Bound by cords by my own hands
Head filled with books and my own fantasy land
Reticent and contracted
Every move beforehand practiced
I can't relax into the uncertainty
It's pain, it's hell
Every entering moment I cannot foretell
How do I expose the beautiful parts without exposing the scars and bruises?
No one likes those, everyone now just wants illusions.

The fact is
That I feel and miss and hurt
Like everyone

Tall grass and soil beneath me
I'm sinking
Into a fantasy
And it feels so good and it feels so wrong
Because it takes me away from reality
And I know
I got to face reality,
With both it's joys and woes
But just once more I will serenade the song of nonconformity.

Systems crumbling beneath our feet
As we speak
But my outlook is rather serene
But yours is bleak
And you ask: "What do you mean"
The world is ending
But look, you're supporting the systems
So don't act like you're against them when you are one of them
Instead of playing the blame game and pinning the problems on a group of people,
Look at yourself in the mirror
If we get rid of "those people" nothing is going to change
We need to look at ourselves first
We must change ourselves first.

Just my cup of tea

My hair dancing with the breeze

My heart exploding with love and kindness


A clear blue sky

Beheld in my eyes

Tears of joy stream down my cheeks

Years of misery washed away on a desolate beach

The bad memories have sunk to the bottom of the ocean

Lifeless and without motion


The children and the trees

The melody in the breeze

How everything is so serene

And my mind feels ever so clean

I can lean into darkness while showering myself with light

Everything is alright, the beauty is so ubiquitous I'm blind

Love has no sense of time.

Vacant Streets
Barren homes
Concrete rubble scratching beneath my feet
Am I all alone?

Towering viridescent leaved Giants
On the other side of the road
Wind swiftly whispering hollow secrets
Into the grove.

I intently observe the grooved bark of a tree
What species is it?
I don't know, but I would like to know
My eyes scrupulously make their way up to the reaching branches at the very top
Next to this tree I observe is a tree stump
It doesn't look like it was cut with precision, it looked like a flash of unpredictable lightning chopped it right in half
Incapacitating it to no longer grow, ragged shards of raw inner wood
Now blackened with death.
The difference between the stump and the outreaching tree was one proliferated while the other did not due to death.
I felt my heart in my chest and arteries transporting blood to a part of my mind neglected and depressed
As the realization swooshed and then swelled into my heart,
that these conditions of my mind and circumstances were not forever
But temporary lessons
Yes, that's all these bad things are,
Temporary lessons
A tree can be cut but if not cut through all the way to cause death, it will grow around that cut, and everything else about it will eventually become bigger than those few times it experiences pain
The key to all of this was to move forward, grow
With limbs outstretched to the sky.

Air is always crisp, no
matter where I am

Cool air swirls into my lungs
I think, I think and I think
I'd like to shut off this part of me
that over-analyzes
Because I have this feeling
that if I just quiet my mind
I'll experience such profound insight
like never before
It sounds counter intuitive,
But ceasing to verbalize
just may be the gateway to
most of our solutions

When I dream
I go places or do things unfathomable
I use to live quite an unfathomable life
Even though back then I was really depressed
and disassociated
When I look back, it's weird
Because it seems to me like
I should have been having the best times of my life
But really I was just in situations
That looked fun and thrilling
But I was just so perturbed back then
I lived as wildly as Hunter S Thompson back then
Or maybe I was like Jack Kerouac,
On The Road
It sounds fun
But I was just always on the run
Always trying to escape to the point
of escaping my own mind by dissociating
Looking into the mirror and feeling so distant
from the reflected image
Taking dangerous concoctions of alcohol and drugs
And not a moment of my waking life
was their a point where I wasn't high on ****
Making that Mary Jane be my codependent lover
One I couldn't live without
Even with the paranoia and the panic attacks...

Last night I had a dream
that I smoked **** again
And my throat closed up
and I started choking...
In that dream I remember what it was like
Back in my senior year of high school
I can barely remember
It was all just an excruciatingly painful blur
I wake up to my reality,
and although it's not all I want it to be
I couldn't be more grateful
That I'm out of the self sabotage
With a healthier personality
It's weird to think of who I used to be
Because of how much I've changed
I can't believe that was who I used to be
Radically reformed is my identity
It's just really weird, you see
It's beyond human reason
to understand this change
that has happened in me.

I murdered Lust on a street corner
It was a dark and foggy night
A street lamp flickered above her
She stood in it like it was the spotlight
She always craved to be bathed in
The center of attention
A woman desperately pursuing affection.

