Every
Moment
Enjoy
Simple
Things
With
Total
Intensity

you understand

I am so honored that "Moments in Time" - my tribute to my son, the son we lost to a brain tumor, our first-born, our sunshine was selected as the Daily. It brings honor to me...and to him. But more than this, I am so honored by all my loving, beautiful, compassionate friends here who read, who liked or loved, or commented with such caring. Though it can't heal the brokenness of the heart, feeling such love, understanding, and compassion is like warm and gentle hands cupped around a tiny wounded bird. Friends help hold together the pieces of the shattered heart, allowing it to go on beating and loving - even more deeply.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless ***. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

cake-235 calories

You can have a bite.  
Come on treat yourself.  
Indulge.  
For only the price of:
An hour of sit ups,
two hours of guilt,
A day of crying over the bathroom scale,
A week of fasting.  

French fries-250 calories

Come on take a bite.
Reward yourself.  
Indulge.  
You haven't eaten anything but your own fingernails in days.  

Chocolate milk-120 calories

Take a sip.
Indulge,
for only the cost of the rest of your life spent worshiping
the feeling of an empty stomach.  
The feeling of being cold in a warm room.
The feeling of your bones poking through your skin like white flags.  

Waffles-190 calories

Just one bite won't hurt.  
Indulge
And another and another
soon it's a binge.
Now purge.  
Purge your body of the evil of calories.
Purge your guilt into the toilet.  
Wipe your tears and brush your teeth.
It's worth it to treat yourself,right?

They say that before every step
You take in life,
You flick a mental coin
Then go left or right
Turn or keep straight on.

In your own universe you go left,
Pop into a café,
Go home and have a nap.
Then carry on those humdrum days.

But that was close!
So close that in an alternative realm
You go right,
Go into a shop,
Buy a lottery ticket
And Win Millions!

For every possibility, the scientists claim,
Is played out
In an Infinite Multiverse.

Somewhere you are King or Queen,
And somewhere else you are about to be shot!
Somewhere you are a fly
Or a bear.

Somewhere my parents are still alive
And everyone is free of ill.
That tuneful Rainbow springs to mind.
Maybe there’s even a Universe
Where everyone is Immortal.
Where God calls in for a cup of tea.
And what we’ve read as fiction
Is all true.

These possibilities are endless and
My imagination strains to picture
All that might just happen.
Somewhere.
We can but Hope.

Paul Butters

There are some who walk      calmly through darkness
because they know how      to kindle a light.