permanent

Jane Peng – military BRAT artist and painter

an abstract painting with artist Jane Peng standing next to it
by Jane Peng

When I was young, all I wanted was a normal childhood, but it was impossible. We were always moving homes and nothing in our life was permanent. Every move was a disruption, full of goodbyes and fears about an unknown future. But slowly I learned to embrace the chaos, because I realised that when I walked boldly towards the unknown and did my best, there was enough kindness in the world to catch me even when I tripped.

Through my art, I want to capture the strength of courage and kindness so anyone facing turmoil in their lives can draw strength from it. That’s why I wanted to share my art with you today. ~ Jane Peng

Check out Jane’s website to see more of her art

See more paintings by TCKs

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Learning How To Stay – TCK Poem

If This Love Is Supposed To Be Permanent (I Don’t Know How)
Elizabeth Hemp

No one ever taught me how to stay
And you’re getting too close
If this love
Is supposed to be permanent
I don’t know how to do that
And I must confess
You’re scaring me
This close is too close because
What if you leave now
And my world is shattered
As I have always known it will one day be?
Too much power, too much trust, too much
Potential for hurt and no one
Has ever accused me of being an optimist

I don’t know how to stay
This point is farther than
I’ve ever gone before
And I don’t know what comes next
Except leaving
Leaving has always been the abrupt cut off
For all of my history
And I have always hated it but if I’m honest
I don’t know how else to do it
This is the point in the story
Where the ending is supposed to go
And it’s aching nervously
In my bones
I don’t like not knowing what comes next

So there’s no reason to leave
Except every reason in the world
We’re too close, I’m too scared,
You can’t understand this fear in my heart
Compelling me to leave you behind
Before it’s too late and I am the one being left
Again, like always…
Besides that, no one ever taught me
How to stay
And all I know is goodbye

Safety is in goodbye
Safety is in goodbye
Safety is maybe not worth it –
Do I dare to try
And stay?

Click here to read more poems by Elizabeth Hemp

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Temporarily Permanent

1.
I wrote something today
even though
I had nothing to say
there is too much music here
too many people who say
what I want to say
better than I ever could.

So I find myself
sucked into the information age
and suddenly time means something.
Once upon a time
I had read every book
available to me
but now,
I could never do that.

Once (or twice) there
I went a whole day
without ever looking at a clock.
Time
is just a word there
but here
it is what they (we?) live by.

2.
Someone asked me,
yesterday,
the one question
none of us can answer –
“Where are you from?”
And I wanted to say
“nowhere” or
“everywhere” or
“God” or
“Africa” or 
any number of other things
but suddenly 
I didn’t have the energy 
to explain
again
so I said
“Pennsylvania.”
After all, 
I know people there.
It is as good a place
as any other
for me to pick.

But really,
who I am now
is only a fleeting identity.
Maybe tomorrow
I will be someone else –
speak another language and
claim another place as my hometown,
or maybe I won’t.

But for now, for today,
this is who I am
and what I am
for those who ask me that
(such a stupid question. I am a
person, of course!)
And here I stand
temporarily permanent.

By Bluedarkness

By CulTuremiKs, ago