She wore a skin-tight skirt
Fish-net pantyhose
Long high-heeled leather boots
A black tank top
I looked into her swollen face
And she looked up and smiled at me
This sort of smile that is automatic and plastered
Her face was powdered, blushed and bronzed
Layers of illusion painted on
Her eyes were dead
Black substance like molded milk ran down her under-eye creases
She spoke as she exhaled a cloud of smoke:
"Happiness is only real when shared."
At her I glared
Her, standing there, waiting for someone to pay for her tricks
And I asked her: "Do you do it for love or do you do it for drugs?

And she froze
Froze like the lake in winter
I moved in closer
I realized,
She was staring into a void
That I could not see
A paranormal void
She tried to speak
But she had become too weak
She fell to the ground
I checked her pulse
But she started to choke
I cradled her in my arms
And shed a tear
She vanished into dust
Right before my eyes
The midnight breeze carried her away
And I can't believe
That I murdered Lust that day.

Like you so much it hurts
My body's aching
My heart is yearning
The song that reminds me of you is on repeat
Could you make my heart replete?

Sometimes I say Never mind
Sometimes I just want to shake you out of my mind
I think I don't have the time
I don't have the tolerance
To love again
Past mirrors and compliments into becoming each other's confidants

See it's really all slipping away
Last time I saw you
It was just a micro second
You skidded away on your long board
Came into my vision as quickly as you left
And I'm stuck in this stagnation
Breathing out life into this oblique resignation
I twist and turn, when will I learn
To not give my heart away again

Just have to stand on two feet
Because I have them and got to
Move forward and do, I think
But I can't get up from those days
It's all a haze
A dream that produces screams

Not ready
Not ready
Not ready to live
She said
On her last day.

This logical brain I've developed
Is calculating and critical
I can't help myself from
Reminiscing of the days
When my experiences were less verbal
And more tactile, visceral and
Magical
I was so easily tantilized with
Life, with
It's abundant beauty never failing to spark
My endless curiosity

I recall
Pressing a conch shell
On my delicate child ear
And listening intently to
The recorded echo of waves
And sometimes i thought I heard the calls
Of seagulls within the interior of
The shell
And I wondered if it was even possible
For the shell not to only have the sound of the waves imprinted within it
But the sounds of the animals that dwelled within and without as well

I used to be really spellbound by the concept of God and Jesus
And mother used to tell me that they both live in my heart,
And I was completely flabbergasted,
Because not only did they live in my heart,
But she told me they lived in everyone's heart
And I imagined a young bearded man
With long brown hair
Clothed in a robe and a purple sash
Just chilling in the interior of my heart,
Like he'd made a home out of my heart

Now, I'm not completely sure
How I feel about faith and God
Because there are so many options
I find myself asking:
Are they all true?
Can it be possible that only one religious path is the right way, and the rest are wrong?
Yet I feel like the more I seek,
Though my rational brain cannot
Come up with an explanation
The more I actually feel
Sought out and
Comforted by a God
That I yearn to know more about

Just the other day
A metaphysical ball of misery
Was lifted out of the pit of my stomach
When I cried out to God
Running through dense woods
Like out of a movie,
Only me and God
Me trying to run away,
Like always,
Because the pain of this world
Is too sharp
Sobbing,
Yet,
God is redeeming me.

I realized
I must have lost
My spark
Along the way.
It's time to rekindle
That spark
That resides in my heart

But how?
With my dreams so far off from me
Right beyond my reach?
But I must be brave
And get up on my feet
And reach over the abyss
Of my longing
To take hold of
And manifest my desires

Adulthood squashes ambitions
Under it's steel toed boot of expectation
It pushed my worn and bruised body down into the dirt
But my spirit didn't die
My mind and heart and body were exhausted
But I still clawed at the soil beneath me
Making a tunnel to my freedom
Through the inky darkness
Barely breathing, every cell of me parched
Clinging onto the very last thread of my life
That beat steadily and quitely
In my heart

I've finally
Emerged
Caked in dirt
This place is unfamiliar,
Foreign
But I like it,
It's new
There aren't many people here
So not very much pressure
There is a lot of vibrant green leaves
Rustling in the crisp air
The sun is bright and yellow
The sky,
Baby blue
I think I could stay here for awhile
Without much to do
I'll curl up next to this rock
And rekindle my dreams
To once again
Light the fire in my heart
That once roared when I was a child
I'll forget the world
Of arbitrary expectations and rules
And drift off into my dreams
While my eyes delightfully scan
The canopy of trees.

