Answer me, dammit!

God confuses me.

He won't answer my questions. I want to know what my purpose is. What my meaning is. How I might find the direction and the stability that I seek. I want to share my faith with people, but I feel like they won't understand. I just want to be around people who believe in God and will let me have that personal relationship without trying to force their other beliefs on me. It is as Milton said -- God is Love, the rest is dialogue. I just want someone to accept me and my faith with no questions, as I would accept theirs. Faith and God are so important to me. I just want to talk to Him and listen and understand. I suppose that's what we all want, but what none of us really have. It hurts me sometimes to think that after finding Him, I'm still seeking. I'm still looking for answers, and goddamn my logical mind, it will not accept dogma as the truth. My mind wants God to tell me the truth, but God won't speak, at least not in words that the intellect understands. My heart knows its own answers, but it is keeping them from me just as surely as the great Beyond. I can feel His peace, but I am no closer to intellectually comprehending what is in store for me than anyone else.

I'll just pray to be led down the right path once again. Hopefully this time the right path will be easier to keep to.

Don't Kill This Rose

Don't kill this rose for me,
For it will never smell as sweet
as a love that never was,
and a bloom that will never be.
Don't force the tattered petals
To wilt slowly and decay;
This is beauty-preserved incarnate,
Far longer lasting than love's sway.
For this rose will repeat forever
If it is allowed the chance to grow --
Unlike a love that never was,
Or a bloom we'll never know.

-----------------

You know you're going insane when you start laughing at witty jokes in Milton's essays. "And must tradition then ever thus to the world's end be the perpetual cankerworm to eat out God's commandments?" Lol Milton I love you.

Byrem -- Colored, pretty much finished

So because of the sudden really heavy onset of homework and whatnot, I've had to speed up the "final detail" part of this portrait. I think it looks fine the way it is, I wanted to add more to the cloak and play with the hair longer, but I just don't have time. So this is the pretty much finished version. Enjoy!

Example

Coloring Progress

Those horns are EVIL. EEEEEVIL. DIEEEEE.

Finally got the skin looking less... transparent, I suppose. Cape still needs some work, and the hair, and the crown... but the horns are finally looking halfway decent. FINALLY.

The Culmination of Dreams

We are the culmination of dreams;
of burning stakes,
of Hemlock.
Tattered papers
written by quivering hands
in molten candlelight.
We are the diction
with which they wrote;
the secrets they hid and died for,
their fallen hope.
We are every voice that ever shouted,
all the fire that they spoke.
We are their cry to the far future,
their hearts embodied,
their visions defined.
We are the message that they carried,
and the dreams they left behind.


-------------------

Everything that society is today was planted by the mind of a philosopher, dreamer, or inventor -- but all of them writers.

This is all that we are.

Think about it.

Common Heart / My New Hat

So my face is like red and nasty and I'm pretty sure a bear ravaged my hair and that's how it got like that (or conceivably I didn't brush it), but this is my new hat! It says "airborne" on it. I know it's a stupid army thing, but I mean, come on... "airborne." Like I'm flying. Like I'll never touch the ground.

And now for my latest poem:

Common Heart

We didn't understand the words

so we learned to recognize the sounds.
Hanging on each syllable,
each movement and glance.
It became like music,
Tingling over the skin,
teaching the body to
ancitipate.
Enunciate.
We tensed with the oooohs,
quivered with the aaaahs;
We connected through murmurs and assonance.


No common tongue,
But a common heart.

So the person who ordered this art said that the horns were part of a crown. So... crown much?

Alright, so there's still something wrong with the lighting in this... I want him to look like he's about to lean his head against a wall, or like his shadow is really close to him, but I think in that case the left shoulder should be darker...? (His left shoulder.) I have no clue, I think I've been staring at this piece too long.

I'm happy with the horns though, finally... after redoing them like three times, yeesh....

I'm not ready to grow up!

Just playing with my phone, I like this photo....

So weird, turning twenty next month. I've been thinking a lot about this birthday. I know everyone always focuses on 21, but 20 is a crazy age to be... two decades, no longer a child, no longer a teenager. It's intimidating, thinking of all the things that will be expected of me in the next few years. Moving out, finishing my bachelors, getting my first "real" career oriented job. I feel behind. I feel like I'm not good enough, like I'm not ready yet. Like I'll never be ready. It's nerve-wracking.

I kinda just want to go back to being 18, you know? Still just a kid, nobody expects much from you, nobody's watching what you do with your life. At 18, I wasn't any different than I am today, I even weighed the same... though I have gained and lost weight in between. I still complain about the same old things, I still have the fashion sense of a polar bear, I still like plaid shirts, floppy pants and green tea. I don't remember what 19 was like for me at all. I feel like I missed a year, somewhere between making my bed and finishing with community college.

I have a few things to promise myself this new year. For the first year of a new decade, I am going to be happy with who I am, how I look, and the things I like. I'm going to pursue writing and expand my social life. I'm going to put every ounce of effort into being the 'Tess' I know I can be. I'm going to be happy. Yep, that's my goal. I'm going to accomplish everything it is I have to do in order to be happy.

Hazzah!

I have five GIANT spider bites on my arm and two on my leg! THEY ITCH SOOOO BAAAAAAAAD...... *starts crying*

Dream from Sandman

Some random characters from my book.

And now, just for funzies:

Dream from Sandman
Because you KNOW you want to sex him!

My next big challenge will be to start practicing landscapes and architecture. I favor portraits and drawing figures far too much... ugh, self-teaching is a pain.

Some Art

Figured I'd post some art up on this blog, not that anyone reads it anyway.

Here's a "progress" thingy I did. Pretty much I sketch everything in photoshop since scanning and lineart is way too big a pain in the butt. Then I flesh it out in black and white, and finally the last step I put a layer on overlay and more or less paint all the colors. Then I put a layer on normal over that and add in the details. I have a long way to go, but I think I like this method much better than my other ones.

And here is a short baby poem, to fulfill my "poem a day" need:

He had longer strides
So walked faster,
Went farther,
But I had the greater heart,
I lived deeper,
Laughed harder.

He was keen of mind,
So learned quicker,
Spoke sooner.
But I was keen of eyes,
I looked closer
And knew more.

Forsaken Things

In shallow breaths
We learned to speak.
Through bitten lips
We learned to lie.
It was all Frostbite and Bittersweet,
The love as fleeting as it was shy.

That's all we had
were bitten lips,
And shallow breaths,
Spent on words.
Wasted when we could have kissed,
Coveted when we could have burned.

And now those words
Are lost again,
Splintered upon
Such broken wings.
We fade again to Bittersweet.
Such memories of forsaken things.

Smaller Places

Smaller Places

I seek the smaller places,
The older ways,
The quiet whispers.

I seek the narrow streets,
The crooked fences,
and garden weeds.

I seek the rusty tires,
The clasped hands
And downcast eyes.

I seek the empty roads,
The chipped sidewalks
And pale skies.

I seek the older heartaches
With familiar pain
And closed-up wounds.

I seek the smaller places,
The unbound hearts -
The open rooms.