I feel like a puzzle with missing pieces
I don't know when I ever felt whole
Perhaps I was the day I was born, but I'll never know

But now my life seems fragmented
Like a puzzle that is in many pieces
And I cannot find the missing parts

I have been slowly reconstructing it all back together
Sometimes, nothing seems to fit any way I try
And, in my rage and sadness, I find myself wanting and lacking

Perhaps,  none of us are meant to be whole
But our lives are filled with "holes" instead
So we know we need to rely on others

Relying on others so we are humbled
That we don't have it all together
And in our need, we shall reach out

In that way, my brokenness is a blessing
For it bannishes my foolish pride
And lets me know I am only human

It lets me know I need God
I am but a part of a bigger picture
Even if I do not have all the answers I want

What gets me through
is seeing You in my view
Not love of man, fleeting
But You keep my heart beating

While the world has its sorrows
Poets write of brighter tomorrows
Are we so naive
in that we believe?

My brother took his own life
Acquainted with inner strife
But, as a sword, I'll take up my pen
Knowing my life is in God's hands

The past exists no more
Yet it hangs about like a ghost
Often haunting us with regret
We want to right the wrongs
We want another chance
to do things over
that truly trouble us
but we are powerless
to its demands

The present is this very moment
And it must compete
with the apparitions of yesterday
that crowd into our thinking,
like smoke and mirrors,
and rob us of this precious instant
of time that we truly have right now

The future is an unknown horizon
Yet we either look forward to it
with great expectations
or worry ourselves into thinking
that it will overwhelm us
or that it will disappoint us  
It is not ours yet to possess
Yet like the ghosts of the past
it has no business
taking hostage of our thoughts
We want to have control of it
when it is not anywhere in reach

I want to write a poem
but the words escape me
Is there anything new
under the sun?

I've written about
Love
Pain
Depression
Anger
Death
God
Evil
Light
Hope
Nature­
and so on

I don't want to sound redundant
I don't want to regurgitate the same thing
I fear I might be a broken record

So I wait patiently for some more inspiration

I want to write a poem
but the words escape me
Is there anything new
under the sun?

Your life for a friend
Putting everything at stake
Reflecting God's love

I opened the closet
and yelled at all the skeletons:

Get out of my closet!

I don't want your secrets!
I don't want your shame!
I don't want your ***** laundry!
You have been in here long enough!

I started tossing out the junk,
ridding myself of the mess,
like ruins in an old tomb,
Garbage that I have been trying to contain,
useless things flying everywhere:
Unfulfilled dreams,
unresolved anger,
old sadness,
unhappy childhood
etc, etc, etc....

Those bony beings started
making their way out,
grumbling because of
their harsh eviction,
clanking away down the stairs
and out of the house

Well, that felt lots better
but I'm not sure if they
all left for good

It will be time to do more house cleaning soon

Without human touch
People become like flowers
Wilting in the drought

Mother's ache in birth
Baby fears brand new world
Neither free from pain

From a bird's-eye view
I bet those feathered creatures
don't envy us

They must look down
from their arial dance
and pity us

We scurry about in
our cities and towns like mice,
as if we are caught up in a maze

Rats chasing after
a prized piece of cheese
in a hectic world

Bumping into one another
in a rush to get to a destination
that is slowly doing us in

How I wish to soar on bird wings
To be rid of this rat race,
finding my way out of the maze

The sun, day's diamond
Chasing away the dark void
Lighthouse for the earth

All earth creations
Nature and us quite the same
God does not make junk

Give me all riches
Deny to me wondrous love
I am the most poor

One that's been loved
Can survive a cold world
A despised soul cannot

Who can calm the beast?
Cravings of the hungry soul
Born into famine

Stomach, satisfied
Brain, often stimulated
My heart, on empty

Snakes strike with venom
Scorpions can be killers
Human stings are worse

We all become dust
Dying ones will join the earth
The spirit moves on

The bee makes honey
Golden treat for lips and tongue
Odd to be our foe

At times,
I get a creative tornado
in my head,
as I am going along
in my daily life
And I can't wait to go home
to sit in front of my computer
to write all my poetic thoughts down

I'm convinced they are masterpieces,
that people will be blown away
by my work
but.............