Cotton candy and
Pink carnations and
A pink wool baby blanket and
Our cheeks when
Our eyes meet
It's all pink, it's all
So sweet

I'm gonna talk to him
I tell myself everyday
And I never even give you a chance
'Cause when you're close, I run away
It's because I truly fear
That once we talk
All my pent up feelings and fantasies
Will be crystal clear
To you
And what if they scare you
And you run away
Thinking me odd
For my crush,
For me liking you so much?

Well,
It'll be different this time
Yea, I can talk to you,
Without letting you know
How really cool and awesome and
Different I think you are
I'll just say "hello"
And smile
And we'll talk
And become good friends
I'll soon forget all the times
I imagined marrying you
Because I'll be getting to know you,
And who knows,
Maybe you'll turn out to be so much better
Than the man I dreamt you up to be.

I saw a glimpse of you
A glimpse of me
Glimpsing at reality

And it was profound, you see
It was rounder than this sound
and it was prevalent and all around

The truth could not be extracted, compartmentalized
or sequestered
It could not be conquered or skewed
It just was, and that was the happy and sad news

I saw us in a dream
Looking surreal and serene
Looking into eyes inhibited
Secrets locked behind doors,
When would they be opened?

Time is awaiting it's appointment,
Soon.
Soon a glimpse will become a stare
And before you know it
What you once saw will not be there
And maybe you won't even care.

There are no boundaries
In the mind
Anything is conceivable
It's practically unbelievable
I create and destroy at my every whim
Like a pendulum, like a monstrous crane
I close my eyes,
And exist in an alternate reality, In my brain

Visual artist is not enough of a description
To define these visions
I see worlds I can create
With multitudes of mediums

What a profound blessing
And an irreversible curse
To feel and see and be so intensely
To be so deviant from the mediocre
Whose thoughts are like stale smoke
I see color, I see life
I see beauty, and the living struggling under
The weight of strife
But I get out easel and brush
Right when I've had enough
And I create my way back to sanity

Maybe it's merely a false happiness
That I aim to create
To stave off this disease of
Reality
That I hate.

You wanna heal,
Don’t you
But breaking the ingrained patterns of generations
Is hard
But you’ve grasped the idea
And now you just can’t let it go,
This notion that you could be stronger, healthier, more joyful— inviting all of life in through your senses
And just letting go
Of all the heavy burdens that have weighed you down for so long
You’ve spoken your burdens for years
But speaking never beget change
The change you ached for, the transformation you only theorized about
But what you didn’t know
Is that this idea of healing
Was a seed that was planted into your heart
And this kind of seed
Takes a long time to gestate
So even if you haven’t seen visible changes in yourself and in your life
Just know that the seed has cracked open
And is spreading deep roots,
Replacing the roots of your traumas
Your healing, when it is born and continues to grow in its visible manifestation
Will appear differently than how you imagined it
Yet you will be more overjoyed by its reality than by your limited fantasy of it
Your healing
Will be a revolution to yourself and to all those you have ties with
Some won’t understand your changes, neither will you at times
But just continue to listen to your heart, it’s simple, inviting song
And rest in all the beauty that is unfolding before you and within you.

I just wanna be me
Because that makes me happy

I wanna go down to the creek and dip my feet in water
Forget all the titles: Woman, sister, daughter

I'm gonna flash my pearly whites
And not worry if my joy is too bright

I'm gonna stride down the street with confidence
I'm going to accept and believe all the compliments

I'm putting doubt and fear to the side today
Because I just know, everything will be okay

I'm gonna be as carefree as the birds and the bees, the wind in the trees
I'm just gonna be me.

Boy meet girl,
Girl meets boy,
That's how it goes
With utmost certainty
She a beauty, that's for sure
And he's the one dazzling star
That fills up her sky
Their eyes meet
And in those swift seconds
It cannot be denied
That the love that flows between them
Is silent but ever so real

They take things slowly, a little too slow
Because they have both been burned before,
Deluded and parched from unrequited love
They share obvious smiles and subtles signs
Just to pass the time
Because they're both not quite ready to jump in,
Sometimes they worry if they're wasting their time,
But God reassures them that their patience will eventually culminate into the love they wish for,
The love they so dearly deserve

They have sweet dreams of each others smiling faces
It's the small things that start to matter most to them,
People ask: how can you know he likes you?
Maybe it's the curve of his smile that tells me,
The sparkle in his eyes,
Or the kindness that flows through him and touches my heart
Maybe it's in the way he says my name
Or how sometimes he just looks at me, for a split second,
Without words, looking like he's trying to say something but is rendered speechless
Or when he walks in the room and meets my eyes with his first,
Or how when he says goodbye to us friends he looks into my eyes and smiles...
And I smile back
It's just the little things, see?
We're not making out, fondling each other or whispering sweet and redundant nothings in each other's ears
We are reveling in the subtleties
Soaking in every little clue with such intense joy
Treasuring every small step towards our goal:
The true love our hearts long for.

