Changes - By Jordyn Johnson

Written By: Jordyn Johnson

Category: Poetry Collection

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

In the evocative poetry collection "Changes," Jordyn Johnson invites readers to explore the profound theme of transformation and surrender. As a participant in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, this collection stands out in the Poetry category, offering a deep reflection on the nuances of life's in-betweens. Johnson's work delves into the complexities of emotions and the art of embracing the unknown, capturing a universal experience that resonates deeply with readers.

About the Work

Jordyn Johnson's "Changes" is a heartfelt exploration of life's transformative moments. The poetry reflects a journey of acceptance and resistance, urging readers to honor the contradictions of their emotional landscape. Through vivid imagery and introspective prose, the collection unveils the beauty of letting go and trusting one's intuition. Each piece is a testament to the non-linear path of self-discovery and emotional liberation, wrapped in a graceful and contemplative literary style.

Changes

Original Submission by Jordyn Johnson

Changes

A Poetry Collection by Jordyn Johnson

How do we learn how to be in a space of in-betweens, without jumping to label it? Without rushing to make it right or wrong, good or bad, slow or fast.

We breathe. We honor the nuanced and oftentimes contradictory emotions that come up with this space. We find spaciousness to move in ways that feel comfortable to us.

This is a lifelong practice. I don’t think we ever fully “arrive” at a place of total surrender to the unknown and not ever resist the waves with it. Part of the surrender practice is the initial resistance we have to it.

We resist, we ease up to it like a wave, and, we continue.

Maybe everything has been so hard, so defeating, so delayed and blocked, over and over again, because I am knocking on the wrong doors. Maybe my angels know that these spaces are not healthy for my longevity, and are nudging me forwards, with every rejection (redirection) towards what is true and beautiful for my soul and spirit.

Maybe.

I believe.

It doesn't work out,

until it does.

You’re “crazy” and “delusional” until it happens.

You’re “floating” until you land.

It doesn’t make sense,

until it does.

Trust your unfolding. It’s not linear because it’s not meant to be. How boring and predictable that would be.

Don’t limit the ever-expansive experience of this multidimensional life by trying to have a one-dimensional, linear experience.

The road to your greatest goals and desires will likely be a mixture of both:

Easier and harder than you expect.

The things you fear the most will likely surprise you with how non threatening they truly are when you really face them.

And, there will also be stretchy areas of challenge and discomfort that push you in all the right ways, in ways that you do not expect or anticipate.

This is good and divine.

Allow it all in.

I love how it feels to let things go through my fingertips after years of holding on with a tight grasp, attaching, attaching, grasping onto what is no longer, or never was, for me or right for me.

It feels like a cosmic and emotional cleansing and release.

Catharsis, release, greater emotional space.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, life.

You can’t break free from a spell you don’t realize you’re under. Awareness unveils the falsities and allows us to step forward Clear, free, autonomous.

There is a freedom that comes with the realization of: this isn’t right anymore.

I can’t go on like this. With this person, this environment, this connection, this way of thinking, this habit.

And the more you resist it, the louder the call gets. My body begins to physically reject things if I’m not listening to my intuition.

It pushes me to a point of: this has to end, I have to step forward anew. There is no other option. Thank God for this. Expired environments cannot hold new dreams. They would simply sink. Newness always requires letting go. Take this as a sign that you’re moving forwards beautifully.

Self respect and necessary boundaries often stem from anger.

That feeling of: I can’t do this anymore.

Sometimes we have to be pushed to our limits internally to finally make a change. Be graceful with yourself in that process. Magic awaits you the more you listen to, and trust, what your heart is telling you, even when that causes disruption and uncomfort.

I am a lover and a leaver.

I love deeply, and I listen to the tugs on my heart when it’s time to leave, and expand anew.

I have tasted the pain of staying in situations and relationships for far too long for fear of the pain and change that leaving inevitably causes, and I’ve found, the pain of staying is far worse than the pain of leaving and being courageous and choosing something different and to walk away.

The people with the biggest hearts I know and the strongest intuitions know when to walk away.

Your heart knows what it’s communicating to you before your brain catches up. Trust how your body feels in relationships, in places, in experiences. She will always, always guide you.

Nothing is permanent, and that’s what is so tenderly beautiful and sacred of this whole experience.

Let yourself flow in and out of oceans as your soul guides you to do so. You are never confined to stay somewhere longer than your intuition tells you to. You are safe to trust yourself and change course at any, any time.

~ Lovers are also leavers. ~

Goodbye.

The willows beneath my feet thank you,

Though your tears and aches won’t be missed.

My heart will miss how you once felt,

Yet it also knows that that feeling does not exist in the now, for your form has

shapeshifted.

What once was is no longer.

I hold you with reverence and gratitude, and a tinge of frustration-based grief for what wasn’t. I know this experience was what it needed to divinely be for us both, however.

We were divine teachers and space holders for each other for the time our paths crossed. To that I thank you and I say…

Goodbye.

