Estranged Eyes

I am an adolescent
With estranged eyes
A wayward heart
And much to be expected
A will of stone

I will never let you know
What goes on in the dismembered heart of mine
But I'll never stop hoping that you know

Did I forget to inform you
Of how much that smile means to me

Did you not know
That I come in this store everyday knowing
That you will be the only person today
Who simply asks me
How I am doing
And it means to world to me

It's the glance
The smile
The kind words with all the sincerity in the world
Sitting behind those eyes
My world is small
My life is short
And it's the small things
That will make it work

Trust me
These estranged eyes are not hiding
They're begging
To be set free

Shallow

My feelings are shallow
Flying below to radar
Scraping the ground

It used to be but moments
But now there are stretches
That lengthen into time
Measured by years
Where I feel
Really feel
The life-will-never-be-the-same
Eat-sleep-breathe to the depths of human emotions
Laying on the raw humanity of all things felt within
Sort of emotions

I may be preoccupied
Too busy to feel
I may be shallow
Preferring puddles over the oceans where I once swam
... or drown
I call it how I see
Which changes
Depending on the day

Or maybe
Just maybe
This is what they talked about when they condescendingly said
"You won't feel this way forever
One day, you'll grow up"

Is this growing up?
Is everything still intact?
Just presenting differently
With the time that tends to morph all things

Will I skim by on the ice of this life...
Feeling little but the hint of cold beneath me
Is this the way things will always be...

Waiting

Sincerity is a destination
Maybe a lifetime worth of a journey
But I want to start traveling
Anyways...

I am sincerely hurting
And it's the happiest I will ever be

Honesty once set me free
And again
It will be the only key
To my freedom

So, here is honesty
I am painfully living

Existing in the knowledge
That it all happened again

And it's in all the wrong places
Faces that I don't understand
And every last bit of my safe spaces
Have been invaded by this

I don't understand

Time
Is all I have to give

And if time brings understanding
Than I will wait forever

I am done burying
Done fearing
Half way living
Scared to be honest

I will wait

I will wait for the Lord
For Honesty
For everlasting Love
To come set me free
And I am prepared
To wait up until my last breath and all the time that I am warranted
Thereafter

Life is a surprisingly short things
And I am tired of waking up wondering
Why time didn't heal my wounds
And why the man in my bed didn't make me feel any better
About all the others

I am tired of waking one day older
With half the wisdom and energy

I will be here
And I will be waiting
For freedom
For understand

Words

Words fail

I speak not with words of much value
Much meaning

The words I utter
Are loud and off kilter
Sarcastic and vulgar
Laughing and insincere

If words are my melody
Than I am singing off key

Words speak nothing of my feelings
Nothing of what is going on inside

Words are merely another mean by which I'm lying

This all seems shallow
All seems below the bar
And I'm drowning in the lack of depth

It was so long that I tried not to care
And now I can't find the words to say
That I love you

It's the irony of life

It's not just the cat that has my tongue
I'm a chronic mumbler

Chronically saying all the wrong things
Hoping that one day
I will be a little more honest about
Everything

Just a little more
A slight bit of something sincere enough
That it's worth the burst of anxiety that I get
Knowing that I am at my weakest
Where I find strength

Soul and Body

I am not quiet
I am not a mystery

You just simply
Misunderstood me...

Words would have laid me bare
Far more expose
Than my naked body

The silence
The blatant desire to keep you quiet
It was protection

Take my body
But you can't have me

An unnatural disconnect
The soul and the body

Miraculous

Beauty has risen from the ashes
And we have something to celebrate

What starts off as a tragedy
Doesn't have to end that way

The life of a phoenix
We rise from the ashes

What was once desolate
Is reborn

We take desperation and become fulfilled
The hope of salvation
Of something more precious than our own humanity
This is a life

Life
To be living
With a story of grace
Of love

We are broken
Fallen
Seemingly abandoned
In the illusion that we work for what we get
An innate sense of what should be
But isn't ... fair

In the place
Where the Lord gives and takes away

Our story
Is still our own
One of the only things that we can cling onto
And can never be taken

It doesn't have to be a tragedy
It can be
Miraculous

He Listened

In a perverse way
I felt understood

The first time that someone asked
"How was your day?"
And wanted more than one word

I breathed in his presence
And felt as if for the first time in my life
Someone just wanted to know
To be there
Caring about every word that spilled out of my mouth

It was a God thing
It had to be
After all the beating
God sent him to me
A band-aid
For a broken child
Midst a storm
Standing naked
Alone
Feeling the first signs of life
Creeping up behind me
It was a miracle
At least to me

I swore that he didn't mean to grab my hand
Was that not innocent
He didn't mean anything by it
My best friend

I promise
That's the last time that I'll turn around
After he grabbed my ass
He's still listening

He listens so sweetly
He's here for me
I know it
I know it
Let me believe

Needing to be mended

Trying to convince myself
That his wife knew about us
It was an innocent kind of thing

Like everything else in my life
Nothing comes for free
And after months of talking
He could have my body
If it meant that he would still listen to me

17 isn't that young
I'm swear that I'm old enough
Old enough to know the difference

40 isn't that old
It's not that old

Take me

Please take me

Lock me wherever you want me to be
And I won't fight anymore

Just love me
I'm begging
Can't you hear me

Do you hear me

Why aren't you listening?

Love is Deadly

I can not tell you
How long I believed that my love killed you
It's poisonous
That's what they've been telling me
And I believed

I didn't mean to love you
I just didn't know that when they spoke of poison
They meant the literally kind of death

And you breathed in my fumes
Living dangerously
Out of everything that you regret
I always prayed that at the end
You didn't regret me

Cycling

I cycle rapidly
Four years of cycling
And I'm still going

Through you
Through me

And that one
He was just disappointing
Slightly convincing
And another reason to feed my hate

They don't have faces
The same dozen faces on different bodies
And humanity is funny like that
When it was sucked from me
It was pulled from everything I see

Guilty
Or guilty by association
It's all the same to me

And if I pull your heart right out of your body
It's the same as pulling his and the same to me
A pleasure
A high
A sweet sense of controlling something

It's what we do in this life
Haven't you seen it?
Over and over again
A melody in my ears
Abuse me just before I abuse another and we can keep this going
I told you
I'm cycling
I'm cycling
It's a cycle
And it's never ending

My dad told me I was insane
Doing the same thing over and over
Expecting a different result
But I'm still playing
Still chin deep in the game
And I'm starting to see the irony

Take back that ring because you're not good enough for me
And my arrogance keeps breeding
Because I can't see
I can't see
I've been blind for years
And I walk around like a tornado destroying everything

I don't care who hurt me
I will burn every last one of you until I feel better
About... something
And then wish for more
I'm always wishing

A dreamer with no direction

I told you that I would come back around
And around

Everyone falls into the same category
"They're all the same"
Catchphrase
I play the same game
Because I know the rules better than my name
And it's easy
Just like me

I told you
Shut your mouth
I'm not interested in talking to you
I'm interested in using you
And your hair matches my shoes so walk with me tonight

I'm Sleeping

In some ways
We all choose the life we want

I just want to know that He is near me
Called a crime
Or an uncertain reality
Faith if what I preach
But not always what I'm practicing

Deemed right the eyes of whomever
And the person who said that
Right after them

See, it's confusing
Slightly convoluted

And they said that we'd see him again in heaven
In heaven
Would you like to point out the direction.
Or are you better at drawing
Maps

See, I don't blame you
Any of you
Because I'd say it too

Right now I'm sleeping fine at night
So it must be working
It's working, right?