The day is grey
Saturday drowns with rain
It matches my insides
It wets the earth so I don't have to cry.

I hide under covers and believe in lies
Just to keep the sparkle persisting in my eyes
And I'm human too
But I like to solve people like puzzles
Offer free compassion for the weary
But sometimes I feel depleted
When I call out for help, no one can hear me.

Step One: Rules do not apply to you. Neither does popular opinion.

Step Two: A type of fearless courage is your badge of honor

Step Three: Get used to the fact that you will not fit in with the majority of the people you meet

Step Four: Cleanse yourself of all previous programming and learn to think for yourself

Step Five: Live

Step Six: Be free

Step Seven: Let go of anything that imposes on your freedom

Step Seven: Live modestly and wisely. Don't attempt to make a public spectacle of yourself by adopting mainstream "rebel" trends like spiky multi colored hair. Rebellion isn't merely changing your appearance, it's a radical internal shift in which you decide to go in the opposite direction of mindless sheeple

Step Eight: Practice love and compassion. Shut your mouth once in awhile and listen. This way you can understand other people and their unique viewpoints

Step Nine: Believe in yourself. Because no one else will believe in you as much as you need

Step Ten: Live as an agent for God and your life of righteous rebellion will be for a good cause. You don't want to be a rebel without a cause now ;)

Two hands,
Holding my heart's contradiction
Two hands
Holding separate possibilities
Two hands
Pulling me a part

I once was so sure
I knew which way to go
And I knew who I was
But things changed suddenly
And change has changed my mind
To want another possibility

I'm at a fork in the road
Two paths in which I can travel down
Both equal from my point of view
But each will take me to two places that are worlds apart
Which one will I walk down?
Which life will I choose?
Which way is the path in which I will follow my heart?

I sit at the fork,
And hold my head in my hands
The sun is setting
And I am yet to come up with a plan
There's no way to know
Which of the two will make me happier,
So I'll sit right here,
Until the answer becomes clear.

Not everyone is a ******...

Not everyone is a ******...

Not everyone is a ******...

D on't assume

O thers intentions

U nless you want to get hurt, you

C an't have everyone like you and treat you well

H owever, you can set boundaries, so not

E veryone can clean their ***** shoes off on your heart.

Some people wake up every morning
Fill their mug with strong black coffee
And commute to work
At work they slave away for the dollar
That never seems to truly satisfy
The hungry greed growing within them

They once were children
Who said they would be
firemen,
teachers,
artists,
pirates,
astronauts,
authors,
innova­tors and world-changers
When they grew up

On Fridays after work
Sometimes these people
Go out for a drink
After a few beers
One of them opens up to the fellow
coworker they are sitting next to:
"Oh," they'd say
"I have dreams of sailing away
I can't wait for the day
That I am able to break free from
the monotony and mediocrity
and pursue my purpose,
and my dreams"

"What noble ambitions you have"
The fellow coworker will respond
"But what are your plans to make this so?"

The dreamer will answer
"I don't know
All I do know is
That most people
Stay stuck in conformity
And then there are some who
follow their dreams."

I'm the most negative person
I'm the most positive person
I'm the nicest, kindest, loveliest person
you'll ever meet
I'm the meanest, nastiest, cruelest of souls

I'm so skeptical
I'm so open hearted
I live my life with bounded feet
I dance to the beat of my own dream.

I am a conglomeration of contradictions
How the **** am I supposed to know who I am,
What my purpose is,
In which direction to follow
When my soul is both north and south
Light and dark
Love and evil

I have a tendency to
rely on magical thinking
To transcend
harsh realities

I must admit
I dream too much

I dream of spectacular wildflowers,
and loving with my whole heart
I dream of dancing on a full moon,
and embracing the unknown

I dream of both the impossible and
the possible
But to pursue the possible,
I would have to abandon my comfort zone

I am convinced
That if I were to live with integrity
And follow God's call
I would heal
And produce the fruits of God's Spirit

That will require
Turning away from distractions and sin,
To turn toward
A renewed life
Being reborn
And transformed
Into a new person

The question is:
Am I willing
To let go of this identity of mine
That I hold onto so tightly
But will be my demise?
Will I let go
To open myself up to
The reform God has for me?
Am I willing to trust?
Am I willing to let go and
Hand my life entirely over to God?

