It’s not that I don’t experience the dark side of things or I don’t have sadness in my life or any other form of fear…it’s that I have reached a point in my life, for me, that I have chosen not to live there long.  Positive-negative, dark-light, sadness-joy, fear-love are the same stick, just different ends.  There is not one without the other but we do have the choice of which end of the stick we will stand on.  At this point my choice is to stand in the middle, closer to the positive, Love, joy, light end of the stick…that’s where my reactions come from.  
I was told once, “no matter how dark things get, there is always light because you are there.” I also realize that; “no matter how light it gets, there is dark also, because I am there.” All of it is me, but I have lived in the negative, dark, sadness and fear and it wasn’t good for me, it just wasn’t working, no matter how I tried to make it work. Soooo, I moved to the middle  and things got better, than a little pass the middle  to the light, joy, Love, positive side and thing got to feel a lot better…within me where it truly counts.  I found a balance for me!  Days became better focusing on the ups, hanging with the good experiences of the moments, standing in some light.  There are still those moments when I think…”I want to slap the taste out of their mouth.” But in the next moment I think; “will it move things forward? How good would I really feel and for how long? You will be right where they want you to be and not where you want to be.”
I do see, feel, taste, hear and experience it all, but as I experience all, I choose to let go and move on from there. Now, some I do hang with a little longer but in the end, all of it, every experience positive or negative is put back into the flow, to be returned bigger and better.  I choose to stand on the love, light, joy end of the stick…standing in Gratitude for it all, every experience.  So I continue on my journey, one step at a time, with all its ups and downs, working hard to choose wisely…well, that’s “My” perspective.

HAVE A GREAT DAY..EVERYDAY!
LOVE Y'ALL!!!!!!! BIG SMILES!
(Written 2014 - still stands today)

There are two types of the word "crush-able". The first is the type that people would easily have a crush on. They got it all: the looks, intelligence, talent, humor, everything. It's hard to not fall for them the minute you lay eyes on them. You're attracted to them like a magnet. The second is the type that's easily crushed. Constantly getting hurt by the people around them, especially the ones they like or admire. They've gone through it all: getting rejected, ignored, pushed aside, not even second best, just..not a choice. Again and again and again. No surprise, I'm the latter.

I'm not the type of girl that people would crush on. I'm always the good friend. That's okay. I'll accept that. But it's always until there. That's the farthest I'll ever go with anyone. No matter how close we are, no matter how much we click; I've never been the special kind of person that they want to take to the next level. Maybe just foolishly flirting here and there, but they never take me seriously. No, I'm just their best friend.

The one who picks up the pieces when no one does, the one who sits quietly by your side when you're crying, the one who listens when you go on and on about this fantastic person you're drooling over, the one who eats with you when you don't feel like being in a large crowd cause you don't think you look your best but being with me is okay cause "Hey, you're my buddy. It's alright." Yeah I'm that girl. Always there for you, covering up your lies, tell you what's the homework you missed when you skipped class, getting text after text of "Can you do me a favor?.. Great, I owe you one. You're the best!"

It seems like I'm cursed to be everyone's friend. Again, it's not a bad thing. I just wish, for once, I'm the first type of crush-able. I wish someone would look at me like I put the stars in the sky and I make the waves crash on the sand. That I invented beauty with brains. I just wish someone would think highly of me the way I keep thinking of the people in my life. Of loving me the way I've loved my crushes before. And doing so sincerely. Not because I keep complaining, but because they genuinely love me for me.

-m.b

How perfect I was to be the stars in your night sky.

You were my favourite midnight blue and I was the light to see you through.

But you never saw me did you?
Not once did you tilt your head high enough to see me shoot slowly over you.
You wanted to see that brightness but we both know I blinded you.

Just in case you wondered.. those stars don't shine anymore.

Light does travel faster than sound. Maybe my screams will haunt you years from now.

There's no sparkle in these eyes..
Have you heard yet? That you lost your greatest prize?

It was creepy, eerie, so tangible.

You knocked on my bedroom door.
You walked in so slowly.

As you approached me, my heartbeat hastened.
You sat down right in front of me and our eyes met.

Your hand reached out to me and we hugged.
I held you so close.

I dreamt of you last night.
I remember reassuring myself it was real.