Was that not the point...
To make me feel a little better about this life
A little better about what I do
It's what I'm doing tonight

This is a slight collision
Your car and my bus are going different directions
On a way street
And I'm tipping... tipping...
Slightly

Call my bluff right before my rambling
But I'm sleeping
Soundly

So tell me again
That our God is forgiving
Right before you tell me that few will enter
Heaven...
Wherever that is
Eternity is just a few houses down
And one street over

And I knew a God
I knew Him
And He was merciful to me
I just want to know that He is near me

Near to me
Because I can't always sleep
As well as these half truths sedate me

Quietly

The quiet moments called
Out of the chaos of my life
Coffee to stay awake
And wine to sleep
Day to day blending perfectly
Into a mass confusion

The quiet was calling
Quiet was the distance and destination

Quiet is an unpredictable demon
And staying too busy has a predictable
Sort of unpredictability...
A lack of thinking
Instantaneous instincts.. and I'll decide if that was a good decision
Later

Later never comes
They told me once
And I'm still not listening
I walk through life with my hands over my ears
Screaming "Just point to the right direction"
Can you hear me?
Because I can't hear you...

They tell me to do more
More and more
Be better and better
And no one is telling me when more becomes enough
And better becomes the best
And how do I stay there?

I'm talking too fast again
But I don't have time to speak slowly
Don't have time to beat around the bush
To tell you the point that I'm trying to make

QUIET

... my stillness
My solitude
Seeing clearly
Only serving to confuse me
More

I know my demons are still lurking in the shadows
And it's the quiet that lets me see
How frequently I dance with them in the madness
That they are at the bottom of shot glasses
They are in between the sheets in my bed room
Around me

Quiet

It's where I want to be
If I were more brave
Had a little more feeling in my hands

Quiet

Remind me...

... that He loves me
And I burn deeply
As if someone has been watching me this whole time

And He wants me

He wants me
And I want to burn
Burn with the joy of feeling
The ground beneath me
Standing still
Quietly

Chances

It was a desperate place

Mostly consisting of open legs
And shut mouths
Just the way you like us
Perfectly content to fit into your own definition
Of women


I wondered if things would be different
Growing up
If getting older would make things better
And suddenly someone would want to take me out to dinner
Without laying down his back seat for the ride home

I wondered

I think
You know I think

Things will be the same

I know
Maybe I know

That this is the way that life will be

I could change
Oh yes, I could change
Just give me a few moments
A pair of scissors
And some tape
I'll be different before you know it
I promise

It's true what they said
More maybe it's just that no matter what I try
The truth won't replace these lies
Sitting in my head with a cocktail and a cigarette
Planning to stay, at least for the night

You ruined me
And I ruined myself
A couple of times and over again
Just to make sure that I didn't leave any work unfinished
I hate half way done... jobs

I swear that this wasn't supposed to be my life
I swear and I beg
And nothing will change
My story is the same as it was yesterday
And equally painful to remember
Thinking of all the things
That I no longer get and no longer deserve
I didn't mean too
I was young
I was too young, you know
Have you been there before?
You must have
Because you're old as dirt
And I really don't think you were born that way


.... breathe
Once for me
And twice for the memories


I know that I will never be whole. Not on this earth, not in this lifetime. I know that I can never erase the past or my memories. I know that he will stay with me. I know that he is with me. His ring clad finger still sits on my hips while I'm walking. This is where I found God. Have I never told you? As selfish as the day I was born. I found God hoping that I could believe. That even if my story never changes. The only thing I really own. Maybe I could be whole after death. Maybe there is such a thing as ... second chances.

Children

My solitude stood still

In the incandescent lighting of a child's face

Brilliantly placed in the middle of my world

Where I stopped... running

They stood looking at me

Through me

And straight into my saint and unworthy

Seeing only

Me

Laid barren my guilty conscience

And ask with all the courage of those

Too young to know how to be afraid

"Why do you fear?"

Life always was

And always will be beautiful

Through tile floors and skid free socks

From holes in our chests

And wheezing from our lungs

Punctured veins

From used up vessels

We are blessed

Life is short

And life is long

We are everything and nothing

Just soon enough to figure out

Than we want something that we don't have

Just breathe

It will be alright

In the face of a child

Who knows not of short lives

Because everyday is one more lifetime

And every laugh feels like the first time

And from those faces

I found meaning in my life

Stop thinking and start living

This is life

And we are blessed to be at each other's sides

Holding children

And the hands crippled with arthritis

Begging us to try and not think about

Getting old

And dying

Death is a new journey

And these children

Dared me to live unafraid

Dancing on the edge of eternity

Easy to Let Go

I thought you were there
Long after you stopped loving me
And I was always forgettable
Easy to grab onto and easy to let go

I was young
And I thought you would love me
Through everything

Maybe it was just me
The youth took hold of my common sense
Or some desire to be loved for a lifetime took hold of me
And blinded me from how unworthy you were of me

It's what everyone said
Everyone said I could do better
But I never wanted to do better
Or worse
I just wanted you

It was the way you looked at me when I was lonely
The way I thought that you believed in me

The feeling that I got when I stood by your side

The way that I dreamed about a lifetime
With you
And a lifetime had never seemed that interesting to me

My Dreams

I liked it

Here it is
As black and white as it will ever get
And I'm confessing

I loved being that girl
Your girl
And when you said that I was the only one
You ever wanted to come home too
I melted into the carpet and became your puddle too
Hoping that you wouldn't step on me on your way in the door

Step on me
And step through me

I was the face on your mind
And I was supposed to be the woman in your sheets
The one who raised our children
Who burnt chicken
While you swore that you wanted pizza anyway

I would have ask you to speak
When the world didn't want to listen
I would have stayed by your side

For awhile I was your everything
And no matter what I said
That was my smile
My song
My dreams

Your Legacy

He rose and conquered the grave

Through these streets of bloody messes
Smashed faces
And gasping lungs
Through the thoughts of our past
And our graffiti stained hearts
These are the things we hold onto

Through the battle that we fought to get here
And the fight to leave
We live on the streets




You're so still, and so alive. You are so present and so far away. A presence, a soul that senses how close we are to each other transcending our hands that lay laced as you squeeze with your last breath.

I went back to the house. I went back to the house that I've known for 21 years, and you were always there. Your face marks the picture frames hanging on the wall and all those reminders to take your pills in the morning aren't going to do you much good anymore. Your life floods that house with your old records and pictures that may or may not be the first ever taken. I want to find your soul in the captured smiles and finger prints. I want to find you again, like it was the first time. I'm your legacy.