Instead of hiding and numbing
I decided to engage
Sure, it's scary,
intimidating,
Vulnerable
But I rather engage with my heart beating rapidly and vibrantly
Than sit back in the sidelines
Making opinionated observations
As an excuse not to engage
So bring the good times,
Bring the storms
I want everything
I come unarmed.

Maybe I'm just bored,
and you seemed like an escape

Bad boys always do
seem to be the portal
to access through
into dreams exhilirating

But bad boys have souls too
though they'd never admit it
Girls like me want to love them to gentleness
Sometimes we melt through the aloof exterior
and find chinks in his armor
But we find out inevitably
that he can't love you anyway
'Cause he doesn't love himself

Us good hearted girls
with wide open hearts
in deep need of healing,
Believe
"If I could love a wounded man like him
Maybe, one day,
Someone could possibly love me"

I guess I was just bored,
I guess I just wanted someone to kiss
I guess all my unconscious baggage
reemerged on the surface
when you came back into my life
I guess you made me question in some ways
the patterns I am hooked into
and how they make me not okay

But you're just a bad boy,
Though I see more
You've told me who you are
And even though I'm bored
I can't entertain chaos anymore
I don't wish to return to the fire,
Once again.

These moments in time
Snippets of the bewildering Divine
God makes me laugh and cry
He plays with my Consciousness all the time

Is this a Soul Mate dance?
One in which my heart is entranced
Of him I am a huge fan
And I simply can't cool down this desire for his romance

When I'm not thinking of him
I never see him
And yet,
when I have him on my mind once again
I see him everywhere
I say "It's not fair"
Or it's merely just meant to be
So baby let's stop playing,
and start getting used to You & Me

Fate is true
Destiny is real
How else could I explain
This phenomenon that is just un-real?
It baffles me
Makes me laugh
Makes me squeal
Gives me chills up and down my arms
This life is just too spectacular
And I love every moment of it!

I like creating
It's fascinating
Putting pen to paper
Putting paintbrush to canvas
My life is here today and gone tomorrow
And I have a deep need to express it

A silly song corrects all that is wrong
Shaking your hips can give you momentary bliss
Kiss your image in the mirror
And laugh with strangers
Live as much life as you can
And don't hold yourself back

Express yourself
Being who you are is something you will never regret.

The sun shows white across my golden shoulders
I lay in the field of oblivion,
Sweet wildflowers dance on either side of me
My eyes are sealed shut
Yet the sun's rays still try to touch my retinas
My eyelids translate the rays into the color white
Causing my mind to drip with the essence of blankness

Your scent is palpable and it thrusts me into a prison cell
Of my own creation
I cause my vision to blur
Because you sit in front of me
And I'm intoxicated because of your presence
I'm trying to retain any sense of inhibition I have left
Within my quaking mind,
I think you turn to say hello,
I see you're smiling from my peripheral vision
I look straight forward and
Walk away

Maybe you think I'm cold or callous or aloof
But the truth is I am burning up inside for you
And I just don't know any other way to contain within me
This wild passionate flame
For if I unleash it
It could start a fire
That would not be able to be controlled
It would burn what I have now
A figment of what could be

Sometimes when I see you,
I close my heart
Because you're so beautiful to behold
And the inside of my heart turns white,
It becomes stark and cold
To the point where love it cannot hold
But when I get home
my mind scolds my heart
For being so full of fear
To the point that in the face of prospective love
I wish to disappear.

Words fail to describe
My heart's lullaby
It sings a beautiful toon
That reaches all the way up to the moon

It's a promising song
One that reminds me to hold on and be strong
For many times I feel weak
But when I hear it I once again get up from my knees

I would be lying
If I went denying
My multitude of blessings spread through my years
Why did I waste so much time on fake friends and fake fears

What I've realized is right now I'm just Here
And I've learned to love being in my warm bed instead of backpacking
Those dreams may be accomplished later, or never at all...
All I can experience right now is Here...
And I choose to enjoy and revel in this very moment.