All is silent on the response button

And suddenly I think
I am not that talented
That my work really wasn't
so great to begin with

This must be what all
artists go through...
painters, authors, sculptors,
screenwriters, playwrights,
songwriters and musicians
Doubting themselves
when art lies in the eye
of the beholder

Its all part of the subjective
nature of art

Sticks and stones
can break bones
And words can hurt
Words one blurts

Ugly words, razor sharp
Bruise the soul, rip the heart
I've felt their stabbing ache
Worse than bones that break

Yet I confess my tongue could lash
Careless words that now seem rash
Words like weapons meant to inflict
Bones heal--the heart's not an easy fix

The shortest of months
Warm, red hearts in cold winter
The time of my birth

Cornflowers so blue
Lovely skies soft, powder blue
Blues within banished

Long and lazy days
Cool off the heat at the beach
Summertime enchants

All of creation
A purpose in this vast world
Fulfilled life is life

Where goes the clock's time?
The brevity of life, quick
The blink of an eye

I said "a haiku"
Yes, that's right--its a haiku
No, I did not sneeze

Green is the valley
Spring's youthfulness has arrived
New leaves in soft breeze

No tree to shelter
The sun is hot as a flame
Rain does not reign here

Tumbleweeds tumble
Once alive, they've turned to ghosts
Into the Old West

The lone eagle makes its
solo journey over the vast horizon

I can see my flag in
the setting sun
as the lemon halo of fire
becomes a vivid pomegranate red,
the turquoise sky darkening
into a sea of navy blue
and wispy, white clouds  
are hovering over us like
spirits in the universe

Lady Liberty,
overlooking the evening
of the New York Harbor,
displays her lit up torch like a
cosmic nightlight
She forever sheds light over
weary Americans
to remind us to
still dream the American dream
but that vision often seems
so out of our common reach

Uncle Sam has put on his nightcap,
a tuckered, old man is he
The crickets are chirping,
singing to me their strange lullabye
as I think I'll call it a night

*Goodnight, America, Goodnight

Herd of gazelle leap
Flows the clear, clean, babbling brook
Nature, swift and free

The moon and its beams
The stars and their light
Taking away the fright of night

Out of the rubble on the earth
Out of the land's darkest doom
I saw a flower bloom

She married him just to get out of the house. He, in turn, was a great rescuer of helpless cases, and she was a damsel in distress. They were both so young. She was barely eighteen and he was almost twenty. It was the Spring of 1968, and none of her friends thought it would last. Those were the days of free love, and all her friends did not expect her to stay tied down for long. After all, she was young and did not experience that much in life.

At first, everything went smoothly. They both tried their best to be a good marriage partner, but their parents weren't good models. Their marriages seemed to be lifeless and void of love. So they  had to learn on their own, by their own, day-to-day experience.  

Soon she became bored with him, and he distanced himself away from her. He tinkered away at his workshop in the basement, bunkered down in his own domain while she found her haven in the kitchen. She quickly became love-starved, reading cheap romance novels to fill up the void.

She became relieved when she was pregnant with her first child, so she would not be alone anymore. Yet the birth of her son did not make life any easier, and it only added fricton to the distant couple. Another child, a daughter came only one year later. Instead of feeling closer to her husband, she only grew more weary of him, and he of her. All of her efforts was put into her children to attempt make her life happy. It did not work all that well for her, and she struggled with depression often. Yet she hid it, putting her best face forward in the midst of her desperation to convince her friends and family that she was fine.

They were both very surprised that the third child came around four years later, another girl, for he barely touched her. They had been existing like two roomates instead of a husband and wife.

