Com·mu·ni·ty
/kə'myoonədē/
noun
1. A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.
synonyms: group, body, clique, faction

How do you define your community? Does it fit this definition?

My roots run deep in this town.
We have been here too long, yet not long enough.
We all grew up here and everyone knows everyone, but I do not know my neighbors name.
I think that is the problem with this day and age.
The word community has taken on a new meaning.
It tastes sour in our mouths when we say it because it is lost all sense of direction.
We say we seek community, yet it is in small groups, of those we deem worthy and fitting.
We let the homeless and the jobless slip through the cracks.
A tiny town filled with tiny lives.
Lives that are only important to ourselves, yet that is enough.
No one cares about anyone who does not benefit our own importance.
We are a broken people, a fractured community of lost souls searching for individual places in a too small world.  
We feel infinite, but our names have already been forgotten.
Despite our brokenness, our ripped and damaged edges, we are beautiful.
-M

Our chests rise and fall
with the sweet burn of cold
Hope fills our lungs
We are so young, so naive

The pain is too much for us all
Breaking beneath an invisible weight
What hope do we have now
How can we breathe

How can there be oxygen amongst so much cruelty
How is there room
Where does it go when all the space is filled up with
screaming

and we are all screaming out, all of the time
Tortured souls trying
to find the hope; trying
to find the will

                                                               ­                                  to continue on.
                                                          
                                                            -M

If I was a mountain

That soared towards the sky,

With craggy snow caps

And stormy grey eyes-



Then you'd be the clouds

That swaddled my peak,

That silenced my thunder

When I tried to speak.



If I was the earth

The desert, in fact:

With arid dry soil

And mud, baked and cracked-



You'd be the rain

The downpour that soothed;

The balm to my bruises,

Relief to my wounds.



If I was the Moon

In the indigo night,

With stars as my blanket

And silver; my light-



Well you'd be the Sun

Just always behind

That lent me your glow

And caused me to shine.

Read more.
Words are the map fragments of wisdom you need to navigate your way in a world constantly sending you searching for that which you don’t yet have a name.

Write more.
And don’t keep it to yourself.  Your voice deserves to be heard too so scream in cursive and whisper in all CAPS, bleed through paper and heal through the spines of notebooks
you’re spiraling onto something, breathe in commas and step over periods because you’re not over
you’re the most beautiful run-on sentence

paint more.
You’re an artist whose perspective warrants an audience,
so leave cerulean fingerprint traces in your titanium touches,
mix gesso with mars and be alizarin against charcoal

stand out. And stand up.

Find adventure in the every day.  Skydive through small talk, zip line through steps up stairs without an end,
life is the ellipses in silences your eyes seek to make stories,

explore.
This world. People. This city you’ve landed yourself and take calculated risks.

Tiptoe through moshpits and stomp through meadows.
Cartwheel into concrete conversations headfirst eyes wide open,

be vulnerable, to those who deserve to see the rawest parts of you.
And leave the ones who’d rather exploit them behind

leave others’ opinions behind.  Let them be the ones collecting dust.
You are stronger than you’ll ever know and ten-fold what they’d ever expect.

So let them guess.
Be the question mark in the corner they can’t place.

Your story is complicated.  But that makes you interesting.
What doesn’t challenge you doesn’t change you and you’ve been challenged each and every day

you get out of bed and speak when so easily you could’ve lost your voice the night you lost your body.
It took you some time and a few nameless faces to claim it again and you’re still working out what that means,
you’ve always had your own way
but all the ****** assault pamphlets name this normal.

[For once it’s a label you don’t detest.]

So this year be normal if you so choose, but also be weird.
Be loud, not small, be confident, and not sorry.
Take up space.
You deserve to.

You are Woman and you are Strong.

Push, but don’t ever shove.
Love unapologetically and fiercely.
But don’t force what a boy is not willing to give.

Find someone who will pay your heart the same attention he does your body.
Scratch that,
find yourself.

Read your body’s brail, your chapters of goosebumps, and play chess with checkers across your skin.
Unlearn and relearn and unlearn and learn to remember you are enough and it is your turn.

Look in the mirror and accept the pieces looking back are in progress.

Keep writing.

Watch the moon make way for the sun. Be brighter than both.
Let your irises draw constellations across galaxies unwritten.
Move so far forward, you stop having a reason to look back.

Forgive that which you cannot change.
You’ll make more mistakes, scrape more knees and trip on chainlink chokers, your jewelry limbs you haven’t yet untangled.
But forgive yourself.

Kiss the boy. Kiss the girl. Kiss no one.
Live in the present tense and with future declaratives.
Appreciate the thousands of little moments still looking to be made yours. Make them yours.

You are worth all the struggle.  Don’t forget.

Be kind but don’t rewind.  
Stay authentic even when you don’t make sense and your words aren’t oil enough to separate

paddle through the waves eyes closed if you have to,
the salt may burn your scars and you may lose your bearings, but keep going.
Maybe this is the year you’re going to learn to swim.

You've never been a good friend,
But what do I expect
You to care about my every woe
And not leave me in neglect?

It's not like you're my mother;
You shouldn't have to keep me whole,
But you set me up again and again
And with my feelings you will bowl.

I just want you to be happy;
That's all I care about.
It doesn't matter that I cry alone,
If your heart still beats loud.

So I will drag myself through the day;
'round my stomach, my arms wrapped tight.
You don't see my insecurities
Or tell me it's alright.

I no longer feel my soul;
I've given it to you.
I tell you that you're beautiful,
And you say "Thanks you too".

I can't bare the thought that you are sad
Or hurting deep inside.
I want you to be happy
to enjoy all of life.

I repeat my words of praise,
so you know that you are loved,
But I don't recognize the words I say;
My voice sounds much too rough.

People tell me I don't look so good.
Have I been getting any sleep?
I don't know how to tell them
That I no longer eat.

I just don't have the energy
to lift a fork up to my mouth.
What If I need to say I love you?
I cannot miss my rounds.

I'm slipping slipping slipping.
Are my eyes open or shut?
Did I tell you are smart?
Have I complimented you enough?

I don't do it because I have to,
I just know it should be said;
How much I appreciate you,
How much I'm glad that you're not dead.

You're all the emotions I have left:
Love and lust and pain.
I can tell you don't care if I'm there;
You have nothing left to gain.

But I don't mind,
Why don't I mind?
My light has fizzled out.
I should mind,
I should try,
To be cared about.

I know that it is pointless
Because there's nothing left to love,
But when I see a certain someone
I feel he was sent here from above.

Yet I could never tell you this
Because you loved him first,
And it will never be the same
You'd say "i guess he could do worse".

I'm not a decent person.
I am not very "nice".
I slice open my skin,
And put mascara on my eyes.

No one asks if I'm okay;
I don't think that they see.
That you're friendship drained all I had
And left a mess of me.
                                                          -M