I pried open my subconscious mind
I simply couldn't function outside
I felt like a green alien that everyone avoided
And the government spied on
In hopes of catching me before I did anything distorted.

A few years back I popped this recreational pill that promised unending happiness for a night, but instead it brought me back to the experiences that  shaped me into who I am
The memories that are the very sources of my deep disturbance.

That was the beginning of my journey into my subconscious mind
It seems to me that my deep inward explorations have only brought on more pain and suffering
Because I realized what jerks my parents are.
I saw them attempt to change many times.
They always failed.
I got sick with the idea that I would never be able to escape this psychological torment.
And yet I journeyed even deeper into my mind.

In a visual well
I cracked open my skull
And all of these parasites scrambled forth in thousands
How long had they lived in there?
I found ghosts and I found demons
I found little people who claimed to be heathens
I found drought
I found evil
I found a daredevil who had no concept of death
But even deeper yet,
I found a single girl
Needing love, needing rest
A girl who tried in everything to do her best
And at times rebelled to get the attention she needed
But most of her acts for attention got her beat.
I few knocks to the noggin will surely do
So the terror-some memories become few.

Now I'm just focusing on healing these visceral contusions
Because I refuse to fail at change
This may take years,
This may take my whole entire life
But I will see positive continuous change all through my days
And maybe that will settle my internal craze
All through life I promise to do good through every phase.
I couldn't live with myself any other way.

I look into your blue stars
Shining and surrounded by lines of joy
Made by the wide smile on your face
Your eyes tell me more than your words ever could
Your eyes tell me how much you care.

Goodbye never felt so sweet
like yellow suns morphing into pink
Man, life is like a beautiful sunset
Or kissing someone you love
During the soft magical creamy light of the dawn

But I know, boy do I know
That sometimes life has those days
Where it seems like all the colors have been drained
From the flowers, from the birds, the grass, the sun
On days when you feel like the blistery night is
Most relatable
When the moon barely shines
When you feel like you tread this world alone
With tears streaming down from your eyes

But those days,
As deep down as they reach
Don't have a long trajectory
It's just, well,
I know that you are really strong
I mean, I know I don't know you
So you're shaking your head right now
And you're like,
"******* ******,
With your inspirational ****"
I mean, I know
Sometimes I overdo the sentimental

But I've been down in the pit too, okay
And some days I am just literally amazed
That I'm still living, breathing, existing
In this flesh body
I just didn't give up
Well, sometimes I didn't give up simply
Because I was too scared to hurt myself
But
I've learned so much,
I've grown so much
I'm different now
And I'm not sure if I'm happy about that or not
Or just, well, indifferent
But I am happy to be alive

I guess I'm just more spiritual now
I really liked Taoism when I learned about it
In summer school for ninth grade history
You just go with the flow
And see where life takes you
No journeys,
No destinations
You just lay back
And enjoy
Disconnect from the ratrace
Living from a place of infinite grace.

Blood is spewing between my teeth
Forming bubbles in the cracks
My eyes flipping back
And my hippocampus playing memories like a reel of grainy film
Playing in the back of my skull
This life has become the screen
And all I can see is the movie of my life repeating over and over again in front of me

These patterns never cease,
I've lied and said my pain had decreased
But it's all just a show,
To make myself appear stronger than I really am,
To hide the weakness under the armor
But it's my heart I can't contain
It's too powerful to be detained
It must be expressed
These feelings for you can't remain repressed
And all I can say is love is what I suggest
Between me and you
You'd improve me,
You've already taught me a thing or two

I once was a hypnotic fairy queen
Empress of intangible things
Emotions like fire were carefully hidden
I had hopeless men ravenously smitten
Now I've grown,
And I'm more like a queen of joy and the unknown
I like tinkering with spiritual concepts,
Trying them on for size,
Seeing in which ways these perspectives can open up my eyes

With age and experience
I'm sure of what I want,
What I need
The first time I saw you I couldn't breathe
The first time our eyes met,
I felt like I had known you before
How could it be so,
That I've not known you longer?
I am fond of you,
Your deep blue eyes make me wonder...

Configurations don't lead to conclusions
I have mashups of inklings
But it's all still confusing
Looking back at past relationships,
Well, I don't want to repeat those mistakes again,
But I think we have a good shot of having a happy ending,
And an even better beginning.