It was nearly inevitable that he would stray from her. When she became more and more suspicious, she confronted him and he told her the truth. He did not love her anymore, and he was happier in the arms of another. She cried to her friends, and they all told her to divorce him. Even though she had few working skills, she was better off without him. She cried even harder, for she had to admit that she strayed, too, and she believed she may have been the first to do so.

She caught another man's eye, and she could not understand why a mother of three would be so appealing. Now she felt truly ugly, that her marriage was a lie, and there was no way back, but to be out of it. Most of all,  she felt that she wronged her children, and her illusion of a perfect family shattered before her eyes.

Her husband packed up his bags, but even he had tears in his eyes. He never meant it to be this way. What happened to the time when he could not keep his eyes off of her? He knew his children were counting on him, and he vowed he would always see they had what they needed--the basics like shelter, clothing and food. But they weren't going to have him, not like they once had. He felt like he let down everyone who counted on him, and it was a heavy load to bear.

So he went away, but neither of them could sleep at night. The other side of the bed seemed emptier than ever. The woman he thought he now loved was not going to make him any happier than he was before.

He now discoverd that he was just as much in his soon-to-be ex-wife's life as  he was while they were together, doing repairs on the house, paying bills, visiting the children. So why couldn't they give it another shot? They just didn't know how to revive the mess they were in, but both admitted they were willing to do do. She did not want him to rescue her, like she before, for it never worked in the first place.

They made several trips to their church pastor for counseling. Each one had to forgive the other, and not harbor any hard feelings, in order to begin the process of getting back together. It had been nine years since they first married, and they weren't that young, naive couple anymore. Life had matured them, often the hard way,and they were ready to try again.

Even though all her old friends thought she would never make it, she had learned to love her husband like she could never do before. He had learned to be there for her, and not distance himself. They could have stayed together for the children's sake, but nothing would have been any better unless they changed.  They both knew they did not want a marriage of convenience, or in name only.

Life was certainly never going to be without troubles, but they had remained together, weathering every trial. And they never regretted that they chose to stay together.

I just can't shake
these lonely days,
or my lonely ways,
this persistant, lonely phase

I want to be a confident extrovert
I want to break free
I want to let the lonely days be
completely far behind me

But I fear the loneliness
has a cruel friend become
Like a constant chum
that I would rather shun

I can be lonely in a crowd
I can be content in my own space
Others, I've offered hope and grace
but my own pain remains in place 

I feel like an onion
The layers, one could peel off each part
Joy, peace, beauty-- the desires of my heart
Yet at my core is where the pain starts  

Loneliness, I do not want its pity
Wanting the sadness to go away
Yet those lingering feelings stay
as I live these lonely days

Those serial killers
**** for the sport of it,
with no remorse,
and just because they can
How their victims suffered!

The land contains their blood

The ones in jail
are like caged vultures
hungry to be free again
for more blood,
with a keen nose for
rotten stench
at their disposal

The only compassion
I have for those killers
is that their lethal injection
be administered
as quickly as possible

Yet this was never the case
for their victims

NOTHING

By itself,
It is a stark word
It is utter darkness
A bottomless abyss
A blank void
It has no part in anything
And matters to no one

But...
If God could take
A formless concept
And turn it into the universe--
The earth, separating the sky from the waters,
Creating the planets, our moon,
The air, the seas,
The animals and vegetation,
and certainly all of us,
Nothing now seems
To have tremendous value

When my faith has felt
Like a pile of rubble,
reduced to ruin from heartache,
From sin--all ways around
I am reminded of
The simple mustard seed,
A seed so small it seems
Nothing will come of it,
But in time it grows and rises
Beyond all expectations
To multiply itself beyond
Its humble beginnings,
And the birds of the air rest in it
To create a symphony of song

And so is our faith compared
For all it takes is that bitty spark
To ignite our faith,
Or to regenerate it once more,
Into something
Out of practically nothing

Before you and I  
Had existed on this earth
We, too, were like that seed
Conceived, soon a microscopic fetus
Developing from the oneness
Of our mother and father
And now we are here
Inhabiting this earth
From one, tiny spark
We became something
Out of practically nothing

So I dare not waste
Such a precious gift
Though life has been far from easy
Taking my pen in my hand
And sitting before a blank screen
Or an empty piece of paper,
And suddenly something comes
Out of practically nothing

And so let us all realize
What wonderful things
Are yet to be done
That have yet to come
Into existence
Looking unto God with thanks
For those capabilities

Maybe I was born
to be a Debbie Downer
Maybe I was born
to sing the blues

But I think I'll be
a cockeyed optimist
for what have I got to lose?

