Sara Kärpänen is a London based writer, poet and multidisciplinary artist (MA) exploring the experiences of belonging and displacement in her work.
She is also founder of Women of the Wick platform and community space.
This is a Radical Request to Love Yourself
I am a tree
I am the roots
I am the soil
I am the soil where New
will flourish.
I am what I am
I will protect it
I will build a garden around it
I will water the soil with my teardrops
I will let the light in, I am not afraid of its brightness
I will let love find its space and pace, I will not push it away.
I stand on firm ground
I smell the blossoming of life,
I dip myself to take baths in it,
I let butterflies land on my shoulder blades and teach me
how to stay still.
I am here to listen
I am here for the river and the wind to navigate through me
I am here for life
the life I create, the life I belong to.
Petals
I looked inside my heart; it was full of flowers
soft pink yellow white petals
stacked on top of one another
How haven’t I dared to see them before?
My Flamboyant Heart
Stopped and dropped the shackles of disbelief
now pounding hard,
my Flamboyant Heart.
Forcing me to watch what’s underneath
perfectly shaped
stonewashed over a thousand waves
Yearning
to be heard
in her mother tongue,
rolling r’s
to be seen
in the way her body forms into a new shape
sturdy and gently
tomboy and a lady
no translation nor identity-check
flattened to please
not adjusted nor erased
My Flamboyant Heart
Holding her space.