Leaving

I knew that you were leaving
But I never thought it would come so soon

And in the midst of your struggle
I find myself still
So selfish
So absorbed in my own thought
My endless journey to run from death
And the thought of leaving
So soon

They said that death was coming for us all
I just didn't believe them
Until these small moments
When my breath has been taking away
And death stands in front of me

Taking people from me
Everyone leaves
In the end

Weakness to Breed

I feel you so near to me
So incredibly near
Indescribably close
Magnificently present

I feel you
The same way that I always knew what you were thinking
And somehow we were connected
On a level so much more intense
That the lack of movement
That radiated through every half-hearted
Action

Don't tell me you love you
And please don't forget
We were much more than what we speak
And much less that what fills me now
Begging me to go back to that place

And with it the weakness that you breed in me
The loneliness that you planted in my uterus
Until it could kill me 9 months later
Just like you
Just like me
Truly a product of it's poorly planning parents
A product of our design

Your favorite song
Slowly creeping up on the bridge
With a meaningful melody
And a chorus that cut me to the bone

Your poorly tuned voice cut me to the bone
Every regret and everything that said
I couldn't do better
Never to love better
... and never to be seen
The way that your lazy eye saw me
So... lazily

An after thought
And meaningless period of our lives
That dragged on long enough to tell me

That I'm not sure if I believe in love
If I believe that I have anything
Left to give
Worth the taking

The Doing and Undoing

Is there hope
In building a life
From scraps
And broken dreams

It is possible
To keep playing the same scene
Over and over
While everyone else moves
Farther and farther
Away

Are there possibilities?

In a life of questioning
You're my other half
But you can't fix anything
In being together in this thing
But having our own journeys
So different
So distinct

In all the puddles
And all the oceans
A oneness
And loneliness

In hoping that a few bad decisions
Didn't destroy everything
Undoing the course of my own life
And painting it will lonely nights
Wondering if he's really staying late for a meeting

In all the fear and confusion
The "I'll be damned if I ever let it happen again"
Only to jade myself out of another happy ending

I don't fear doing
I fear not being able to undo

It's not the wedding
It's the part when I regret ever getting married
And even worse
When you feel the same way about me

Presence

I was looking for inspiration
Somewhere between classes
Between awake and sleep
Maybe before or after work
Dancing
Or day dreaming

I have been looking

Looking to forget
And looking to remember
Something that will bring creativity
Out of the mundane lull of my life

Turning my lack of thought
Into brilliant poetry
Lying somewhere in the back of my mind
When I remember to remember
...forgetfully

I have been searching for a passion
A life lesson
A kick start
A shock
To bring me back to life
Put a little kick in my step
A smile on my face
Or a fire in my heart

I've lived a life
Looking to be a hero
Something of meaning or worth

Always being active in fixing
When all along
I've just needed to be present
To be still
And here
In this moment

Sometimes our souls say more than our mouths
And the very act of being so near
Is healing

Nastalgia

It was the spark
Of what seemed to be incandescent lighting

It was the beginning of what seemed to be
A new beginning to my forever
And forever after

He was my confusion
My clarity

He would live on
More so in a fantasy
Than the touch of his wondering hands

His memory is unshakable
Unattainable
Stored in my heart
Locked up by stained glass walls
And bared windows
Trampled by never-going-to-happen
And breathing with I-want-you-more-than-anything

His wink was my world
His walk my after thought

Possibly the last person
I've ever had these thoughts about
Coincidence?
I think not

He sucked me in
With the fumes of wordiness
That I may have been warned about
But didn't care to mention
It was a daydream
In black and white
More vibrant than any colors
I had ever seen

My little piece of everything
Holding out for nothing
And I became perfectly content
To let him live vicariously through me
As long as I got his everything
In exchange

My perversion
My preservation

Our Guilt

We buried our faces
Under masses of concrete
And the names that we gave our sins

Put our fists through walls
The depth of our dreams
And then claimed
That this is the life we always wanted

We sexed away our guilt
And smoked away our pain
Fell through never ending
Feeling
Nothing
With faint memories of what we once wanted
Before we ruined
Everything

Cigarette Stains

There were small holes all over my dress
Marking the places where my burning ash landed
Flying off of my lit cigarette
To the same beat as the wind coming through the window

There was a bit of mellow-drama
Leading up to that car
I over acted the entire night
It seemed better than the truth

No one wanted to know
That I had an hour long conversation with myself that morning
Trying to convince myself to get out of bed
Telling myself that life would go on

The goal is not to fall below 50
Not sure that anyone would find me
In a state like that

The goal is to keep getting out of bed
No matter how little sleep
How much sleep
Or how often it seems that life has stopped
And only the bed
Being honest
Acting out the solitude in my own head
Will bring justice to the time
And the truth

The car ride was shorter than it should have been
And I haven't worn that dress since

My Poetry

I go back to the beginning
When my art was born
And everything was so new
So raw
So...
Alive

I go back to the beginning
Born out of sorrow and heartache
Stretched in a million directions
And no one could make sense of my life
Most of all
Me

I go back to the beginning
And today I realized
That this became a haven
A safe place
Away from my fear
Of
Wearing an emotion on my sleeve
Emotions are for private
Tears of for solo car rides
And thoughts
Are for poetry

I think that I made it all up
There is no place in the world
For these thoughts of mine
I just hide them under blank stares
And notforlong empty sheets

This is my crazy
This is my sanity
My poetry

Apologizing

I am apologetic

I have apologized to you
For being too young
Being too old
Being the baby
And being an adult
For being bad
For being good
For never being enough

I have been apologizing
When we both know the truth
I did nothing to you

I have been running towards perfection
My entire life
And yet, I still apologize

I will never be enough
But neither will you

What a waste
Spending my entire life
Apologizing for being me

Your Eyes

I have been looking for you
For years I have looked

Accepted that it won't be... you

But please
Something that looks
At least a little like
The devil in you
That found the desperation in me

Take all of your perfects
And leave your flaws

Keeping always that perfect spark in your eyes
Right before your face would light up my world
With a smile
Perfectly pointed in my direction

I find that spark flying by me
Tempting me
Letting me know
That there is always a possibility
That something
Someday

May look like you

My secret deception
All of the hidden things
Wrapped up in one sly
Charming man

That still looks like my
Everything

Comfortable

Treat me like an object
A material
Or a fine wine

Treat me like your favorite pet
Or a car that you will soon trade in

Treat me like anything...

But if you treat me like a human being
You will suddenly become foreign to me
The pain is like being awakened after a long sleep
Too much for me

Keep your distance
I have no time for uncomfortable feelings

Treat me like you half hearted-ly love me
Or get like me
And just come out and say that this is a weekend
Kind of thing

Feelings have no place on these sheets
Between you and me
And we have no place out in the world
Out of this bed
In public places
Like we care to hold hands
Or exchange adoring glances

That car was made for the road
And I was made for the bed

I'll be an object to you
Because it's everything I'm used too

Comfortable
Stay in my comfort zone

A Little Cliche

A master of disguise
An apparently contradiction
Well hidden

Everything that is different
And exactly the stereotype
Expected

Everything you weren't supposed to be
A little too much of everything
I've already seen

A New Beginning and Old Ending

It was beautiful
And painful

Everything that it should have been

I couldn't make the thoughts stop
Along with the tears

I remember everything

The past 9 years of being there
Always there for each other

Best friends

That white dress fit you perfectly
And lacing up your corset
One impossibly string at a time
Was the only place I wanted to be