There are volumes and volumes
on the subject of love
As ancient as time
are the poems
and the books
and the plays
that have inspired
us all to desire
such love

Some of it seems
so lofty or unrealistic
to be experienced
That kind of love seems
unobtainable,
unreachable
and truly false
It only satisfies the heart
like cotten candy,
sweet to take in
but not fulfilling

On the other hand,
some love tales are filled
with heartache,
with a desired love
never achieved,
or unfairly thwarted,
but always
hungered and thirsted after,
like life-giving sustenance
to feast upon,
for love seems to be
the needed remedy to prevent
us just from existing  
for the sake of existing
  
With so much
that has been presented
in all kinds of art forms
on the subject of love,
I often am saddened
as to why
there is such the lack of it
in our world,
in the real world,
which is a place  
in which our fantasies collide

Hollywood love
is often our guide
in our modern world
and I have often
fallen for it
and could not get
enough of it,
like a drug that I craved
But how much of it
seems so selfish
and hypocritical,
such a mirage
and a hoax?

Is not love
more than an emotion?
Is not love
more than what "I" can get out of it?

Yes, this kind of love
I find repulsive
and cheap
and hallow
and cold

What I am writing about
may not inspire
the heart to feel tingly,
for we have all been taught
that love is only this way,
when all is good,
and all is perfect
as to two beautiful people
entwined in love's rapture

I now know differently

There are those dying
a slow death
from a lack of love
and they may not
even know they are
mortally wounded

Others may know
they need more love
than what the world
often brags about,
yet live a life
of quiet desperation

They may feel unworthy of it
They may hide from it
and avoid it
They may not be
very enjoyable to be around
to invite others to love them
But they need it anyway
just like everyone else

Like one needs air
basic water, food
and shelter to live
we all need love

I am not just talking about others,
although I've observed it, personally
But I have suffered my share of droughts
often suffered that disease myself
I do not admit it proudly
for it is a horrible feeling
of shame that
I wish never, ever to feel again
How I often longed for something
that did not seem obtainable
Or how I felt that I was not worthy
to take in such love

I also have to admit
my wrongdoing in reaching out
How guilty I have been
to not offer a smile,
a kind word,
or a sympathetic ear
to someone in desperate need of it
Too rapped up in my own problems

So I challenge myself,
for I know how it feels
to wish to experience love
in a more pure form from above
Not what I can get out of it
but how I can bless another

If the whole world
was to truly love
the way God meant
for us to do,
we would all be
saturated in its gift
and the ugly disease
from the lack of love
would be no more

Like noble, wooden soldiers
Are the lovely autumn trees
How I love those autumn trees!
How I love their brilliant leaves!

Not able to walk,
Not able to talk,
But those Autumn trees
Stand there,
Stoically,
Silently,
And they speak
And move just the same
I can hear their tale
In my heart,
In my soul,
For there within rings the message of
Rennaissance and renewal

They are rooted in place
Like guards of the land
Their grand colors,
As Autumn showers
Of fiery rain,
Yet harmless and peaceful
As the leaves descend
To the ground for their final destination
The earth now becomes
A patchwork quilt
From the release of Fall foliage

They truly are like royalty,
Adorned in fine fitting robes
That have been splashed with
Nature's paintbrush of  
Gold, scarlett and blazing orange,
A kaleidoscope of stylish colors
A dazzling tapestry to behold!

