do is sit here motionless

frozen, again

just like back then.

still, I know that if I could just throw the first stone,

well, maybe that’s not what I meant,

but rather,

if I could skip a pebble ‘cross the surface

like you were so good at,

stop trying so hard and trust

that the current will carry it,

one little ripple can affect the ocean.

---

Words are spells, open sesame, trying to find the right combination that will set me free

sitting in the dark talking to the universe

to things that aren’t in bodies

plants and past ancestors, searching for guidance.

the etymology of open sesame was from “1001 Arabian Nights,” which I had a gorgeous copy of as a child,

with gold-leaf pages and color illustrations,

and I used to fantasize about traveling to those ancient lands, putting my hands in the sands and feeling the ancient vibrations

and then one day, 30 years later, I did it

or at least I made it to Jordan and Egypt

and was transported back and forward through timelines and vortexes

I didn’t know what I was doing there, I just knew it was important

I’m trying to keep trusting that feeling but it’s hard when I’m careening

back and forth between spaces where I barely land long enough to get my bearings

because I’m so scared about making a foundation somewhere I don’t know if I can stay

and I’m scared about not being able to pay for it

and I’m scared that it all has no purpose if I can’t share it

I need to share it

Please show me how to share it

please

please help me finish something

please help me know how to help people

people help me learn how to do this art and school thing

i’m spinning in the hurricane and the only thing I can do consistently is ceremony

and volunteering for dance, where all that’s needed is my presence,

sweeping the floor and plugging the lights in, and taking it all down at the end

I can do that.

the dance heals me

the plants soothe me

but what will help me execute on a work? make a thing? put something on the website? finish even one fucking task I’ve started?

open sesame, help me find the magic seed that will let me break out of this cage, this minotaur’s lair, and start completing.

open sesame, what’s the trauma memory that’s keeping me stuck in this story, this pattern of repeating?

I wasn’t born this way.

It didn’t used to be this way.

open sesame, heaven help me find the spell that will unlock what’s keeping me stuck

and break the spell of three little letters

with this sacred verse.

---

"Open sesame" (French: Sésame, ouvre-toi; Arabic: افتح يا سمسم, romanized: iftaḥ yā simsim) is a magical phrase in the story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" in Antoine Galland's version of One Thousand and One Nights. It opens the mouth of a cave in which forty thieves have hidden a treasure

• The phrase first appears in Antoine Galland's French translation of One Thousand and One Nights (1704–1717) as Sésame, ouvre-toi (English, "Sesame, open yourself").[1] In the story, Ali Baba overhears one of the 40 thieves saying "open sesame". His brother later cannot remember the phrase, and confuses it with the names of grains other than sesame, becoming trapped in the magic cave.

• Galland's phrase has been variously translated from the French into English as "Sesame, open",[2] "Open, sesame" and "Open, O sesame".[3][failed verification] "Open sesame" is the conventional arrangement, however.

• Sesame seeds grow in a seed pod that splits open when it reaches maturity,[4] and the phrase possibly alludes to unlocking of treasures.[5] Babylonian magic practices used sesame oil.[6] But it is not certain that the word "sesame" actually refers to the sesame plant or seed.[7] Sesame may be a reduplication of the Hebrew šem 'name', i.e., God, or a kabbalistic word representing the Talmudic šem-šāmayīm ("shem-shamayim"), 'name of heaven'.[8]

• Open sesame has been classified by Stith Thompson as motif element D1552.2, "Mountain opens to magic formula"