Nothing ever remains entirely as it was.

Thank God.

There is a comfort in knowing that nothing is ever stagnant.

What if…

What if that nudge leads you to the feeling you keep feeling in your chest, so big, so expansive, so inspired?

It is.

You must follow it.

Gut feelings are guardian angels speaking to us gently, yet firmly, for the feeling will always return if we ignore it.

Here we go again.

Change. Transformation. Shedding and cycling into anew.

What is next?

I don’t know.

And … I don’t actually care that I don’t.

I just know it’s going to be joyous and freedom-giving because that is the energy I’m bringing into this season.

So, here we go…

Where do I go from here?

Each road twists or ends in ways I don’t expect.

Confusion, muddiness, fogginess, lack of clarity, all coincide for a lack of clear direction.

Perhaps I am not meant to have a clear direction right now. Perhaps this lack of external clarity is forcing me to solely rely on my inward clarity and intuition rather than anything outside of me. Clinging to what’s external is a slippery slope that does not offer the long term benefits and internal strength and clarity that relying on one’s internal voice does.

Intuition before all. My heart knows even when my brain is afraid. I trust her, always, even when I'm shaky or confused. My soul knows where to go next, so I surrender to her guidance.

The artist never ceases to be an artist: for their life is their art.

Artists are just deep feelers and healers. They are the fairies of this world; finding expression forms to describe, convey, and connect to feelings and experiences of their life and of this world.

Life is the art itself, and the artists are just humans in tune with the flow; beauty and pain of life. Everyone is an artist.

From my ribs you are birthed,

These dreams, ideas, lives.

A woman’s life is an endless cycle of creation and soil from which magic sprouts. Nothing would ever circulate or experience growth and change without women, let alone exist.

Women are the earth, the earth is a woman.

Who are you?

I see you, night after night in my dreams. A familiar, yet un-identifiable presence, continually. Calming. Inspiring. Exciting.

Who are you?

Will we ever cross paths in the physical?

I don’t know.

I don’t know if I’m meant to know, truthfully.

I feel such a yearning towards some souls I have never physically met on this earth plane. In my dreams, I have met thousands of souls, and have encountered a million love stories.

Waking up from those dreams feels confusing. There is an incompleteness, a hollow feeling that arises, when I wake up from a dream of meeting a soul, falling for them, and awaking and not understanding the who, why, or what exactly that was.

Who are you?

Will I see you again, here on earth, or only in the stars?

“What are you up to today?”

I’m going to write.

And write some more.

Even when I don’t feel like I have anything to say, I am going to write.

Coming back to the blank page, and pushing myself to just: write.

Whatever comes to me, continually, over, and over, and over again, has healed me and opened me in more ways than possible to count.

I’ve yet to taste a healing medicine more freeing than writing.

The act of prioritizing time to hear what your soul wants to express and say on a consistent basis will change your life. Listen to what your soul is speaking. It will likely surprise you and open new worlds within you, over, and over again.

~ Let your soul speak. ~

There is so much to explore…

So many books to read

Movies to watch

Concerts to go to

Albums to listen to

Books to write

People to meet

Planes to catch

People to kiss

Places to see and experience

Careers that call to me.

It’s overwhelmingly exciting and terrifying. How can I experience it all? Can I? Is it presumptuous to want to experience it all?

I want to soak up the freedom and learnings of this earth so deeply.

I want to be continually cracked open and wider into my heartspace and highest expression of being and understanding of myself, others, and this world and mother earth.

Teach me, show me, guide me, life. I want all of your lessons.

Self love will save your life.

Centering your emotions, hopes, yearnings, visions for your life, will save you.

Martyrism does nothing but drain and take you down a deep hole that tries to swallow you whole, and just may, if you don’t swim out of it in time

Choosing yourself is the remedy for all women’s happiness, safety, and freedom. Choose your soul. Choose your freedom. Choose your life, not his, not hers, not theirs.

This path is yours. Live it so autonomously and freely for all the women that came before you that couldn’t.

They are thanking you from the stars above. They breathe sighs of relief and awe watching down on you living with such wide open arms and the freedom they were never granted.

Self love will save your life.

What is the truth?

The truth of this existence, the beyond, what is real and what is an illusion we’ve been fed …

There is no way to entirely know the truth about all things. My mind dislikes this. My heart understands I’m not meant too.

Part of life’s medicine is the continual unfolding and unknown waters that we must enter again, and again.

The truth unfolds as we do.

The life and death continuous, un-avoidable cycles of life

How do we hold this?

I don’t quite know or understand how to hold this without feeling great pain. And maybe that’s the point

Without pain, without grief of what we lose, and what we fear losing, we would not love as deeply and sacredly as we do

At this stage of life, everytime I feel something changing, I feel either immense excitement and relief or deep sadness and fear, oftentimes a mixture of all of the above.

The cycles of anew and death are constantly circling, there is no shielding from this, nor should there be.