But they must now shed
Their Fall finery
In an ancient tradition
The cycle of the seasons
They've endured throughout the ages

Their leaves become as
Paper to the wind
Yet they shall not suffer loss,
For soon they shall be
Blanketed in glorious white,
Like a luxurious fur
To clothe them once again
In Winter's fashion

To endure all that the weather
Has to throw at them
The tempests, the droughts--
We humans can glean
The seeds of the wellspring of life
Harvested from these trees
These days of Autumn's reign,
That have reaped the seasons of growth
From Spring and Summer

Autumn helps to instruct me
To keep my eye out on the horizon,
Watching and waiting
For life has not adandoned us in this season
But will return to us all in Spring,
On that you can fully rely upon

The nature of the trees--
Harboring birds,
And other creatures,
Sheltering the land,
Is one of kindness
I never tire of their beauty,
Their majestic branches
That spread out in
Growing abundance,
Bearing life-sustaining fruit

After all their leaves
Have finally left them
They stand there,
Now naked and eerily haunting,
Like upside-down brooms
sweeping the endless skies
And we mortals, in turn,
Sweep and rake away
The remnants of their Fall spectacle
From the layering of the land

The children realize the Autumn gift
As their playful hearts gather up
The leaves to freely jump into
The cushioning piles,
Into the mounds of fading colors


Why do I love Fall so much?
With all those dark, cloudy days?
With the sun becoming scarce?

I love Fall so much
Because it reminds me of hope,
Of what will eventually grow once more,
Not just of the obvious loss of green leaves
I see the fragility of life,
And the strength of it, too,
As the leaves descend to the ground
Shrivel up into brown decay
And crunch beneath our feet

No, Fall is only a temporary moment
Of nature readying itself for slumber
It must make way for Winter
The grandfather of the year to come,
To replace these days of Autmn trees...
Where nothing can ever grow,
Where the land is now barren,
Where the ice and snow take over,
And survival is never taken for granted

But Winter shall make way for Spring,
Where the cold, hard, lifeless ground
Warms up to nurture the tender seeds
Of flowers that have withered and died
For it is a time for another chance
The land awakening to embrace life again

Without such seasons of life how do we
Dream of brand new beginnings?
We clearly see that life must succeed death
Nature is surely our teacher
If only we look for its lessons

Children can be so forgiving
even when they've been
hurt again and again
But adults can build protection
about themselves
like a  a suit of armor made of steel
Their distrust and disillusionment
becomes their impenetrable fortress

How I wish to see the world again
through childlike eyes
To not be jaded
To not be cynical
To not be tainted by hatred


It is said that to inherit
the kingdom of heaven
one has to become like
a little child

Perhaps it is because
they fully believe
and fully accept
and fully forgive
and fully love
with guileless hearts
as we all were meant to do
in this world

They came from Germany
They came from France
They came from Switzerland
They came from Poland
They came from Lithuania
And God knows where else

What I thought I once was
I now am not
Discovering so much more
while shedding some of the mystery
But the irony is
that opens up a need
for new questions
I may never have the answers for

There is much more German
And barely any French
No Scottish, after all
Perhaps some Russian
Who knows for sure?
Most shocking of all
a touch of African blood
from a German/French
2nd great grandmother
It shows up in her face
of the only photo I have of her
It shows up in my DNA

I am the sum of all of them
To imagine
it took so many of them
to make who I am today
All of us, actually
owe our lives to these people
who came before us

It always has intruiged me
I wish to know more
To know where my origins began
doesn't need to define me
or make me who I am today
But it satisfies a burning curiosity
To look at old photos and see
bits of my relatives
bits of myself

Note to self

Don't hide inside
Don't go within
By letting your light go dim

How often I have
tried to escape from the world
Going within instead of out
How often I have
felt safer in my own realm
and not in the thick of life

I learned early on
some survival tactics
that no longer serve me well
The cruelties of the world
were experienced
not only on the outside
but within my own home  
and I withdrew myself often
to survive

Now, how I work hard to shed
that old, childhood self of mine
By writing to express myself
By never stopping to learn
the wonders of this world
By subjecting myself
to pain and disappointment  
that I worked so hard
to avoid
as a child
Because life
is experiencing
the joy and the pain

P. S.

Note to self

*Journey on!

