The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, some of which include: chips of cloven hooves, beating in rhythm with a grand conqueror on high, brethren united in one charge; sweat of a migrant, summertime rain cooling between his shoulder blades, stones callusing fingers; blood of one and many terracotta men, giving their lives for God and king; new silk chewed up by moths; jade and chrysanthemum, a nobleman’s wife’s treasury; sun and wind, a flood, grace of a new emperor - my life, reaching backwards into pockets of rice fields, scholars’ tables, great-grandmother’s childhood castle, everything I know.

if you feel like

you’ve hit a wall,

remember,

you’re strong enough to break it.

and when you do,

you’ll see

multiple paths

ahead of you

waiting

to be discovered.

My walls are higher than I thought and I
                                    am not so sure
                                           that they will
                                                   actually come
                                                                  down this
                                                                              time.

The woman in the window
  Looks out beyond the glass
Beyond the reach of her whispers
  Befogged upon windowpanes glance

Farther  than  the  bounds
  Her own breathe imbues
Out of reach her long fingered touch
  Tracing her murmurs on looking glass dew
Grasping for the shadowed artifacts
  Only time does nonchalantly drift past

Perched alone upon a cloud of silence
  Her thoughts eddy in soundless swirl
Spinning like dizzying shadows
  Swallowed by a thirst for light

The other side of window beckons
  Only she knows she’s looking out through a sigh;
Seeing no one familiar looking back ―  
  For what hidden jewels within abide

She dreams of dancing leafless by daylight
  Twirling beneath the whispering willows sway
Just a step away from being free
  Just a step away from feeling alive

With first step beyond imprisoning hesitation
  Crossing over the threshold of a dream
Through a liberating portal outside the glass
  Just on the other side of the windowsill ...


                  Jesse e Stillwater

you’ve stripped me
of the walls i spent so long
building so high
and so wide
so that no one could enter after the last
and now i have destroyed the;
to be held by you