It's the way God intended it to be
The joining in holy matrimony

And me
I'll go on
Visit on my holidays
Look at pictures of cook outs
In your new back yard
Wishing I was just as much a part of your life
As I was when we were 13

Knowing that we will always love
With the new beginnings and old endings

Playing

I may have always been too fragile
A stone wall crumbling from the inside out

Most of my life
It served me well
As a good game to play
A nice grown up substitute
For boardgames

I made my own rules to the game...
I know when to play
To fold
To get up and run like hell
When to smile because it was
Oh
Too
Simple
Begging like a child

Maybe the years stole my intuition
Or my looks
The way that I walked away
So seemingly unaffected

Age gave me a desire for more
But everyone's still playing

And it was all fun and games until I found someone
Who was just a little better than me

He should have met me 3 years ago
And things would have been different
I swear
This isn't just about my pride
This time it's about my life

I'm tired of playing
But everyone around me is knee deep in the game

Even from a thousand miles away
He found a way to hurt me

Should have kept my arms up
And my face down

Lifetime

They were right
It's a journey
And no one knows when or if it ends

Sometimes it's just the ride
The ride that keeps me going
Keeps me living
With my head out of window
And the music high

It's the thoughts that I don't think about
The ones that throw me out of the car
And taunt me to get back up

That's where the joy ride ends
And I begin
Where my sanity is questioned
My insecurities are wrapped up in pretty boxes
And left on my doorstep

I guess this is a lifetime worth of troubles
Worth of guessing
Praying
Hoping
Learning to love

Learning to live
Before we die

This is a lifetime

Desperate

I long for the joy of the Lord

Today it is far from me
Joy is in the distance
And I
But a human longing

I have prayed with all the tears that I can find
Cried with desperation
As if it were the last time in my life
I am thirsty in the desert
Hungry in a famine


I am so low that the ground is trying to comfort
So deep that the ocean water has filled my lungs
I am gasping
Deeply
With all the sincerity that I possess

The Word
Sits no where with me

I am questioning and left
With no answers
No peace

I am alone
And no one can find me
I am longing
Searching for purpose
Meaning
Something that once filled my life
Kept me alive
The only way I have ever been able to survive

And now I am a shell
A child who can not be consoled

I am choosing again
The difficulty lies in the day
The hour
The week
The months

Where God seems to be no where
And I've never searched so much in my life
I've never longed so much
Never been so sure of Who I need
And unable to find Him

I am weak
Where the joy of the Lord was once my strength

I am holding on
Dangling over a cliff
Saying over and over
"I believe"

This is where faith runs into a reality
That has fallen on me like ton of bricks
And every bone in my body is broken

Now I have to believe
With but memories
Of what it was to feel God near me

I have to believe that I am not forsaken in this desert
I was not left to die here

God has given promises to me
And I am holding on

Holding so tightly
Asking humbly
"Will I know peace, again?"

Possible

It's quite possible
That I just went crazy to the sound of this room
The lack of movement in the walls
And the slightly monotone voice inside my head
Constantly telling me what I'm doing wrong

A Little Bit of a Good Thing

You were the good thing I was waiting for
The light at the end of my tunnel clouded by smoke and no names

The one I was waiting for
The wild card
Changing the game
One unexpected turn at a time

You lit me up
Bouncing from side to side in my brain
Telling me that things were not the way
I had come to expect them to be

Good things

That's what you were to me

Twist number 10000000

Three years later and you're no where to be found

But I still believe
In good things
Maybe that's all that you were meant to be

Learning experience number 1000000

A little bit of a good thing

Art

Art is the way we speak
The way we dress
The way we move

As if mountains crumble beneath us
And we awake fearless

As if all emotions are equally valid
And we tell our story
Beyond hushed screams
And soft tragedies

Where we can be contradictions
In gentle hands from the street
And raging shots from what should have been
A happy home

Where we find joy rising from our sadness
And depression among everything going
Too right

Where we are the same and so different
Finger prints from hands that seemingly
Look just alike

We are art
In our breath
In our voice
A creation

I Mourn

The foam falling from your mouth
Like your own self destruction took human form
And fell on a bed with one sheet
Shaking under your convulsing body

You may have been a friend to me
To many
If you were not so desperate to leave

So desperate to starve away your demons
To drown out that ex-boyfriend
With a bottle of vodka on the rocks of an empty pill bottle

Your shaking body under my hand
Made me wonder what earth has done to us
When did life suck you dry
And leave you trembling under my right hand
While my left frantically dialed 911

I mourn for your soul
I weep for the part of you
That will do it again

The part of you that is already dead

Closet

The closest tie I have to the past
Is my closet

Silly it may be
But that's how I remember all the years of me

I kept them because I still smell my home church
Sitting on the sleeves of my favorite dress

I smell the cigarette smoke on my mini skirts
...17

I can smell the weed on my hoodies
And the sex on my jeans

My grandpa's cologne is still on the only half cashmere sweater I own

The tiny shirts
That I remember fitting me
Once upon a time

The shoes that I tripped up the stairs in
Right onto the feet of my first crush

The scarf that covered up my hickeys

The things I want to remember
And everything I wish I could forget
Sitting in the closet
Asking me when I'm going to walk away

When the cologne fades
Will I forget what it felt like
When my grandpa would hug me?

I fear forgetting
Like I fear losing myself in the arms of a lover
Or getting caught by death before my time

I never want to forget where I am from
All of the shoes, shirts, skirts, and sweaters
Telling a story
Only to me

Only to my memory

To all the things I used to be
All the places I have seen
The love given and lost

Maybe, it's time
To face an empty closet

Time to walk in a new pair of shoes

To put away the memories

A Second Chance

I walked away
With a slight bit of regret in my footsteps
Smashing the nevergoingtohappen do-overs
Between the souls of my shoes and the worn down cement

I took the pages written
Turned them into flames from my back window
And watched it burn
Took the evidence of life
And let it go

Told you to keep walking the other way
With my hand held out
Pushing against your chest
A friendly reminder
Of the distance between us
Keep walking

These streets claimed me when I wasn't looking
Took the best of me and blended it with the street signs
And subway stations
The graffiti
And the people dancing on the streets
Seemingly unaware they only they hear
The beats blairing for their headsets

Sometimes the memories flake away
Like mascara from my eyelashes
And polish from my toes
As my always exposed feet
Hit the sidewalk over
And over
Music to my ear

This smog is my friend
Speeding up my mortality
The way that cigarettes once did
But without that comforting feeling

Oh the buildings
I breathe them in
Each one a second chance
Half of which I took

Dispite the unwelcome words that were given
This list is perfect
Nothing that I can't reach
With a little ambition

In love

They say that if it doesn't break your heart... it isn't love.

They're right

Broken hearts are not always losses, not always sudden or fast. Sometimes it's the side effect of loving a human being. A person in all of their imperfection. In all of the getting let down.

It's sticking around

Knowing

That one day

Eventually

We all lose

We all die

In love

There is always the knowledge

That one day the heart that has been breaking all along

Will be broken

In life and love

We are all together

We all know

The moment when it's unclear

Whether we can't breathe

Or we just don't want too

Grey

We held hands at inconvenient times

I believe that we may have been slightly
Inconvenient

There were several moments
In between the sweat that are hands were exchanging
Where I found myself wondering

Who I am replacing?
You held my hand more tightly than how you knew me
I wasn't born yesterday
Who am I playing today?
Who am I pretending to be?