Head
feels like lead
getting out of bed

But I keep movin' on

My energy is sagging
My feet are dragging
And I am lagging

But I keep movin' on

Fill my lungs with morning air
Comb out my brown hair
Grumpy that life is not more fair

But I keep movin' on

Feet finally find their way
Got to work to earn my pay
Reluctantly meeting the day

But I keep movin' on

Because I refuse
to loose

Letting the daily grind
consume my time

Because I believe
there's a higher purpose to achieve

So I muster up fresh strength
Walk life's winding path of greath length

And I keep movin' on

Though the pain was agonizing
it subsided

Though the night was void of light
the sun rose again like clockwork

Though obstacles seemed overwhelming
I perservered

Though I felt the tears fall endlessly
I laughed again

Though I wanted to give up entirely
I didn't

Though the world seems in turmoil
it keeps on spinning

So why should I let a little word like "though" defeat me?

They ran so far, ran so much that the soles of her feet were stained with blood. His hand never lost its grip while hers was bathed in oil, her cheeks blushing with shock and excitement. To think they had pulled it off! She never felt so crazy in her whole, bland, little life!

The couple ran across streets. They ran across fields. The night smelled like a child's perfume. The flowers mixed their aroma with the grass to tempt any lover to imagine what their worth was. Only a sliver moon revealed itself, so they were blind to nearly everything, just as they were so blindly in love. It was an eerie night, but a captivating one.

They whisked past trees as if the tree boughs and twigs would swoop down  like a skeleton's arms and fingers, trapping them into a thorny grip. They dodged cars like they were alien outlaws from another realm. They ran like there was no tomorrow, and the whole world would explode in a moment.

She did not care what anyone would have thought of her. To have hung herself would have made more sense to her parents than to be so impulsive and take off with this man, this stranger. They would have insisted she was out of my mind--and she was--but she never felt so sure sure of herself.

She never knew who she was, but maybe she was about to know and it would be wonderful. The cares of her world seemed to melt, at least they did in the cool of the night as she gathered the courage to run free.

All was going well, as the wind kissed her cheeks and her mind felt eased of her burdens. Yet, for one brief moment, the desire to rip her hand away from his overtook her, a failed moment of self-doubt.

It did not seem like it was really her pulling her hand away. As she yanked free from his firm grip, she froze in her tracks, panting from sheer exhaustion. All the courage had sudenly drained out of her just as mysteriously as it had consumed her.

In the failing moonlight, the shadows played upon his face in ghoulish distortion. The chiseled, calm features seemed to transform. Suddenly, fear rose up in her and she wanted to deny what seemed so obviously grotesque. She rubbed her eyes. Were they playing tricks on her? She gasped.

Inbetween the shadows, his face looked demonic, like death. What was happening? For a second or two, she could not distinguish a man from a monster, who it was she was really following after.  It had to be an illusion!

His lips were formed out of putty and burnt rubber, seriously twisted out of shape. His teeth appeared busted and broken into jagged pieces of rotten glass. His eyes seemed to glow and slowly narrowed at her in frustration, his skin rough and embedded into hardened cheekbones.   She continued to rub her eyes and blinked hard a few times to erase that ugly, horrific  image.

A swirl of clouds veiled the moon, but they soon moved on to give her eyes some clarity again. Her perplexed lover was staring at her, his face fair again, well-proportioned and handsome.  So why couldn't she budge? She convinced herself that her eyes must have been playing tricks on her. She knew he was waiting for her to make a move, but she couldn't find the strength to respond to his wishes .

"Come on", he called out to her. Once again, he reached out his hand to beckon her to place her hand in his.

She now was not so sure of what she was doing. She stood there, dumbfounded, and so ashamed of herself. The leaves rustled in the wind as if they had lost their patience with her, too. Just a few moments ago, she had such courage. Now all the excitement and madness had abandoned her all at once, and she felt so small and powerless to the night, as if it was engulfing her in its darkness.

