once these deeds were beauty,
your words love,
now without light,
polluted you wander,
disgusting with shame on your shoulders.

You changed
it's almost like
you never had wings

I think about your old haircut and
I miss muddy torn up shoes;
scuffed canvas, stained laces.
The tote-bag with a badge patchwork
forgotten in your house, now an identically
rigid, faux-leather
handbag. Homogeneous.

Your eyes narrow when I laugh too
hard, at something we used to like. You
wince and turn away,
behind your freshly highlighted hair.
You cut off the last of the
colour you'd begged for. You tell
me you never cared for the
things we used to love, so
I shut my mouth
and grapple with your change.

I wrote you a letter, handwritten and
hand folded, in tea-stained paper
and ****** red ink,
my heart displayed for you. You pinned it
up against your mirror. Sun bleached
and binned. The text message you
returned to me deleted itself last year.

I think about the rips in your tights
and the dirt under your fingernails
and search;
but find manicured perfection masking
any remains. I paint my nails and
mourn the friendship
we had, while you sit down and smile
beside me each morning.
You've polished your gemstones
into mirrors.

Why are you so desperate to ****
the girls we used to be?

Today I took
The long way home
Added a few extra miles
To my beat up VW while
Listening to some oldies
And watching the sun rays
Gently finding their way
Through the trees before
Fading in the horizon

Today I took
The time to see past the
Darkness I was plunged in
To appreciate there's beauty
In the perpetual changes of life
For most things might never
Be as they once were
But what matters
Will remain...

Waking up every day of my life, pushing the pain way down low.
Trying to chip out the tiniest of smiles, just enough so it will show.

Feeling hopeless, future now gone, missing the things that give joy.
Wishing that I, could find this great man, that grew from inside of this boy.

The sadness inside me and loss that I felt, jabbing and stabbing my heart.
Hoping each day, that I die in some way, that will reset all life from the start.

Blinded from seeing the tools all around, ones that could help me along.
Digging myself out of messes I made, required the need to be strong.  

Years have flown by, all those feelings now gone, no longer do I wish to be dead.
The pain and struggles that were deep inside me, have quit being stuck in my head.

Now it's ideas and people I love, to think about when I'm awake.
Since I've let go of the hurt left inside, the rest of this life is just cake.

At one time
I would scour the skies
looking for the moon, the stars
and some odd galaxy

But now, distant as I am
And wont to hide
I wonder if they scour the earth
And look for me

Does your heart still feel like it did in August, a time when every word trembled with the weight of goodbye? When your tears fell like a relentless storm, and every poem you wrote ached with the words you couldn’t speak aloud. Do those words still linger in your heart, etched deeply, or have they begun to fade? Do you still hold me close in your thoughts, or has your grip loosened, like sand slipping through your fingers? Do you still ache for me in my absence, the way you once did when the thought of being apart was unbearable? I’ve read every poem you poured your heart into, each one pulsing with a love so fierce it refused to let go, even when the cracks in our love threatened to break us. Even goodbyes felt incomplete, as if our bond couldn’t truly be severed. But now, I’m left wondering, has time softened your love? Does the thought of me still burn as brightly in your chest, or have the flames dimmed, the fire fading to embers? Has your love for me grown or faltered? I find myself asking: Does your heart still feel like it did in August? Do you still love me with that same depth and intensity?

things go missing,
lost somewhere between
then and now.
and the rest is history,
and all that you can do is try
to outrun the rising tide.
oh, to be carried away,
to be buried in your own garden.
if you cling to the things
you can't change,
that's the first mistake.
but the rest is already swallowed,
swept by the rising tide.
things go missing,
lost somewhere between
you and i,
reshaping history,
rewriting time
all the time.

I don't know how many people have been in love; I mean truly, madly, deeply, hopelessly in love. I thought I was once. When you are that in love it changes you inside and out. It changes how you think, act, and what you say. It changes the way you feel, how you look at things, how you spend your time and money. Being in love changes you, usually for the better. Love forces us to think of someone else's wants and needs before our own. We make sacrifices in big and small ways to make the relationship work. It is a give and take, talking and listening and it is open and honest communication. A relationship is a dialogue not a monologue.

Loving someone changes a lot, but loving God and being in a relationship with Him changes EVERYTHING.

Working from the belief that you believe in the stories; you can't stay the same. You can't truly live your old life when you know The Life. The apostles were the perfect example. They weren't great men, particularly smart or famous, but when they saw Jesus, they dropped what they were doing and followed him. Then imagine the Transfiguration and the impact that that moment had on the apostles. This was the transforming love of God made manifest: He was radiant like honest-to-God glowing. It hits like a ton of bricks if you begin to understand the magnitude and the scope of His death and resurrection. How can one heart love that much?! And this fact is especially hard given the knowledge and experiences we have in the world we know today!

And then the most intimate and profound act of love is the gift of the Eucharist which comes from the words meaning grateful, thanksgiving, well and offer graciously. Kharis is the Greek word for Grace.

Catholics believe that the bread and wine at the mass are transformed in essence although not necessarily in substance to the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the reception of the Eucharist, God's ultimate gift of love is revealed and shared with us as he gives us his very life. And we consume him in a profoundly physical and spiritual way. We are literally uniting with Christ and the two become one in body and soul. It is the most perfect expression of love's life-giving power. Christ marries (joins) himself to us.

When you have something so good, so amazing, you can't keep it to yourself. You just have to share it and tell all the world about it. You are in love, and you are loved. You are loved by God and THIS... CHANGES EVERYTHING!