Used...
But I guess it's alright
Because I was using you too
I wasn't ever planning on going anywhere

With you

But your hand was nice to hold for a minute
Just to remember what it felt like
And how little I enjoy it

They always try to tell me
Tell me
Telling me
Always

Because being highly uninformed bystanders
Makes them the appropriate people
To...
Tell me

Apparently I will feel different
When I find the one..
When the time is right...
I will feel differently

They say I will love that way
One day

But I'm not sure that I want to
I've never loved that way
And the whole...

I love your guts can't live without and don't want to live without you eat sleep drink and breathe you in... kind of love.

Doesn't strike a bell
I just have a creative sort of imagination

I can love a friend
Even a stranger

But soul mates?
I don't want you to know me

I guess I will just believe
That maybe they know best

Or maybe God isn't so black and white
Wrong or right

Mother but not a wife... ?

Grey is all too familiar

Paper Cuts

I found this poem among my non-posted items from back in the day. So, I wrote this several years ago. Because of the overflow of memories that came back to me when I read it, I decided to post it in all of it's glorious vulgarity.
I'm slightly amazed at how different life is now.



Those words came out of my mouth a thousand times
A thousand fucking times
And you still can’t hear me

Get the hell
Away
From
Me

There it is
Spelled out

Not that it matters much to me…
Anymore…

You heard me
Oh you heard me
10 minutes before you said
“It’s alright baby, I love you”

Loved me?
You covet the virgin you took from me

You ripped my favorite pair of panties…
Ass hole

It’s possible that I don’t hate men
I hate you
And the voices of women abused
Cry out in my head
Begging for justice

They follow me on the streets
Tape on their mouths
Begging me to use my voice

Maybe the next voice will cry out
Cry for them
Cry for me

My only regret in life is my… silence

I should have stolen the breath right out of your lungs
The skin should have disappeared from my fucking knuckles after you checked my wrist

Slit my wrist for you?

You’re not worth a fucking paper cut

Drown in your unworthiness
And let you’re conscious suck the life right out of you
I hope to never see you...

Never again

But if I do
Lift your wrists
I want to see the damage
That life has done to you

Slipping Away

Can I pull you from that mind
The mind that holds you so tightly
Locked up in it's prison
Staring blindly from behind cages

I may be selfish
Or I may be a hero
Depending on how we paint it today

I wish to take you
And shove you into your potential
The potential that I predestined for you
The second we met

Slightly pushy
Like a dreamy mother
Or the controlling fist of a husband
Painted like a friend
I am a friend

It's best
Don't you know
That I always know what's best

It is best that I keep projecting
My fear onto you

I fear your mind
Taking you from me day by day
You're slipping through my finger

You're the best friend I ever had

Don't you see
That I want to keep you away from your thoughts
Keep you here with me

Stranger's Bed part 3

It runs deep
The feeling of having been here before
And I have
My memory serves me well
Imprinted permanently
When I fell to my knees
And swore that if God would save me
I never be here again
Again
I am here again

For the first time
Regret runs so deeply
That I can not see life outside of me
Not for this moment

Sex for less

She thought of the situation
As little consequence
She had sex for less
For love

Where was the point?
Hidden under stained sheets
And futures that traded themselves in
Daily

She fears falling in love
The same way that she fears death
A trapped
Uncontrolled feeling
A good 200 miles per hour
Right down a mountain side
And no rails would save this time
It's a hopeless abandon

A life gone wrong too soon
Too late
Too much of everything
Except what she needed

Take a Chance on Me

I remember an affection
That I often threw in your general direction
And then

I remember a liking
When you weren't talking

Because I already endured two years of you chatting away
While I sat there wishing that I could hear something
And wondering why my time is an easy target
To be wasted

I wouldn't say that you disgust me
But my pity for you ran out
Four hand fulls of nothing ago

I am trying to put my finger on it
But placing it is hard
Blindfolded with nothing to go on

If...
I had to say something to try and justify my current feelings

I would probably choose your selfishness
Or wait...
It could be the way that you talk yourself up
Like you're not human just like us
You always wanted to be ... different

Or maybe I am slightly shallow
And easily bored just like my mother told me
Maybe it's just the way you walk... so slowly
Or the way you sit
And everything in me wants to push you slightly
And see if your paper thin image falls apart

Then try to say that this all has nothing to do
With you calling me out
For disapproving of my own social drinking
(I never said that I don't contradict myself)

Maybe
I just woke up and realized
That I wasted my time
Just as much as you

And I need someone a little wild like me
A little fun like me
Looking at life
In all of it's short longings
And ready to take a few chances

Take a chance on me

Eternity

I never lost the drive

Everyday I want God more than life
More than anything
I beg to see Him
Beg for more

I have never forgotten

Where I came from
The places I know
The things I have seen

I remember deeply

Like sucking the breath out of me
I remember
Every face
And almost every name
As if the cry of desperation marked my life
Forever
And I would never have it any other way

I wish to move

That God would pour direction into my life
And let me overflow into the streets
Leading me
Leading me always

I have said it before
More times than I can count
I have said it
And I will say it again

Everyday waking up
To the sweet silence
Knowing that my first Love
Is so near to me
In my breath
In my dreams

The best of all feelings
Something I never knew to hope for
I never knew to feel

But now know
That I will feel it for eternity
Eternity starts today
With You
With me

To Wonder

I have wondered

The feeling after taking a breath
And never taking another

An under-reported feeling
Bring them back and ask
What it feels like to die
To take death over fighting
And loose the desire to keep breathing

I have seen the dying
I have heard what it feels like
Knowing that death is around the corner
And life is behind you
Everything you know
Forever lies in the past

Yet the feeling
The lack of feeling
Lack of breathing
The moment of exodus

I am left to wonder
Left to beg for another profession
Another road
A large dose of denial
Or a prescription for anti-depressants

Wondering
I know the feeling

My Garden

You are a flower
Planted in front of the tree
Referenced as light

Stuck in soil
Very to near to my conception
And my tomb stone
Near to me

I can never be quite sure
As to why you exist in a space
That makes up my story
But ever so often
You are slightly pretty
A painful sort of beautiful

I wonder if this was orchestrated
If the conductor of my garden
Wanted you here
Making music with your pedals
Playing softly in my ear

It is a mystery to me
As is all else

This garden was planted for more than me
Slightly more that my bent tree
Trying so desperately
To grow a little more straight
A little more tall
With a slight wind of acting
Like I know what I am doing

I still wonder
How you made it into the scene

Closer to my tomb than my conception

Maybe in everything
There is a least a little speck
Of meaning

Sorts

The way the mind goes
Back and forth
My own version of rapid cycling
A manic state of sorts

A depression faded

The need to keep going

Settling

I can not breathe

And life is uncertain
A dream that is faded

I should have written it down when I woke up
Because I'm reaching

Into the distance
And trying to go back to sleep
Trying to believe

That life is not a series of vivid dreams
Before we wake to a reality
That commands us to settle

I'm tired of settling

Supposed to Be

It was the way that he looked at her
Something about the way that I set the scene from there
Knowing that they were meant to be
In the sweet untainted thought of a four year old
It had to be
Love has to be

Things never seem to turn out the way I think they will
But can I believe that everything worked out of the best?
Not with me
Everything turned out conveniently
Maybe what is now was never a love thing
It is the product of circumstances
It could have been anyone

I wonder if they're still in love
If this will be the last time that they look at chances gone by
And say what we want to believe

"I guess that everything worked out the way it was supposed to be."

