I want this life to read like an intricate novel. I don’t want to keep sitting at a computer all day while the romance of life slips through my arthritic fingers. They are meant to write beautiful prose that flow over our souls and cover them with golden warmth.

Yet they are tippy-tappy typing away at exhausting, unimaginative emails with signatures like “warmest regards” to cover how calloused my heart has become.

Sitting in this comfortable space behind a giant screen where nothing can hurt me is crippling.  We were meant to embrace the love this earth holds us in. We are supposed to bathe in rivers, meet strangers in different cities, and learn to fall. My knees should have scrapes, my elbows bruised from stumbles I take on dirt roads and motorbikes.

While my bones are intact, my life is what is breaking.

I, no I mean WE will not be defeated.
Now, hope might seem depleted
But I promise that at the end of the tunnel there is a light,
It might be small and barley in sight,
But it is there and it beckons for us to hold on,

Hold on to each other: our friends, our sisters, our brothers,
Because in a world full of hateful slurs,
Where name calling and bullying still occurs,
We need to see each other as more than just negative labels,
It is up to us to look into the eyes of hate and turn the tables,
You might look at that person different than you and call them names,
But all you do is lose sight of, that despite you trying to give them a new one, their name is James.

And James is a fricking genius. No he really is. He is solving high school math problems in the 3rd grade,
And that little James plays Behtoveen on the piano like it has never been played,
But you missed out on all his amazing talents and the best hug you will ever get,
Because you were too busy trying to impress your friends, not worried who you’d upset.  

It is time to learn there are a thousand better words than ******* or gay,
And most of y’all who use them don’t even know what they mean anyway,
So I will fight on to spread the word to end the word,
And no matter how many times they try and break us down,
I will never be deterred,
Because for the one’s I’ve known who are affected by this kind of speech,
For the kids I see every day, the students I teach,
I want them to live in the kind of place,
Where we give up hate and learn to embrace
So if you are with me, make the change today,
Buy a dictionary, find a better word to say.

She was the hardest love I ever held.

Constantly berating herself based on her fears,
The cruelty of others had guarded her heart from loving,
Lie by lie, brick by brick they built walls around her,
She hid behind the pain of past lovers and false friends,
Unwilling to trust again.

She was the hardest love I ever held.

I tried to demolish her walls that caged her in,
But as I tried to, she built them higher and heavier,
Until they tumbled into debris under their own weight,
And there she was. Scared. Beautiful. Innocent. Guilty.
Unwilling to trust herself.

She was the hardest love I ever held,
But I’ve held her every day I’ve lived.

I don’t know what I want but I want it real,
I want to be shaken inside until I feel,
How fast the earth spins while standing still,
How deep the ocean swallows the surface,
And if we really all have some sort of purpose,
Or are we all just floating specks in space,
Unrecognizable ants, each with a sad little face?
Stumbling. Bumbling. Dazed and confused,
Passion and vibrance so often diffused,
By the fear we will never get what we want,
I should have never read the small font.