To you, she was splattered paint on a wrinkled page
Half stuck to your wall by one piece of tape
You always looked past it, but wouldn't throw it away
You barely realized how it complimented your day
So many colors, so bright, no direction
An overwhelming mess serving as calming affection
But still, you were passively looking, searching for art
Waiting to lay eyes on something that would pull on the strings of your heart

You wanted something flawless, with pretty pastels
Something that at upper-scale auctions would always sell
Once you found it you'd take her down
Bid her farewell, thank her for being around
Everyday you'd look past her unaware of the comfort she provided
Who could blame you? She wasn't what you were looking for, you just collided

Overtime, the tape weakened but you didn't see
You left the window wide open and she drifted away freely,
You came home and noticed something was different, but at first didn't know why
You noticed the painting was gone and to your surprise, started to cry
For the first time in a long time you felt that pulling at the strings of your heart
For the first time in your lifetime you realized that painting was art

No wonder you could never find it, that painting was yours
But you were never proud to own it, so it was no more
It's funny how they say art is never appreciated until the artist is gone
Such a tortured process the glory takes so long
Van Gogh was overlooked now he's timeless
His work went from invisible to priceless
To let something like that escape would be a sin
Some people save up their whole lives for a piece of him

So let her be your Van Gogh,
only appreciated once she had to go
Her messy colors once meant nothing to you,
now they're all you'll know

I believe life is more then survival
I believe the heart is more than a muscle
I believe in hope and freedom
I believe we can know right from wrong
I believe my life can make a diffrence
I believe the message of the cross

  What Do You Believe?

when you care too much it breaks you, shatters you into a billion tiny pieces like glass, you hit the floor too hard too fast and you explode, the world, millions of sparkling fragments come crashing down around you, slicing you to ribbons because thats what glass does, it cuts, and if you thought that just because you cared you were bullet proof you thought wrong, glass is never bullet proof, not even the kind that comes with a label and says it is, its a lie, its always a lie because when you care too much, try too hard, try so hard it hurts, you fall too hard, too fast, its too much and you shatter like previously bullet proof glass, you are out of the game and done playing the game because it doesn’t matter anymore, nothing matters anymore, its all one loop over and over and over, live die, repeat, live, die, repeat and oh if only you could reach the end, what satisfaction you would glean, what dreams might you escape, what people you might outrun, glass is exactly like humans, it reflects exactly who we are eventually no matter how much you warp it, no matter how much you bend its surface it reflects the true self back and then when you suddenly decide to show that side, boom, there I go, falling too fast too hard too much not slowing never slowing too much too fast too hard too caring too trying too much too fast too hard falling is like dying except slower, much much slower, and when I land, don’t worry you’ll be the first to know

We like to say that stillness comes with night
That on hot summer evenings we can hear God breathe
But I disagree.

Summer nights, beautiful as they come,
Are filled with crickets, cicadas, birds of prey, and the sound of growing
They smell of burnt marshmallows and laughter
Bursting with life,
Loud and exuberant.
No, summer nights are not still.

It is in winter,
When death and slumber rule the woods,
Where even our breath is muffled by the cold,
Frozen into puffs of clouds.
The night does not sing as summer,
Cicadas and crickets and owls and coyotes
Calling out in the heat.
No.
Silence basks in moonlight on a bed of leaves
That tucked the summer away in their fall.

It is here that we find the still in the night
The quiet so deep we must look inward for sound
Heartbeats and whispers of breath,
Memories filling our inner ear,
Unable to keep the quiet.
But when calmed,
When frozen still by the cold,
You can hear it,
The throbbing in the dirt,
The heartbeat of the earth,
The subtle zephyrs through naked trees
The breath of gods.

Here,
We find the still in the night.