Existing

I love you like life is never ending
Like nothing will ever take you away from me

Maybe there is a part of me
That remembers you holding me
When I was a helpless baby

And all of me feels the love
That is never ending

Death can't break us
It will just be another part of existing
In love

Little Finger Tips

Paint swirls like soft finger tips
The fingers of children
Enmeshed in life
And the inability to see past a moment
Yet cherishing the moment
With all the colors of their tiny fingers

The world seems brighter

Yet I have a thing for dull colors

And the children seem foreign to me
Aliens from some other planet
That is not quite as practical as me

So impractical

Inviting me into their world
Painted with colors from their finger tips
And figments of active little imaginations
Asking me to sit down

And... sometimes I sit down

Try to find something familiar
Something that the buried child in me
Can try to understand

And then for a brief moment
It makes sense

We are to be like little children

The world is so much brighter
It doesn't have to be

Practical

Uselss

Are you wounded?

You threw your body onto the ground
You look wounded
And I'm not sure if I'm helping or hurting
But I can't lay there with you

I stayed there for so long
That the cement became a part of my face
And the only thing in my world was the feeling of being little spoon
While your over sized arm lay around my waste

It took too long for me to realize
That every time that I wanted to rise and be part of the world
Your grip grew tighter

Big spoon was only getting bigger
Engulfing me with one large ... scoop

I do not blaim you. No, I am sad for you. Sad that the cement is still so much a part of you. Knowing that the world could use what you have to offer, but you throw yourself on the ground. In fear of being claimed for your flaws in an already imperfect world.

I can lay with you no more
Helping no longer seems reasonable
It is useless to offer a hand to a willing victim of the ground

It seems useless

Wonder in Bits and Moments

I told you that things would be wonderful

A little girl
And I knew
Things would be wonderful

Those fields had to look just like the rest of the world
And I could have laid in those flowers
For hours
Never wondering who made them
Or from where they came
All I needed to know
Was that they were all around me

They could have been made just for those hours
Where they were my only dancing partners
And I didn't think that I would ever feel alone again

I knew
The world was made for wonder

It was in my eyes
In my dance
In my dress
And the wind that kept me spinning
In everything

There is wonder in everything

And I see it
I see it now

It is a blessing more so than a curse
To fall in love with everything around me
And live with with a broken heart
When I leave one field for another

It teaches me to hope
To pray
To see wonder
In everything

And fall in love again and again
An abandon to be in love with everyone
And every bit and moment of creation
To live loving
I always wondered if it would be as wonderful as I thought

Always Tomorrow

I may have run out of words today

Out of inspiration

A desire to break out of four walls

And be in the world

In the moment

I might have lost it

It may have been somewhere between the frustration

Somewhere in the middle of the fourth moment

That anger got the best of me again

Inside of the rude remarks that roll around in my brain

After something so "obviously" ridiculous is spoken

It could have been 2 hours of sleep

Or walking by my Bible this morning

Because I woke up late

"Somehow" my alarm got turned off

It could have been a number of things

Maybe I'll put my finger on it

Tomorrow

Marriage

A series of compromises
In the name of love
And in the blind faith
That being together
Might prove to be better than being alone

Looks like marriage

The Story

Your ashes fell like stars
In front of my eyes
Landing at my feet
And burning again
Until nothing was left
But me

I knew from the second that I saw you
You'd be a part of my story

It

It seems that sometimes
The hardest thing is coming out from under the cloak of denial

Stop lying to myself
And say it

It

Coming from my thoughts
And spilling onto the innocent

Does God love me all the same?
If I decide to be sad for a minute

Does He look at me with the same grace?
When I admit disappointment

Is He offended by my complaints?
Looking at all that He has given me
Just to hear me speak of feeling
Let
Down
Feeling like a child
Who loved as lost
Beyond her years
Past her maturity

I feel consumed
Breathing in the fumes of my depravity
Walking in a world
That isn't fair
And never was supposed to be

If these tears cover the page
Will my thoughts fall away?

Or when my pen stops
And my fingers stop clicking away
At each letter
Will I finally fall to my knees
And beg that Goes doesn't take another from me
Beg for this broken heart to find rest on this earth

Beg with all of the humility I can muster up
With all of the passion that hides behind
Being appropriate
With everything I have

All that can't bear the death
Can't take another goodbye
Not always finding the meaning

All in me
That finds this world to be so

Temporary

Heaven to Me

I need heaven like my soul needs to be set free
The taste of something sweet

This world tastes bitter
Lay screaming
From the salt in my wounds
Ripping away my skin
Leaving me exposed
Naked and ashamed

I desire to dwell in Your land forever
Take the world from me
Take the thoughts of people
From my brain
Set me free

Let me be free
With a mind that knows of nothing
Nothing but Your glory

Speak to me
Of life everlasting
The person you created me to be
Create me
Clean
Bring heaven to me

As if this world
Never touched me

Future Daughter

Dress up your dolls
Play house
And dream

I wish I could tell you
That life will always look the same as it does
When you're 2 or 3
There is nothing to look back on
And everything to look forward to

Play hide and seek
When it's still the only thing
To fill your day
Between milk and cookies

Dream all that you can
And hold them in your heart
For the days when you have an Egypt to look back on
And you're in the desert

I wish that I could tell you
That life will always look like forts in the back yard
And climbing trees

But, baby
There is a day when you will exist
When you will grow up
Have your first broken heart
And the only thing that I will be able to do
Is stroke your hair while you cry
Trying to convince you that you will love again
No matter how little you believe me...

There will be a day

And all I have to say is..

Enjoy your moments
Every little day
As long as they seem
When so few are behind you

Dreams of the land of promise
That is only ahead
And never fear the desert
Because the Lord holds
And I will hold you too
I will hold you too

Trip With Me

I look through my memory
The only one that I have
Biased it may be
But you swirl like a dream

You're thousands of shades of blue
And it's a brown out
So remind me

You wanted everything
And I was up for the taking
So you took
And you took
And you took
From me

You made me feel like I was somewhere else
People like you don't happen
Where I grew up

You were my favorite
My acid
Sitting in my spinal column

And sometimes
Sometimes
I turn the wrong way
And your swirling colors come back to me
With one swift crack of my back
Your acid takes me
Again

And the memories flood in
Just a little trip...

The only way you ever seemed
Sucking me into your fantasy
Dressing me up like your mistress
And putting too much makeup on me
So no one would know
That your children were older
Older
Than me

Playing dress up with me

Like it wasn't weird that you were 23 years my senior
And I was barely 17
Because it was a trip
A drug
A dream
And when you told me that I should be happy

I was
For brief moments between the frightening faces
And the walls caving in on me

You flooded me like a dream
And when I woke up months later
It was the trip that never happened
And forever changed me

The thing I don't talk about
But it finds me

When I'm walking down the street
And an older man
With all the sophistication and worldliness of his years
Stares at me
With the same sly smile that you wore
Everyday

And my stomach drops
With the strange feeling of
I must know you from somewhere

Did you ever take a trip with me?

