I've been spending my time slowly breaking down,
Not even intentionally
Just subconsciously
My days have been dark, clouded and slow
I pray for something else,
But do I really want it?

Yes. Today I declare I want to live.
Did you hear me?
I said:
Today I choose life

Now my life is full of color again,
Color and laughter and gaiety
I am surrounded by loving people
Whose love shoots out through there hearts like beams of light

I am so ridiculously happy,
Spilling with joy
I smile wide as tears stream down my face,
Hands over my heart,
Dancing in the summer rain.

I like diversity
Like braided wildflowers hung upon wrought iron fences
I like to see all different faces of different complexions,
Different body shapes and sizes
I love bodies soft and hard,
Lean, curvy, short, and tall
I like straight teeth, crooked teeth, no teeth
I love women who walk this earth like they own it
I love men who express themselves in ways that oppose their gender's roles
I like people who like to love
In a non-romantic kind a way
No striving after what you think you want
Just being so in love with life
With everything and everyone
I invite all races, cultures, ****** orientations, genders, political parties, and spiritual beliefs at my table
I invite everyone
Everyone who is willing to come to the table
With a heart ready to stop polarizing
And start healing with love.

What if I were to be a conch shell?
Emptied of my pain, of my trivial afflictions
What if all my memories were stripped from my mind,
Would my mind become bleak like the frigid landscape of Antarctica
Or would it finally be empty enough to become saturated by unfiltered light?

What if I have used my mind as a crutch for all these years,
Because loving was just too fierce,
Too all encompassing
Love could lift me to my highest highs,
And promptly pulverize me in a matter of seconds.
Because of my unhealed pain surrounding love
I unintentionally sequestered myself in the small realm of my mind
Becoming dizzy and detached from my heart and body
As my mind stewed in a mess of overthinking,
In this process trying to derive the perfect formula
To avoid future pain at all costs

But I just wonder, if maybe
All this pent up inner torment doesn't truly belong to me,
Like, it shouldn't form my identity
I guess it's really hard to say,
Because these traumas make up so much of who I am today
But maybe I shouldn't allow them to have so much authority over my life
Because truly, these traumas are the source of my continuing strife
I just think, that maybe
If I willingly surrendered my psychological debris to God
That He would take it and dissolve it,
So He could fill me, unhindered, with His unconditional love.

It's all making sense now
As I watch from a lowered head
The universe is expanding
As everything in my reality is coming to an end

I just wonder, Who have I become?
Because I experience myself within the hooks of society
Quiet obedience and detached formality
Engaging in the dance that is expected of me

I've had dreams that made me scream
But they dissolve like iridescent beads arising from my mind
Where is the magic,
In the veins of the earth?
The streams that overflow?

I take a step beyond
Into the streams
And it dissolves the rigid conformity, the chains that bind me
I feel my heart and mind merging with the One
The One who will save me
From myself,
And every ingrained idea of who I need to be...

Set me free.

I look over my shoulder
To all that I have lost
I look into the mirror
And see all I have become
And I can’t quite say I’m satisfied
With who I’ve grown to be
I just remember all the useless striving
And now all the monotony
I’ve always been searching for something more
But what if this is it?
What if my life is just old wounds and festering sores
With no real hope and no real bliss?

I think I know what I want
But when I get it I push it away
Or I run
My mind is vague and tired
My heart seeks for relief
I’m stuck in patterns that will result in my demise
I just want to experience life again through a child’s eyes
But I know too much now
I’m cynical and guarded
My heart just wants to love but I’m hurting

I can’t feel anything too deeply anymore
I smile, but what for
It’s merely a mask to conceal the endless yearning within me
And all the regret lurking inside me
My pain echoes like a dull drumming
No one seems to understand me
So I just keep running
Maybe, one day
I’ll run right into
What I’ve been hoping for
I’ll run right into the bright warm light of the sun
And it will absorb my misery
It will illuminate my small life with expansive love.
Under every vain pursuit I’ve chased
Has been the intrinsic need to be unconditionally loved.

tunnels are like the transitory phases of your life
driving so fast, but everything seems to be in slow motion
in a surrealist painting
you're moving forward so quickly
but you still feel stationary
the lights pass you, one after the other
it seems like you will never again see the sun
all you can hear are the endless echoes that surround you,
all you can truly know
is the grey concrete that envelopes you
and the endless road ahead of you.