Love, joy, grief, sorrow, terror, anxiety, peace, acceptance, resistance, allowing, honoring, loving, loving, loving. Please heart, stay open to it all. It always leads you back closer to love, even when oh so heartbreaking, I promise.

Stay open. Stay with it. There is always medicine on the other side.

The trees whisper to me where to go next…

The ocean helps me drop back into my heart space when I’m too in my mind and that disconnect begins to separate the two

The waves and the rain wash away what is no longer, and what my soul needs to release The grass and the dirt roots me back into my body

The stars come through my dreams, I feel deeply connected to the stars and the moon

The cosmos speak to me through the beautiful language that is astrology, that has changed, and continues to change my life over and over again

This earth holds all the medicine we could ever yearn or ask for. Mother Earth forever has us in her embrace.

We must care for the earth in the way it cares for us. The earth is owed every ounce of our respect and reverence.

Trying to shame or erase past versions of oneself is akin to trying to cut down the younger version of a tree while still allowing the present tree to exist.

You simply cannot do so.

All of our roots, and stories, and experiences, are forever interwoven within the constellation of who we are, and there is no erasing this, for why should there be?

Without any ounce of it, the tree that is you would not exist as it is.

~ Do not shame any past versions of yourself. ~

Songs that move you. People that move you. Experiences that move you.

Allow them to move you.

Do not cower or shield yourself from the intensity of your emotions, though so tempting.

Lean into the wave, let it crash upon you, expand your heartspace, expand your eyesight wider than it was previous. Art, and life, are meant to move us; allow it.

Allow yourself to be moved by art, by life, by your own true spirit and the true spirits of those who you cross paths with, in any form. Let art crack into even the hollowest, most hidden, or repressed aspects of one’s psyche and soul. Let art heal you. Let life heal and move you.

~ Allow your heart to be moved. ~

Open, open, open

May we all yearn and strive to become more and more: open

Opening where we are closed

Turning towards what our minds have closed off before our hearts had a chance to respond Listening to the gentle whispers over the loud

What is true whispers, and opens you, rather than hardens.

Lean into what opens your heart wider, rather than makes it harden. And breathe forgiveness into your hard places, for they simply have been fed fear rather than truth.

The truth will always open you.

I don’t want to be afraid

I am, however

Afraid over the potential of certain cycles repeating themselves

Afraid of my hope and optimism being wrong

Afraid of failure

However…

My soul speaks to me quietly with these thoughts, and reminds me that failure does not actually exist for a soul who brings forth wisdom, guidance, magic, and deep soul-led trust through each experience and learning of this life, for there is truly nothing to fear. With a heart open, and a surrendered spirit to what knows better than I do, there is nothing to fear or resist, rather than fear and insecurity themselves.

Keep trusting, keep hoping, keep dreaming, keep going.

Keep taking step over step over step. Do not stop, do not cease your hope or your vision.

All accumulates towards your hearts’ yearnings, even when unseen. And magic works in divine and mysterious ways that you are not supposed to figure out before they happen, for that would ruin the magic.

It is in the unknown that your intuition and faith in the unseen is strengthened like never before. And what a gift that is, even when shaky and oh so uncomfortable.

Thank you, unseen. I believe in you and I have enough trust in you to continue to hope, even when the 3D may not match that quite yet. I still hope and I still trust in you.

~ Trust in the unseen grants us gifts. ~

There is nothing to prove and no one to prove it too.

When the urge to perform for another arises and you feel yourself inching away from yourself, return back to your center,

Allow yourself the gift of performing for yourself, your own gaze, your own inner child version of yourself. Allow yourself the gift of seeing yourself through the lens of admiration and softness rather than through the lens of others.

Continually seek to see yourself in the clearest, highest light. This is resistance to patriarchy and self-hating programming that wants you small. Don’t succumb.

Be big.

You have nothing to prove to anyone but your own inner child.

There is a beauty and flow that emerges from your eyes, your heart, your soul When you allow yourself to be.

Be free

Be soulful

Be big

Be “too much” from the eyes of fear, which is really just another way of saying “perfect” from the eyes of truth and love

Be

Be in your soul, be in your heart, and be in your body. Allow in the beautiful magic of being the magical being that is you, right here, right now, on this earth.

~Be.~

You deserve peace

After all that you’ve endured, you deserve to feel peace, and relief from the chains that once held you from your joy and exhales

You deserve deep peace. The peace that fills your lungs with relief and release, and sweeps through your spirit with a newfound lightness and feeling of joy that re-enters your bones, you deserve this.

Let it in.

Let peace wash over you now.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, organized by Hashtag Kalakar, is a prestigious platform celebrating the creativity and expression of writers worldwide. It provides an opportunity for poets and authors to share their unique voices and stories with a global audience. This competition is a testament to the power of words and the diverse narratives that shape our world.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Jordyn Johnson for her inspiring contribution, "Changes," to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her poetic exploration of transformation and surrender offers readers a profound glimpse into the human experience. We look forward to seeing more of her work and wish her continued success in her creative journey.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.