Lyrics and Stuff

I've always had a profound respect for people who can give voices to the elephants in the room, if you will. The things we all think about, but never really talk about. When someone is bold enough to go down that road and name it, speak of it, I'm always left feelings connected to people again. We're all in it together. It's a good feeling.

I was listening to this song with my brother this weekend while on a skiing trip. I decided to share, this song speaks to me, encourages me to speak and be bold, and not feel ashamed of having... natural thoughts.

I'm gonna miss you
I'm gonna miss you
When you're gone
She says, I love you
I'm gonna miss you
And your songs

And I said, please
Don't talk about the end
Don't talk about how
Every living thing goes away
She said, friend

All along I thought
I was learning how to take
How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really
I've been learning how to die
I've been learning how to die

Hey everyone
I've got nowhere to go
The grave is lazing me
He takes our body slow

And I said, please
Don't talk about the end
Don't talk about how
Every living thing goes away
I said, friend,
All along I thought
I was learning how to take

How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really
I've been learning how to die
I've been learning how to die
Die, die
I've been learning how to die
I've been learning how to die

Learning How to Die
Jon Foreman

Dressing Differently

It was kindness with a rosy complexion
Love in a button up blue dress
With a humble sash tied gently at the hips
Passion wore red heels
And lovely decided to wear curls

It seemed appropriate

Day to Day Thing

The memories rushed in like a tidal wave

Four days ago didn't seem so different from five years

Fifteen years old and I swore that I would wear black for the rest of my life
Not in a statement
But in a declaration that in mourning
I would never find another for me

He was perfect to a 14 year old girl
And his laughed lived in my brain
Bouncing from side to side
As the days
Rolled on
Never ending and never forgiving

Grief is a burden of this world
And it never gets easier

We live with the burns
And we soothe them with love
It's a day to day thing

Life and Death

Like the back of my hand

You'll think about him
Everyday

And after time...
Much time
And many moments
When the tears settle in the back of the throat
And joke the life out of you
As if Life has not been lost enough times...

You'll forget to remember him
For one day you will forget to remember

And guilt will set in
Eating you alive
As if you just killed him all over again

And forgotten...
Forgot to remember
Forgot to love
To keep him alive in your heart and mind

And it settles in
He's dead

Like the back of my hand
I know it well

Life and death
And all the moments in between

Punch Lines

I remember
Like a burning
And a small reflection

A love
If anything
It was a love

It burned
It soothed
Moving slowly
And all around me

Your face was that of brilliant colors
And vibrant things
Laughing like everything in life were a joke
And you merely existed to catch the punch lines

Four Months

I wonder if you're in heaven
If you're full grown
If you know that for four months
You had all the love in the world

Shade of Blue

Miles away
Forever amounts of miles
And years that add up to more than a lifetime

Back so far
That it stretches the boundaries of my memory
To see your face

The moments that you collide with my brain
Seem like dreams
And I find myself sitting in a blistering silence
Wondering if you ever happened to me

Couldn't find you if I wanted to
And never would I try

But today...

Right now or either 10 (our favorite number) moments ago
I knew that we must both be outside
Looking at the same sky
Because it's your favorite shade of blue

I Need

I wish to take my life and put in a box. Wrap it up, tie a ribbon tight, and give it away. Give it to You.

There are moments becoming more frequent as if they are every moment.. that I wish to stop speaking. I wish to stop moving. I desire stillness... becoming more in tune with everything and listening. I want to hear You speak. Words that I should say, and every move that I should make. I need it. Coming from the one who "never needed anything." I need You. Your words and thoughts beckon me into a deep overwhelming sense of belonging. That is what I need.

Some days I want to remember what it felt like to be a child. What does it feel like? I can't remember... And You called me to be childlike. I wish to remember what that feels like. To be humbled in the vastness of space. Sitting in wonder of all that is before me. I desire to be the child that I see. Searching for the child in me...

Believing like miracles...

Asking like questions are all that is left...

A Burning

It was all the time
All
The
Time

The time grew longer
And it grew...
Less often

The instances so infrequent
That remembering that they happen
Became the new hardest part

But...
It happens

And when it does I feel the same way
Wondering how I forgot that I could feel the same way

Like my breath drops out of my lungs

Like my heart tears one jagged edge at a time

A memory

One word

One never

An intermittent burning

Write It Down

Is there anything left to be written?
Has it all been said?

My perspective is not that different
And my God remains the same

They always said I reached too high
Too far

But I would like to sing a new song
Write a new letter

I wish to describe my God in ways that have yet to be written
And yet to be read

To capture a moment in everything that is holy
Everything that is beautiful
To throw it all onto a page
And read it with tears
Take all the emotions that I can muster up
And throw them into a verse
About my Savior

Tell the world how good He is to me
That I have something to live for now
And there is no doubt in my mind
That I would not have survived
Without Him
That I still have no life sustaining abilities on my own

I depend on Him completely
And I need to write it perfectly
I need to see it on paper
And then say it out loud

I am desperate to let it out
Into a world everything is "take it or leave it"
And they do with it as they please
But I need to let it out of me

A way to describe the love that we feel
The love that moves through my bones and my cells
And flows into the world
Where I know that Love will save us all

Salvation is here
Just open your eyes

Love of My Life

The search was put in me
From infancy
I wondered about my origin

I have sought
Wrestled my demon
Taking swords to hearts
And left my marks as I willed

I have loved and lost
Stood over coffins and breathed in death
As it if were natural
Like it was supposed to happen

I have cried on shoulders
And been a shoulder to cry on

I have looked for meaning in everything
And I have deemed things meaningless
Feeling nothing

I have lived
Young and full of life
Love
Promise
And I have lived

I have seen people starving
Mothers holding their children so tightly
Wrapped up in blankets and tucked into their chests
Like life depended on it
And life did depend on it
Weeping
And sorrow
I know the eyes of a childless mother
I have stared into the soul
Of a beaten girl
A girl ripped from the outside in and then the inside out
Leaving a shell of a person
I know these things

Next to me

I have seen children play
They smile like the sun was placed in their eyes
Asking them to light up the world
I have seen birth
The moment when a woman becomes a mother
I know
I see

I have rejoiced with them
I have bled with them

And now...