When people read my poetry
they all have the same question
"Why does your poetry have to be so sad?"
The question used to offend me
I used to think that question deserved an answer
I even started changing the kind of poems I wrote to please the people who read them
I was satisfied with my work
but it wasn't really me
I began to feel guilty
I began to feel like a fraud
Charles Bukowski once wrote
"a good writer must simply let it all go, regardless"
I'm sure he meant for those words to mean something else but for me
it was as if I was being reminded to stop allowing other people to have control over my writing
It's not every day I gain advice from someone who has passed on years before I was ever born
I no longer feel the need to answer everybody's question
Hell I even ask myself from time to time
"Mandie, why must your poetry be so sad?"
Depression is another language to me
I speak it well
I write it well
I know it well
Bottom line
if my poetry is too sad for you
then don't read it

I always make people happy

I make laughs
And smiles

No one makes me happy
Or laugh , smile

I've lived in so
Many houses
I've never had a home

I swam in a swimming pool
So much water in my head
I drowned

I was deep down
I can't breathe air anymore


All i see from underwater is
Smiles
And the laughs

The blue waves
On the surface

learn new ways
of taking fire and turning it into art.
take off finding old ways and methods that
are just as good as she remembered kissing the sky with
pure heat.

i don’t quite remember
was it patriotism or fear?

i don’t quite remember
was it a gunshot or a celebration?

can we eat today without guilt?

it goes up in smoke
she looks on // he looks weakly
all things are half broken in this lifeless stupor.
understand,
a firework is just a reminder of what we are
burning, tired, exploding.

If you have something to say,
say it with conviction
believe in the words coming
from your mouth
because once they're out
they don't go back in
and no mouth to mouth
will resuscitate
a bridge that's in flames
and as long as you
meant every last word
every last volley
shot over the walls
built from years of
friendship
then no blame can be sent
your way
but do not be alarmed
when they come back around,
a little crispy around the edges
all shrieking like demons
faces black and sooty
and eyes red from the smoke
that rose from the fires
that only tears could put out
and they've got a hot coal
in their hand that they
don't feel and they
want to see you burn.

All that makes our demons
scary is who they're
throwing fire at.

What was the last thing you forgot?
I thought I’d forgotten about Chumbawamba
Their song about not remembering whether they had amnesia
And discovered the reasons we forget
There are three

Sometimes the memory is simply lost
I fail to record it
I struggle to retrieve it
I lose it through the passage of time
And I may as well never have learned it

Sometimes the memory was never right
A subtle hint overwrites it
A trick of the mind confuses where I got it
A belief or assumption filters and interprets it
And surely I learn to trust my memory less

And then, of course, I could repress it
Squash it into the back of my mind
Remembering Freud’s unproven theories
Hoping that what’s left behind
Leaves me feeling more positive

Why are your hands like the ocean?
Pull in, push out.
Come here, go away.

You learned to cry quietly because it's prettier that way. You hate that your cheeks get red- like transparent ghosts found a way to put handprints on porcelain skin. You wipe your tears before they touch your cheeks. Don't give any clues that you're breaking.

Remember the first time your mother told you to not look directly into the sun? You asked why and she just laughed. "You'll burn your eyes, silly girl." You remember this conversation each time she calls you her sunshine.

You were nineteen the day you were told, "you're so soft." It was the twenty-ninth time someone had told you this, but this time those words were coupled with soft eyes instead of a hard-pressed stare. Maybe you could have loved him. But falling in love meant jumping, and there were sharp rocks at the bottom.

You jumped once before. You jumped and swallowed seawater as you watched him standing on the bank scrubbing your poetry off of his hands. You remember water setting fire to the air inside your lungs as you realized that no matter how hard you screamed for him to just love you again, he'd only whisper, "you're just too broken."

You remember two months later- the first time hearing the pop of an orange pill bottle lid thinking that maybe you should write the time- like you're calling the last time you'd really be you. It was a "first kiss, first dance, missed call, last chance, yes, no, maybe-so" kind of night. The kind of night that puts your soul on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean. There's no coming back from that kind of lonely.

"Be good." She told you. You remember this when you go to type "food" in a text and your phone corrects it to "good". Your ribs drop off into an empty abyss. There is no fulfillment to the kind of starvation your hands feel when you reach out to hands that will never love you back.

Those bones hold you enough for you to sit upright in a hospital waiting room. Spine straight and lungs held in a panic. This happens every time they put cold hands on the parts of you that no longer work. New mothers tell you that children are a blessing- that they'll change your life for the better. Hollow eyes meet the baby blues of another and your hands grow heavy with longing as you realize that your junk really is just junk and you'll never hold tiny hands.

You wonder why you miss someone from years ago. You wonder why it is that you cannot remember what their voice sounds like but you can remember what it smelled like outside the day you two met. The last time you picked up a phone, your hands knew to dial their number. But you haven't called in ages now. You quietly realize that you only miss certain people when your body becomes medicine cabinet.

You now know that you have hands like the ocean because people may love you, but no one wants to stay on the beach after the sun sets.

You remember turning the mirror around and telling you mother the sun didn't shine that day.