Ryan Galloway

Ryan Galloway Apr 2015

As the night closet closes
A girl lays her head
Her eyes, she closes
While she lies in her bed
But now her eyes no longer close
The closet man says
For the door no longer closes
And the girl lies there dead

You have beautiful eyes
The closet man says
No need to shut them
Let me help instead
Out of the shadows
He'll run to your bed
Then the closet man leaves
along with your head

So as the closet door closes
And before you lay your head
Before your eyes, you close
And ready your bed
Please don't listen
To what the closet man says
And if you do, oh if you do
Hold onto your head

My attempt at a creepy children's rhyme

Ryan Galloway Mar 2015

The Nature of Death

It's as if the knowledge of our terminal nature
Awakens the fatal agents in our bones
That it is only when we learn of death
That we start dying
Such as with childhood
A time defined by ignorance of an end
Seems infinite
Yet as we start to see
Our favorite characters in the books we read
Reach the end of their adventures
Even with the promise of happily ever after
It is evident that just as the lines on the pages ceased
The lives told of in the story therein likewise fade into history
And then
It clicks...
In that instant we see the disease of fatality
A true virus to be caught
Transmitted through literature and tragedy
Crescendoing to an inevitable crash
No cure to be discovered
Only catalysts that act
To speed the immutable throws of death

Ryan Galloway Feb 2015

Weight of Existence

Do you not feel the weight of infinity on your bones
That as you search for the answers this burden holds
You are merely moving topsoil
We queer little creatures try to shout when we don't even have a voice
Try to dig yet don't have the sinews nor muscles to make a choice
We try to ascend past ignorance
And in doing so truly show it in believing there is any possible recompense
For this futile attempt to define our existence
We are merely flickers
Indistinguishable in the scope
Of the infinity that swallows us whole
But in the end there is truly only one answer
That no matter how much we ****
No matter how much we sift through the sod
There will always be the reaches of the universe to account for
The infinite presence of God

Ryan Galloway Jan 2015

Home Videos

I remember the quiet moments
The times in which merely her presence was enough
To calm my fears
Of the monsters in the closet
And the bullies who beat
The weight of being unique
Into me
Watching the screen
As the tape plays back the common scenes
Birthdays and celebrations
All put together with the care seen in movies
I hold the memories so dearly
The love of a mother
Or I should say the love of my mother
Because I doubt any other could be the same
All of her actions inspired by the desire
To show us that
While we may, someday, doubt the world that we see
And find that life is harder than what we believed
That there would always be the love of our family
As I watch these home videos
She was always the one behind the camera
But her love was present in every scene
In the brightly colored balloons
And the creatively themed birthday parties
In the joy on our faces on Christmas Eve
The memories all playing one after another
And I find the care breathed into each of these
The beliefs that she nurtured in me
And I am truly thankful

Ryan Galloway Jan 2015

Weeds

I have to speak
The words are building up and are becoming stale
I have lost something essential
Yet I can't recognize what it is
I have become weak
My knees buckling, skin turning pale
A thought has been planted
And it is spreading like a ****
"What if they don't like me"
It branches into all past rejections
And has become a large tree
To be truthful
I can't handle it
There seems to be more scars
In its gnarled trunk
Then there are stars
Caught in its reaching branches
It is of my own building
I watered and fed it
With self-pity
And now I have the gall to reject it
It is me

Ryan Galloway Jan 2015

Creator

There must be a creator for I can feel the artwork of the stars inside of me
The brushstrokes of the mountains within my genes
I can reach for the heavens, see the things hidden, and believe
Believe in he who painted the seas
He who breathed
Life into being
Into beings like me
Though minuscule we are
Who can recreate the beauty we see
From you, the almighty
The source of all
Beginning and end
The blessing in our bones
The one who bled
His soul into our own
He who signed his life into our veins
I am forever thankful for the ability he has given me
To laugh in joy and in sorrow weep
The ability to see beyond the veil
That separates the people
The body of Christ
Unified in his sacrifice
Yes, there must be a creator for my soul has found solace
In a world that only knows suffering

Ryan Galloway Jan 2015

Is God a man?

Is God a man
I mean society sure seems to think he is
He holds us in his strong hands
Protects us from the pains of the land
But when did these traits become exclusively masculine
Can patterns of love be defined by gender
Can the glory of God not transcend our fear
Of not being able to understand
Not able to label
The one who made the land beneath us
He is strong and meek
knows both war and peace
So which traits make God a man
Since when did a creator become defined by the works of his hands
Why can't God be God
And man be man
He our savior
And us his servants