I wish to see clearly

To see a good God in all these things

That in suffering
In life and death
In joy
There is a good gracious God behind everything
Weeping and laughing
Loving and mourning

A God who feels

And origin
Meaning
Purpose

I see them in everything
In my pain
In my gratitude

Looking at them like flowers that bloom
In my room
On the floor
Sprouting through the wood
Greeting me at the door
And whispering so softly
"Do not be afraid"

In a world with much to fear
There is a good God
My origin
My purpose
Hope of life with beginning and no ending
A future

And my prayer will remain the same
That God be with me
In me
Through me

That when I stand over my next coffin
When I see the next woman weeping
Children with no home
Strung out with no hope
There is a light
Drawing us all in
Connecting us in our love
In our sorrow
The deepest parts
That only God will ever know

We are together
Under a shield of grace
Stretching to the sky
Fear is not our master

Fear no longer takes my life

I found a love in Christ
The Love of my life

Show Me Love

I will save the love that I know
And put it in my pocket
For different days

I will put it in the ground and make it grow
Wide and spread out
Like shade for a rainy day

It covers like a blanket in the winter
Soothes like a shoulder to cry on

Love
Take me away
And make me whole
Make me see
That there's more to know
To hold
Grow

Time

You asked me if I was waiting on time

As if time were a person
Someone to arrive
Go out with me for a laugh and a few drinks

Time, I'm waiting

For what time is supposed to be
And praying that I know what time should look like

When I'm supposed to leave

Break Me

Take a pen
And cross out my thoughts

Take away all that are not
Holy

Take my voice
And make me mute
If I can not speak
Things that are lovely

Break me
But build me again
And again
And again

I'm getting used to living with this broken heart
But if I had to ask once more

I would ask for someone to love
Somewhere to rest
A solace until I am free

Me

You called me wild
Said that I could never be tamed

And I believed you

I settled down with polite jokes
And silent smiles

I put on my floral print dress
And fell plain

I was everything
Everything for something

And now
I wish to be me

I know that you didn't know me when

When I was in middle school
And I looked at myself in the mirror like an alien
Like a curse because surely God didn't love me
If He did
Then why did He give me this face and body?

You didn't know me when

Never saw how hard it was for me to grow into my skin
To realize that I could speak
And someone might listen
You don't know me

You don't know the day
That I realized people like me this way
With all my crazy
And my perfectly hidden domesticated abilities
My loud laugh
And my silent contemplation
This is the way He made me
Because He loves me

And if tame is what you called being her
Than I'd rather be me

Body of Grace

I wish for grace to become a body
Standing beside me
Disconnected from all that I am thinking

I wish to breathe grace
To speak grace

I long for the mind of Christ
That I would show grace
Even to those seemingly undeserving

To those who have wounded me

Cement

I'm pouring cement over my life

To make sure that you never leave an imprint again
That if you ever try to jump back in
You will find a rude awakening
From concrete meeting your face

And realize that this is how you wanted it to be
This is all you
None of me

Seduce Words

Sit with me
Make music like our hearts beat together
A strange sort of union
A different kind of together

I have thought it a million times
If it has ever crossed me once

And I have yet to find
Why You chose to love
A rebellious child
An unforgiving spite

If I could put the day You found me into words
It would surely burst off of a page
And find it's own way into the world
It would light up the sky with a million stars
That You know so well
A creation/creator

I have words that bust out of my mind
Of the love
The love You gave
And I can not seduce words onto a page
To describe what You gave

That I might be

Your Face

I do not see you the way I used to
I no longer see you for who you are
Or what you mean to me

I see you as the face of all the people who hurt me
The ones who told me to shove injustice under the rug
For the sake of sparing drama
The one's who told me that I was not worth pressing charges
That is how I see you

Your ignorance leaked those words
And what I used to look past

I can't anymore

Because when I see you
I see them

I see everything pressing against me doing the right thing
And isn't life hard enough?
Without your incessant understatements blocking the path

It's your face

It says those words over and over again to me
It's screams vengeance
Regret
Ignorance
It screams
Blowing out my ear drums
Bringing me to my knees
Clasping my ears
Begging it to stop
Begging you to stop telling me

That I am not worth the right thing

Devalued

Say you love me
.. and then I'll tell you my name

I won't be stepping out anymore
Not without watching you walk that plank

See, these things are important to me
I know that it's hard to see
Because they've been spread around like bouncing lies
And thrown about
As if they never came from a real human being

Inhuman?
You do not have to tell me
I've stamped that label in permanent ink on too many things

I am out today
Looking for my humanity on the streets
Searching for my love in the drains
Trying to feel my knees on the concrete and remember
What it feels like to be damaged by a fall
Instead of laughing it off
And crawling back to the same place
To try it again

Devalued...
And I'm still trying to forgive you

Realist

You just look sad to me
Sad as in slightly pathetic

I can't heal you anymore
I won't even try anymore

I am not heartless
I'm a realist
(Which is what all heartless people say)

I'm sorry
That you can't find you way

Lonely

I remembered hearing "She's so lonely that it hurts me, it won't be long."

Right then and there, I vowed that I would never be her.

To 11 years of trying to keep that promise...

Speak to Me

Requested an audience with your darkness
Asked that it come out of guilty solitude
And speak to me

Speak to me
Not through me
Or about me with your own intentions
How to disconnect your feelings

Speak to me
Tell me that you love me
Tell me that you hate me
Just be

For once
Just be

Disappointed

I fear sleep
Like I fear that you were the only one for me

I'm scared to meet anyone
Because I'm afraid to be let down

I wish that you were not such a disappointment

I'm Wrong

Tell her that she should have known
Mom, keep telling her that she's wrong

You're talking to me

Make exclamations about how far removed
This show is from reality

Like you would know anything
About that

Older men would never soil a girl
Who's only aspiration is to graduate high school

No one would ever do that in the real world

Do you want me to agree with you

Fine, she should have known
She should have fought harder
There's no way that IF this really happened
She would feel like she couldn't tell anyone

I give up
You're right mom, I was wrong

And I don't exist
In your reality

Beg Time

I beg time to stop and rewind

I wish that I had loved you more

Realized that you needed it more than I

That I was going to be alright
And you were never going to find your way back home
Back to where I sit waiting

Dreamed To Be

Things looked different somehow
And you looked like perfection in blue and gray

Eyes the fight mine for a place in a heart
All that wants to take me away
And let me rest on life not being as hard as it is today

If I gave you my hand
Would you promise to never let go?
Set dynamite to my walls
And blow them away
Leaving me as expose as I was made to be

In the garden of you and me
And life the way I always dreamed it to be

Float Away

I let you slip through my fingers
Again
And I watched you float away

Knowing that there was nothing I could say
Things would never be the same

Guilty

I pulled the strings of a guilty conscious
Making him realize
That he's not alright
With what he's doing

I found him laying
And then crossed the line
Tempting him to join me
On the other side

I'm sorry
I shouldn't have played a winning hand
On your wide-open circumstance

Love, My Love

Love was a many splendid thing

Love was all that breathed through trees
Catching the life in me
As it flew by too quickly

Hope is where I sit
When I can't remember
The feeling
Can't find the feeling
Lost in my own feelings

Punctured veins dripping life
From the tree of love
From me

Stretched out on a gurney
With my love laying next to me
Hooked up to machines
Pulling the life out of us
Sucking the soul out of a body
And leaving up sitting
Staring as if we can not remember the other's name

I don't know you anymore
Love, my love
I can not see you anymore
Love, my love

I think
As if you were a dream
Blurry
Leaving me wondering
If it ever happened
If I ever had something good
That slipped out of my fingers
Dragging me back into the street
Where I stand alone
Fighting life alone
Holding love alone

Being the one who everyone else can depend on

The lonely rock

The hollow standing place

The blood drained lifeless puppet
Begging for my strings to be pulled

Again

Pack your bags
I don't mind if you take my pride with you anymore

I suppose that we're miles away
From where we were
When you loved me

Sometimes I wish I had the courage to run again
Never look back
And never wonder how things could have been

I wish I could let you go
Or dance with you again