These days I don't look at the calendar,
These days I don't watch the clock
These days I don't have money,
But I'm alright,
Just doing me

These days I don't worry about no one but myself
These days I don't people please
I just walk forever,
Trying to get away from what's killing me

In December I left my job
I couldn't take the bullying anymore
I was sick of the minimum wage,
The sparse hours
No matter how much I tried my best,
My coworkers looked down on me,
I was the only one who wasn't a struggling single mother,
Maybe they were scared that I thought I was better than them

In December I would keep singing the song
I dreamed a dream from the Les Miserables soundtrack
I was so stuck
But then there was Christmas break
For three days
And I felt so free!
That I just knew I couldn't go back

But now I see it's the last day of June
I have no idea what I'm doing next
It's scary as hell
To be a blank canvas,
To be so aimless
What am I going to do with my life?
I wish a lightning bolt would strike me from heaven
And tell me what I'm supposed to be
It's been six months of doing nothing,
But within this intermission,
I feel myself healing...
Deeply.

I was down in the mire
My skin and clothing were drenched in a thick mold of watery earth
And right before I slipped down beneath the sodden dirt
My eyes involuntarily rolled up toward the sky and I saw a fire

Was this fire a visible symbol of everything I desired
Floating above my head
Before I am declared dead
Or was it a call from the Divine
The message of fire translating into: This life is not yours to take
This life is not yours to forsake
Fear is detrimental and must be banished from the impressionable body
When anger festers in the heart it is a cause of rotting
Shame brings great pain that lasts for years and causes unnecessary disdain from the outside
When all you really need is love.
How could you expect anyone to truly love you, when you aren't truly and hopelessly in love with yourself?

From the mire I arose
To get a closer look at this flamed rose
I hesitated in fear
What was creating this phenomenon?
Could I trust the source of this creation?
Many yards away I observed this fire that was inexplicable
And then it called me forward.

Each step I took inching forward I trembled
Now merely two feet away from the fire
I attempted to summon it,
but my vocal cords were ridiculously restricted due to an anxiety that engulfed me at the moment of witnessing the floating mass

The wise-sounding voice emitting from the fire cloud serenaded riddles and symbols
Prophecies and words that only ascertained partly uncovered truths
It befuddled me
But the beauty of it also spellbound me
It told me to follow it
And in no time I agreed.

The fire took me places where I never fathomed existed
I had stood inside because of my fears for years
I thought my imagination and hobbies and work would keep me entertained
But I grew so bored
And that is what led to me planning my end
But the fire showed me their is so much more to life than what I hold inside
And the longer you internalize and hide, the more bitter you grow
For everyone needs love
It's a biological requirement

Looking at the most beautiful thing on this earth
While sitting on a hill
A rainbow
Because no matter where you are, that promise is shared with all
No matter who you are
This visible promise made by God
His promise reminds me that He is always with me
And there is no reason to fear
When he is near.

You reckless sunflower child
Whipping wildly in the wind
Your fagrance is the essence to my soul
Your song is sung and I find myself on the moon
You're a fiery abyss of passion,
Living fervently on the sun's edge
You're an iridescent wave, bathing me in unconditional love
A butterfly bursting out of cocoon
Leaving the nest of certainty
Fly! Fly high and far away
Heaven's angels have been awaiting your departure from the familiar
You are free now, to rediscover who you are meant to be
Wild sunflower, uproot yourself
And fly along the breeze
You will seed the earth beneath you
A whole world of growth will come from this defeat
Just let go, and grab your wings and lose your feet.

I always gripped the steering wheel too firmly
Feeling blood coursing through my veins,
Vehemently
Calculating all the pitfalls
But it was too aggravating
So I let go of the wheel
And drove into the wildness of oblivion.

Happiness in a bottle cap
Where is my home?
Cause I'm never going back.

Bruised and bleeding knees
I stood still to befriend the bees
I stood as still as a tree

This mirror is fogged
But I can still see
The beautiful me
A halo of light surrounds my silhouette
My inner self I will never forget

I don't really care
About trends and fads
I am concerned with eyes and hands
Let's look each other's eyes
and reach out each other's hands
To support one another
To share love
To recognize the Oneness of everything.

Let's just do what we love to do
And forget the worries and anxieties that bog us down
Come on now,
Turn that frown upside down ;)

When, on days like this
It takes everything in me to stay
To remain,
With my feet planted on this decaying ground,
That's collapsing under me
I lift my heavy head toward a cloudy sky
and cry out silently: Why?

And on days like these
I know I will find a way in no way
To get out of here
Out of this stagnation and this fear
One day, I know
I will be out in a field
Where the air is so crisp,
And I will feel it against my singing lips,
Singing sweet songs of praise
For once again my sorry soul God will have raised.

