I do believe my days withing these
Concrete ashram walls are
Coming to an end.

It might be a slow ending, but
It'll be a good one.
It began the day I saw the

Beautiful truth behind the ugly
Mask of everyday insignificance.
Beauty and meaning;

Soft hand in a mild one.
Water strength.
Cement frailty.

Thoughts are like air; find their
Way from A to another
A.

Looking at my friend fitting
A door, cursing at the promise of
Adjustments,

Or enjoying the way the Project Manager
Leaves us never knowing whether
He's joking or not with a face

As cold as his project's foundations.
I fall in love with Life every day.
Even when I hate it.

I've learned that I never stop learning.
I'll be a slightly different man tomorrow,
Yet still myself.

Always still myself.
There is wisdom in flexibility; the
Holding on to nothing,

Even ones definition of oneself.
I was a construction worker.
Now, I'm a

Construction worker.
I take comfort in the fact
That the only comfort I'll

Ever really need, is the
One I give
Myself.

I said, "God, I hurt."
And God said, I know."

I said, "God, I cry a lot."
And God said, "That is why I gave you tears."

I said, "God, I am so depressed."
And God said, "That is why I gave you Sunshine."

I said, "God, life is so hard."
And God said, "That is why I gave you loved ones."

I said, "God, my loved one died."
And God said, "So did mine."

I said, "God, it is such a loss."
And God said, I saw mine nailed to a cross."

I said, "God, but your loved one lives."
And God said, "So does yours."

I said, "God, where are they now?"
And God said, "Mine is on My right and yours is in the Light."

I said, "God, it hurts."
And God said, I know."

~ Posted on the wall at the Oklahoma City bombing site.

I miss singing at the top of my lungs and swinging, feeling as if i was a bird.
I was free there in that moment.
I miss making mud pies and collecting bugs with my cousin.
I miss bike rides around the same old block everyday.
I miss the passion in my actions.
I miss dressing up in a floppy hat skirt and shirt that didn't quite cover my flubby belly at the time and feeling like I was a model, feeling like I was the bomb dot com.
I miss making mud slides and the tire swing.
I miss the play fights and gun games and simply watching video games as my brothers wouldn't let me play.
I miss feeling comfortable with the man who's ***** led to my life.
I miss the ignorance my childhood Had kept me safe in.
I miss being able to hug him, without cringing.
And I miss being able to remember my thoughts.
I miss my life before anything had ever happened.
I miss when my mommy would ask has anyone touched you down there? And I could honestly say no.
I do not miss the lies I told everyday
I do not miss the feeling of never being able to open up.
I won't miss the feeling of being a mistake.
Nor will I miss the feeling of being a failure.
I will not miss the feeling of disgust  over my own body.
I will not miss the jealousy my step father had with my sister she was his blood.
I will not miss my mothers favoritism over Her first boy.
I will not miss the memories that I cannot access.
I will not miss the echo of words that should never have been uttered to a child.
I will not miss the unknowing monster in my mind feeding myself ideas of what happened the snippets floating away.
I will miss the feeling of a smile, the affection accepted from a loved one.
But it won't matter will it i won't have the choice what I remember or miss I won't be here at all.
What will you miss?

Poetry is the voice chattering in my head...
Never lets up... It is the voice for when I'm afraid...
Conjured up from deep looping thoughts...
Vented out through written words when the voice could not.
Necessity forged by the mind and heart.
Feelings and emotions that the core wouldn't carelessly discard.
Poetry is an outlet of sorts, tentatively I can afford.
In this realm, the pen be my sword.
Poetry is everything... Beauty spanning multiple universes...
All we do is try to have it harnessed and channelled into individual artful verses...


An outlet, escape, my hole in the wall,
where I can hide from the Hell in my heart.
You're learning to walk, I'm just trying to crawl
beneath the flak; as it once tore me apart.
I've got my demons, how about you?
Faceless legions strung through my soul;
with ink and paper, they often bleed through
From lines and verses, I regain some control.
So, if you're asking me what poetry means
I won't say much, but I'll show you my scars.
Words and rhymes slash stitches and seams,
but in my unraveling, I see shooting stars.


My escape from the world
A distraction from myself
Instead of a mark on my body
I place a mark upon paper
I watch the ink flow from the pen
Happy that it's black
And not red
It bleeds into the crinkled paper
Mapping out the story
The story of my life so far
I don't think
I just write
Emptying my mind
My messed up mind
But the mess will never truly be gone
Just temporary relief
This is my relief


Poetry doesn't mean something,
Poetry is telling somebody who knows the truth, a lie and making them believe you anyways.


The air I breathe, the life I lead, everything I believe, poetry
The truest, permanent written form, at its finest
Even if it doesn't rhyme, every word is still the dearest
It's my relief from anxiety, my calm when I'm panicking
It's a sight for sore eyes when I wake up with a hangover and a headache
The only way I can express myself, show my deepest heartache
The only happiness I have when I'm depressed, my only friend when I'm lonely
My poetry and yours, day in and day out, is like oxygen to me
I can't breathe without poetry


A poet sees rivers where veins
run, caged birds where hearts
beat against ribs, stellar explo-
sions in place of emotion.
To be a poet means to breathe
through your eyes, to find life
in the weeds suffocating your
lungs, to build an ocean
of metaphors and memories,
never knowing which is which.


Poetry is art in itself
It is our passion that is slowly dying out throughout humanity
Because humanity is slowly forgetting what makes us human
What we survive on and die for everyday
But not us poets...
Our poetry is the chain to what we are
What we fought for all these years
What we die for trying to protect
For poetry is our mortality
Poetry is our life.

"Wait a second",
But each second after that second
Draws into tomorrows
That spill into yesterday

And now,
It's an hour that feels like a year
In a second past a second
Without you

if you're scared, just keep your eyes on me.