You are absolutely beautiful--
Immersed within  this magical-Unfolding
as music  mates to words
Fingers, strumming now

Now finding their perfect placement

     ..On the keyboards
     of her newfound freedom
     A beautiful spirit   now returning
     to a once-little body,   beaten

     for being her beautiful spirit's  home.
     Now with headphones  on ears
     there is a  restoration

     of years and years and years,  
          locust-eaten

...Of those years, and years, and years.
                   .      .      .

Tell me about pure Joy, churches..
the nice cars in your parkinglot,  
    aint showing

The look on her face, while untethered

     tells me everything
     You can only dream of
      ever knowing.

This is true Church--
This beautiful  Sunday-mornin' glowing
This spirit-infused flesh

A perfection of music
momentarily, flowing.

From hidden cloud
her flesh-infused  spirit
is my one chance
at pure Joy, knowing..

My love  for her,
continually-growing..

     In heart,
     tarred-n-feathered..


     In Art,  all  hers
     I  am  become

       Untethered.

She is shaking,
fingers on keyboards, trembling

A confined spirit..
               now  untethering

You are absolutely beautiful--
Immersed within  this magical-Unfolding
as music  mates to words
Fingers, strumming now

Now finding their perfect placement

     ..On the keyboards
     of her newfound freedom
     A beautiful spirit   now returning
     to a once-little body,   beaten

     for being her beautiful spirit's  home.
     Now with headphones  on ears
     there is a  restoration

     of years and years and years,  
          locust-eaten

...Of those years, and years, and years.
                   .      .      .

Tell me about pure Joy, churches..
the nice cars in your parkinglot,  
    aint showing

The look on her face, while untethered

     tells me everything
     You can only dream of 
      ever knowing.

This is true Church--
This beautiful  Sunday-mornin' glowing
This spirit-infused flesh

A perfection of music
momentarily, flowing.

From hidden cloud
her flesh-infused  spirit
is my one chance
at pure Joy, knowing..

My love  for her,
continually-growing..

     In heart,
     tarred-n-feathered..


     In Art,  all  hers
     I  am  become

       Untethered.

my sister was like a music box,
gentle and pristine
I made her rugged
her walk and her talks

I opened my skin
exposing my mind
and I fear her gears cannot be rewind

her perfect clockwork now intertwined
with coils of my past

I have failed as eldest
it should not be her burden
to carry trauma I've amassed

There is the core of who it is that you are..
inside of you,  my beautiful ανάσταση

                           and it will never, ever leave you.

When we are hurt real bad..  and in such unjust ways,
we can sometimes lose ourselves--

                                          from ourselves..

But that part of us will never  not
                           want to be found.

We become afraid because the pain from the hurt
has been so bad.

There is a central part of you  that has been protected  
from every bit of that harm--

                                      that is the core  
                of  who  it  is  that  you  are.

    I­n its utter and magnificent beauty,
    it is wholly  unable to be corrupted
              by this less than loving world..

And in it's perfect ability  to see,

       it will always let you be the chosen one
                                                     to find it.


This is the picture painted,

             of you,
                finding you.

   The killer
came crashing down
smashing,  thrashing through.

What is tender's  tender
       so  for itself,   to do?

        --As it runs
        right over the top of her..

       This taker.
       This killer.

In the black,  
now in between;
so lightless and thick..

        blotting out  all screams.
There is an annihilation  here.
A void.

A terror.
To stay, means certain death

      but to leave  
      also means certain death
      So the  d is m e m b e r men t   begins
      as she is ripped, completely into half

And those halves,  into half..

.. into half

--into half..
        into half.

     And still it tears.. rips..  shreds--
Until all,  in between
is nothing  but black.

A black it can now  pretend to fill
with all of its empty promises..

and all of its counterfeit, everything.

..And then--  just up and leaves
once it is fully satiated.
     And for a while..
     the black had something.


Clinging to the rocky crags
on either side of the unlit valley
are now  the pieces of her--
war-torn and shuddering.

Terrified

Of the black, black   empty.


Of what is now  fully
     and  completely   dark.

      ~       ~      ~       ~


Timmy  ain't real tall
but look at his stature,
as his majestic strings   dialogue
the introduction.

And Warren's gotten so fat
See him now, looking so dearly,  back
at his half-pint of Chunky Monkey--
picking it back up,  for the fourth time..
scraping... scraping.. scraping..

But watch his eyes  light up
as Timmy looks up--
  over the top
of those wild-man RayBans

And with a gentle nod,  it all begins..


-- as our Warren  now digs  deep
into his Gibson's beautifully-wanton  ways..

    identifying.


    clarifying.


­    Rectifying.


Clarence, the Magician..
Stephan--  Humble, Unparalleled
And Dave's  so chill
he's part Creole.. I just know it.

So great a cloud of witness:
surrounding you, my beautiful..

coaxing  you.

    Identifying it all for you.

Hey kid..

Vulnerability is your access in to what is real,
though  as you know..
not always is it safe to do or be,  in this world..
in fact, there are those who will,  or have..
shown you over and over again,  
that vulnerability of heart with them
will get your sweet little *** slapped down into the dirt..
over and over again..
(as if you did not already know, firsthand).

There are many reasons those people behave that way,
and every single one of them  deal with hurt..  
and hope (when they still had it),  being unfairly
and unkindly stifled back inside of them.  
In hating  and then stomping all over your vulnerability,
they are in truth, hating their own..  
and rightfully so, for what they had to endure..

but until they want to see and change,
they will be the death of you..  
   or at least the death of your awakening heart.