"Come on!", he repeated. The tone in his voice was angry now, and it sounded unnatural, gutteral. She dared not to look at him for fear the scary image of him would return. The minutes felt like they were ticking away in sludge, and the desire to run was creeping back into her, but not to run with him.

Soon, her lungs were stinging from the chill air of the night. "No", she feebly replied, "I can't do it".  Those few words took the last bit of energy she had.

He started trying to convince her to go on, but quickly the firm calmness in his voice had disappeared as his voice grew threatening. Before long it reached a crescendo of profanity and perversity, again sounding unnatural and more otherworldly than ever.

She began to cry in her helplessness. He mocked her. He shamed her. His words were punitive and cruel. She was nothing.  She was better off dead. She disgusted him and her presense degraded him. There was nothing good about her, nothing at all.  She was ugly, ignorant and usless. Fearful that he may hit her, she took it all in,  frozen with fear. But he did not touch her, yet it would have probably have hurt much less if he had. She shut her eyes to try to erase his image, and she covered her ears to drown out his cruel words and his harsh voice.

It may have been just a few minutes of him taunting her, but it seemed like eternity. She let him rage on instead of fighting back to defend herself. Fighting back seemed so futile, as she felt so cowardly and small next to him.  She could not find her voice even if she wanted to, but soon he had slipped off into the shadows, his footsteps sounding away from her upon the pavement on dirt road they had been running down together.

She was trembling now, more from cold than from fright. She now believed the threat was over. That was it. It was finished. As surely as it started, it was over. He was gone.

No, she was not going to run away that night. No prince or knight in shining armor was not going to rescue her to whisk her away to safety.  Nor was anyone going to take her away to a happier place that she often dreamed about.

So she slowly turned around to head back to her old existence. The hurt she felt was now turning into numbness, but that was nothing new in her life. She was used to it. She knew I did not have the life she had wanted, but she began to realize that it could have been much worse. Maybe she was nothing, like he had told her, but she was walking away and she was free. Yes, she was free from that nightmare that could have been the end of her.

She did not feel alive anymore, not like she did earlier, but she was able to put one foot in front the other take herself away from what had now become "nowhere".  She was confused at first to which way was which, but she  eventually found her way back to her familiar surroundings and headed home.

The devil is a liar
His mouth is consumed with fire
He is the father of all lies
He has tried to ruin so many lives

He devours all that is in his path
Because all that he desires is wrath
Don't get caught up in his many falsehoods
Overcome his evil intentions with good

I can't take it anymore
This pain is overwhelming
Why go on?

Keep on going

I'm so  tired
All I want to do
Is go to sleep and not wake up

This pain will subside

I feel all alone
Nobody understands or cares
This is killing me on the inside

Keep reaching out to others

Everything in my life seems wrong
Life has no meaning
I just don't see the point

*I gave you life, and it does have meaning

The rose
Though it looked lovely to the eye
it was piercing to the touch
Blood streaming down my finger

How deceptive is the rose
Delicate and intricate
but hidden with thorns
that pierce the flesh

Is that not life?
Such beauty
Such an ideal
But filled with ***** traps,
pains and trials

I guess we cannot have life
just in a perfect, little package
No rain
No rainbows

Joy isn't guaranteed
Pain is inevitable
Not just a beautiful creation
The rose comes with a price

Embrace it
and you may suffer
The price might be painful sting
as you gather up the jewel that is the rose

Isn't it odd
that the most celebrated of flowers
is one that bears its armor
like tiny swords?

Does it not reflect both
the beauty
and the pain
of life?

If I could not write
My days would turn to night

If there was no such thing as art
I would die from a broken heart

If I could not dream
Deafening throughout the skies would be my screams

If I could not hope
I would never have learned to cope

If I did not feel
Life would be unreal

If love did not exist
Death would be my wish

So I continue
To write
To create art
To dream
To hope
To feel
And to love