On days like this the bleakness feels inescapable,
I wonder if I am in any degree capable
To rid myself of my hindrances
and set forward on the path that God has set before me
I can't lie to you
and tell you I am naturally brave,
for I am shaking at my knees,
So scared I am indeed
But I can't keep my feet planted in this deteriorating ground much longer,
For the dirt of this town breaks through my shoes and eats at my calloused soles
I need to find a way to stop the bleeding.  

Jesus showed me how to give up everything
for the will of our Father
It's so daunting to be called to this,
but something deep within me
tells me I must follow.

So what will I give up,
What will I sacrifice
to follow the call God has on my life?
My answer: everything.

Smiling masks dipped in gold
They slather glitter on their bodies so gross
They make idols of themselves
Having people bow down to
Their false identity
They're humans,
But everything on them is plastered
Everything for them is about
Efficiency, getting what they want faster
I guess you can say
That once what they really desired was love
But they realized love is one mess of a drug
So they constructed and hid behind
a mechanical identity
So all of humanity
Could worship the feigned perfection
of the false idols
That they wished to be.

Words,
I write these words,
I try to find meaning,
My place among the thorns
My eyes are filled with sadness
Lonliness is my heart's only song
I'll forever be a miser,
Forced to tread this world alone.

There was a time in my life
When I was beaten down, broken, lost
and left for dead.
All those who I thought were my friends
left me when I needed them most.
But before they left,
they blamed me for my suffering.
I was all alone,
abandoned and bleeding on the side of the road
I thought that this was it.
I thought I was taking my last dying breath.

But something happened.
A person I couldn't identify in my wounded state
picked me up off the hot asphalt
I lost consciousness in this stranger's arms
And when I came to
I was in a cabin
On a leather sofa
In front of a roaring fire.
The stranger came over to me
and offered me water.
When I took the glass from his hand
I saw there were round wounds on both of his hands
As my vision unclouded gradually
I noticed that his face had terrible welts
leading down to his neck.
"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned
He laughed endearingly
and said to me:
"Yes, dear. This is the price I paid for all of humanity."
I am confused yet intrigued,
and I ask him to expound on what he's said.
He looks into my eyes,
and there is a split moment in which I experience
this deep sense of recognition,
But my cognitive mind
is having trouble piecing together
these nebulous inklings.
He begins: "You are not alone in your experience
of being scorned, abused, abandoned and wrongly accused."
I look at him puzzled,
for he is merely a altruistic stranger
Who has quite literally saved my life.
But I begin to feel anxious,
wondering how he could possibly know so much about me.
He continues: "I too have experienced all this. I was sent to earth from Heaven by my Father to teach people what unconditional love really is. Since humans are marred by sin, they are incapable of expressing God's kind of love in its purest form. This is why my Father sent me. To embody this Love and liberate people with the Truth of this Love."
"But there were many who hated me for delivering Love and Truth to a dying world. I disrupted the status quo. All these people who had been seeking God religiously rejected God when he came to them in the flesh."
"This all culminated with one of my closest friends deceiving me and delivering me into the hands of my enemies. I was innocent, absolutely blameless, yet they found fault in my purity. They found fault in my refusal to bow down to and conform myself to their customs of *******. I see this spirit in you also. I see this unwillingness to conform and follow along mindlessly with everyone else. You are wise for this. But the world also hates you for exactly this reason."
Tears well up in my eyes,
And I can't keep myself from wailing.
No one has ever known me so well.
But this is a stranger.
I ask him: "Tell me, who are you? What is your name?"
He responds: "I am the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth.
I know your suffering intimately,
For I was wounded for your transgressions
I was bruised for your iniquities
So that by my stripes you are healed.
I was a blameless man
Who took on myself
The entire punishment of this fallen world
So that you, a wretched sinner,
Can become blameless in the eyes of God
and be set free
from the consequences of sin
which is death.
Though you've been abandoned and left for dead
By this fallen and corrupt world
Keep your focus entirely on God.
Laugh in the face of your every trial,
For what power do dire circumstances have over God?
God will supply you with
His joy, courage and love
in abundance,
Equipping you to spread the seeds
Of this revolutionary truth
about God's unconditional love
to a love-starved world.
Just as I have overcome death,
I have made you an overcomer as well.
Where there is an abundance of light
there can be no trace of darkess.
The darkness of this world
Was overcome by my light.
Chose to accept this legacy of light
and follow in my footsteps."