But there are those who thrive on vulnerability
because they have learned to believe  once again..
in the word, Hope..  and when vulnerability  of another
comes towards them,  they cannot help but celebrate it
from the place inside of them  that is overwhelmingly grateful
     that it still exists.

.. When you open up that way, I want to kiss you deeply.

In truth, all vulnerability and authenticity at that level
should always be met with the deepest of kisses.
You have the right idea..  but sometimes with the wrong people.
You've been nearly trampled to death in the process--
starting at such a tremendously tender, young age.

It makes a person edgy..
(and if  extremely brilliant,  in that gorgeous brain of yours..)..  
ya, kid.. sarcastic AF.

That's where you get hurt.
That is where you hurt yourself.
At times when the emotional **** hits the fan,
and everything starts feeling like its all going wrong..
that gorgeous brain separates itself  from that beautiful heart..
making it feel as if it has gone dark..
and then that brain..  thinking that it has been left to its own
survival resources,   turns 'mean' ..
in its own perceived abandonment by the heart.

At those moments, you feel  the horrendously-black
and empty, loss of self..

That is when it all starts compounding, quantitatively
No one understands, and so when you  actually
are needing it the most,
Grace  through understanding, in an instant  gives way
to judgment and ridicule by others..  causing you by necessity,
to retreat further back into yourself..
relying on more and more  of the one time, necessary (when little)
but now so relationally-damaging,  survival skills.

Beautiful girl with beautiful heart  and amazing mind,  
becomes fragmented..   compounded by her own  
now nearly out of control,  age-old tactics and behaviors...

And those that do not understand,  stand back and paint
(and allow to have painted) a view of you..  that in truth,
truly is not you..

but is only self-protection/survival-mode,
but on steroids--

Beautiful heart,  implodes..  
within the loss of its much-needed,  beautiful self.
Brilliant mind goes into hyper-drive,
now left alone to its own, survival-resources--
Hacking it out in the ******-up wilderness,  without  
its much trusted and needed,  Compadre..
     that Beautiful, beautiful heart.

You are not that person, Babe.
You are the owner and possessor of two extremely-gifted organs--
both placed into you  to be in full relationship with each other.
That is who you are.

When they are fragmented  and torn from one-another,
that is not truly the true, you.  But since they are both yours,
you are in the strongest essence, accountable.
Somewhere within all of that,  
guilt and self-condemnation kick in..
and literally beat the living **** out of you.
That brain of yours, Babe..  it is beautifully-brilliant
and also quite the *******.  
You are not "mean".
You are not "unkind"   or "unloving"
(though, in essence-- at those times, you are)

No..

..You are temporarily detached..   fragmented--
separated from what it is that you so desperately
need the most---    y  o  u.
.. But your own guilt and self-judgment
slap the **** out of yourself
almost as hard (sometimes harder)
than the one who is now pointing their finger at you..

                                                       in all of their hurt.

All you need, is Understanding.
Love cares enough to want to give you that.
Love cares enough to want to take care of its own story

so it can better see and understand
how to help you with yours.


     That is what you need. That is what you deserve.
     That is the kind of love you are worthy of.


You are everything beautiful that I have been saying that you are.
Within your at times,  own Great Divide..
the blackness between the two parts of you  that you need most,
completely blocks out  your own, much-needed view of you.

I see the picture, my Beautiful..
I have a right to speak to you this way.
You took my breath away, right from the get-go.

       The only way I could get even
       was by looking directly at you.

It is your talking and opening up that did it.
What you so often and so rightfully need to run from,
is the very thing that is actually,  most saving you.
To be "seen" is to be understood..
if the one doing the looking
    is doing it for all the right reasons.

       No one has ever understood.
       That is where you get hurt.

And  in the aloneness within it all,
is where you hurt yourself the most.


       Mm.
       This party is far from over, Babe..
       Far from it, beautiful girl.
       ..And so it is with Magic.


       You are beautiful, beyond words.
       ❤️️

Sadly true,  and difficult.. all of it..
but you are the defiant-one--

Your greatest act of defiance
is to love deeply, the very one
that she so excelled at
in nearly completely dismembering.

We who care about you,  cringe
at the thought of you even remotely
agreeing with the horrendous
message  that she put into you.
No one that cares about you
agrees with that message..
including you.

She did her job well, gorgeous..
you are split almost  into
two separate people--
the you who agrees with her
because of the guilt and shame
she put on you,  
for going against her self-centered  
view of the world
(and the all too vulnerable, little you)

But there is another part of you  
that thrives through creativity..
almost as an advocate/encourager
of the misfits.. the downtrodden.

You are in essence, a comforter
of your own,  broken  

and dismembered self.

In time..

You will learn to forgive yourself..
for  all  the reasons  why
  you think you need
  to forgive yourself.

The blame,  and shame
placed in to you
was done  in the most  
horrendously unfair way..
when you were  at  such a
tenderly-young,  
and impressionable age.

It  was  your  v u l n e r a b i l i ty
that was so horribly cashed in on.
The greatest horror of all
was the shame and blame
that you were forced  to carry..

as if it was your own doing..


   It    Was    Not.

That which is of the heart,  capable
of making its stand  in the world
  calling "good", that which it sees  as good..
and then bleeding  from the inside
on its behalf;

  This beautiful Art..

This magnificent creature
This one who  is capable
of raising from the dead
    That, which has fallen:

In to despair
In to the Blackness of the pit--

  An un-supported suffering
  An Un-loved, grieving
A fallen-one
falling between the cracks

--Until,  with a Kiss
and a hand-chosen
prairieflower,  gifted--
Bringing,  back to life
all things..  once, dead

in the heart of a little boy
in the heart of a little boy..