I don’t need to be saved.
I can save myself,
I do it every day.
It is essential that I leave
The wanderlust is fogging up my eyes
and I’m starting to see the cloud that hangs around this town
It’s not the town, I love these mountains
It’s what four walls can hold when hearts escape
Occasional hikes aren’t working
I can’t be motivated by weekend parties
I demand nothing less than wildness
Simplicity, and my home back
I hope you never feel the heartache of losing your home
It was ripped away too soon, when I finally found where I belong
I was taken back to pristine houses that can’t hold dust
When I used to have a cabin that wore its dirt like a diamond necklace
Home will always be you.
Where ice was a friend whose crunches carried under my boots walking to breakfast
When there was nothing better than mashed potatoes we stuffed in tortillas and called tacos
My heart aches to hear bird songs again.
I would give every penny I have to live like that.

i accused you
of clinging on to the remains
of a girl since passed
but now i find my fingers wrapped tight around your cold hands
and your eyes
once a million shades of green
are now reminiscent of grey
and they haven't met mine in months

my hope no longer breathes
no longer lives
no longer loves
no longer tells me it's mine under bridges downtown
my hope has been reduced to a slip of paper
a magazine cutout
on a collage on my bedroom wall

There are many things I cannot speak aloud, but writing about my fears, anxiety, and sadness seem to bring me closer to them. Seeing them on paper somehow makes them more real. I don't know why that is. When something troubles me, I seem to bury my words in a hole and cover them. My emotions are too strong and highly strung for me to word them sufficiently at a moment’s notice. My brain is not equipped to process the instantaneous rawness I feel. Wonder what is wrong with me and I will be unable to tell you, my mouth will remain silent. Even though my mind is screaming at me, my tongue will cease to work. I'm unable to voice my thoughts, unsure of the purpose. But writing, seeing my thoughts on paper, allows me to voice my opinions and insecurities with confidence and with purpose.

I have always been private about my grief and my feelings because I did not want to show I was weak. It is a force of habit to keep secrets, a habit I developed long, long ago. I was never one to trust easily, I never let my guard down. I was not always silent, but no one heard me. There was a time when I was a child crying and needing my mother's attention, but I never had the courage to ask for it. I never got to the point where I felt I had the right to ask. The same holds true of me now.

But through my writing I can guide through the rooms of my past. And I can allow you to see the shame and embarrassment on my face as we step around the images of the memories best forgotten. I can pick up the harsh old photo albums full of black and white pictures, faces you have yet to see, words you have yet to hear, memories I have yet to remember. I need help prying open the leather bound covers, seizing together stubbornly, trapping the faces of people and the images of times I try to forget. The photos reveal my family, everyday achievements, insane images that make me recoil, morbid times that fill my eyes with tears.

And as I continue to write my thoughts, I hover at the shrine of those in my life, their own set of memory albums and images project through me. I recount their loss, their story, and salty tears swim down my cheeks. Tears of sorrow and rejection tears of pain and suffering. I sometimes feel my hands tense, my muscles go rigid, I sob in self-pity but then smile remembering that they are just that- memories, never to be relived. At times the air is thick with raw emotion, vulnerability on the highest level.

I don't count myself lucky for all that I have lived and seen. At times I feel all rationality and normalcy slip through my fingers like sand pouring through each digit; the air thick with uncertainty and indecisiveness. And yet, the grass still grows, and the sky is still blue. My words still have meaning and beauty still exists. But my silence overwhelms me, forming words no longer achievable. I should be able to walk away, but the fear of not knowing what may be waiting for me is too much.

As I walk along this road, curves and crossroads slow me down and thoughts of past experiences flash before me, panic settling into my chest. I try to live for today but what about tomorrow? How can I stand tall enough to see the future when the barricades of yesterday haunt me into submission? I step forward, my mind temporarily strong, until the point when the nightmares of the past wash me in dread and nauseating self-doubts. The past creeps up behind me, its cold breathe breathing down my neck, paralyzing me. Occasionally I feel someone grab me and guide me, the grip of their fingers giving me strength and certainty. And spirits are lifted to see beyond my past, and I know where my road leads.

Someone once told me life is about faith and second chances. I believe that. And so I try to keep my eyes focused on the sky so I can see the sun when the clouds separate. Then the torrential rain of my inner turmoil will stop and it will cease to drench me in pain, and I will be dried in a towel of contentment.

Someday......

Friends, family, foes, and those of woe,
I invite you to dance this delicate tango with me,
right on the line of reality and fantasy.
It is here, that,
I invite you to the mad tea party.

Now, let us get one or two,
three or four,
maybe ten, one hundred, zero things straight,
you are not to be late to the mad tea party,
you are to set your time straight and do not stray,
but rather show up without delay at the time that serves your mental estate,
at a time that feels right with your bones,
now, now don't miss that time and don't be late.
We are of strict dress code here at the mad tea party.
You are not to wear what you saw on him and she and her and we unless it is of,
suitable expression to your situation,
you are to dress accordingly with your mentality,
nothing else will pass the test.
You are to act accordingly.
Do not laugh when not appropriate, and sit up straight when your spine tells you.
Do not speak when your mind is forced to be spoken.
Now, have we all straight.

I cordially invite you to the mad tea party.
Where we dine and wine and tell tales of time,
and rejoice on the words those delicately spoke,
and dance on the lines theatrically strewn across the room,
and sail across every last tale from you and he and yeah her over there too.
I invite you to the mad tea party.

I invite you tell of when you first saw the earth breath,
when the trees and the leaves set to dancing,
when you first heard the wind laugh at your grin,
and when the raindrops ran fearfully from the erupting sky.
I demand of you to tell nothing but that of truth,
and watch as the molecules in the air take to vibrating.
Take notice to musical clinking of the entities amidst you,
and take pride in the gentle stride of the clouds overhead.
Did you notice the flowers laughing at you,
in between the birth, death and rebirth in accordance with the sun?
Did you notice the flowers pull in their petals as they shyed from your step?
Take notice to the music and laughter around you at the mad tea party,
take great care with the feelings floating about the air, vulnerably buzzing from mind to mind,
before their decline and descent to rest their heads.


You see, it is here at the great mad tea party,
that we do not devoid you of the ability to do as your energy demands,
with the issues of time and dress and proper behavior.
It is here that we tend to focus on the earth and the breathing of the molecules and atoms  around you,
it is here that we go mad.
and it is here that I cordially invite you,
but before you make your reservation, please eliminate all hesitation.
You see the mad tea party is not readily accepted,
by the constraints of society and the binds of reality.
You see the mad tea party is misconstrued by masses more than just a few.
Those who long buried their soul look down on the guests,
for they are different than the rest, in that, they're welcoming,
into their soul the ability to go mad which is taught to be bad.
So before you make your reservation be inexplicably sure,
that you are in fact,
ready, for the mad tea party.

I have always loved the way the grass rippled in the wind
And the way the moon shone brightly on the world.

I have always loved the sunny days
And those cold nights by the fire.

I have always loved the hum of the bees
And how the imagination changes shadows into figures.

I have always loved the birds chirping in the morning
And the beautiful silence of night.

I will always love the beach and the sunset
I will always love the forest and the sheep
I will always love nature.