Sunday, September 27, 2009

Trying to get it out....

No really....

now who the fuck am I supposed to be?

How am I supposed to move forward with all this shit in my life? This is a 180 degree change that is throwing me all out of balance. I don't know what to do with myself anymore. It's so easy to lose hope at the slightest rejection. I really have no point to living... I know it sucks, and I know it sounds like a dumb drama thing to say, but I really do feel like that. My whole life revolved around my dad. I was even considering moving to WA just to be with him because I didn't want to waste one second that we had together. Everything I accomplished, it wasn't really an accomplishment unless Dad approved; it wasn't really special unless I knew he was proud of me; that was my greatest reward, seeing him smile and share things with me, having our deep conversations, talking about life and philosophy and my writing... I wanted so badly to share everything with him. I wanted him to be there for everything I accomplish in my life, and now he won't even see the beginning. With no one to share it and appreciate it, what does accomplishment even mean?

Why do I want to do the things I do? I want to be a published author because I love writing and it's the only career I can even consider enjoying, other than maybe social work of some kind... but in the end, I think my dedication is to knowledge and spiritual growth, not to saving kids from ghettos. But now I have no one to strive for. I have no one to share my dreams with, or who might dream with me... everyone else is far lesser of a person than my dad. They're a bunch of prideful kids with no direction and no understanding of the world, and even their parents cannot help me. I feel isolated. I feel like I'm standing alone with all of these thoughts and responsibilities attacking me and all I really want to do is die. I've been through this before, but I never thought I would realistically admit that to myself -- I really want to die right now. I would never consider suicide, but that doesn't change the truth. Laying down and becoming nothing seems like a better alternative than going through this shit. This is the death of all of my hopes and dreams. This is the death of myself... or whoever I have been up to this point.

And now it's my own responsibility to resurrect myself. I am only 20. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, never mind next year. Who am I? I am an artist, a kind person... but other than that, I am very little without the love my dad fueled me with, and I'm scared the residues of that love will fade eventually. I will lose him. I will lose him for good and he will be gone, poof, disappeared like so much dust. I don't understand it. I don't understand how something so solid and real as love can just disappear, something that we rely on and that becomes such a deep part of ourselves. I just want to be free. I want to leave this pain behind and just be me, be myself, alone... but now, I realize that I do not exist by myself. I exist only in relation to the people around me, and the prospect of really living for myself, of really being MY OWN person, ME, with no ties and no direction and nothing leading me through life but my own two feet and the common sense in my head... no parents to ask for advice, or to rely on, or to at least look to in hard times... it's terrifying. I already feel lost, and it's only been a month. I can't imagine how I will be in a year, or even six months... I literally do not know where I will be.



Saturday, September 26, 2009

i am i am

I am in a dark place.
There is a singular light
shining down on me.
Not a room. Nowhere.

I look up, squint, speak.
I could kill myself with why;
they waste their time searching, like this is
something to be achieved, when
nothing about god will ever make sense
even when you can feel its words
in your stomach.

The light would whisper back, but I
cut it off, quickly--
I am a destiny unto myself
and always have been, but I lie
because I've never been anything more
than you, and without you, shall fall to nothing,
and yet
I remember the promise you made me,
when I lost myself
the first time.
You cannot hide from me.

The light never shifts,
just beams down; I do not know
if it is exposing or protecting;
I need both.

What? Is that all? And have you no explanation?

I listen.



here i am i am
What do I even come home to anymore?

The Tower

I am somewhere between the faded dark
and a fragile kingdom, conceived of light--
a tower's point at mountain's peak ablaze
has caught my shadowing eyes, alight,

and tries to lead my weary path away;
a safehold against this billowing night.
It draws my feet from road unknown, unseen
to mountain slopes, and half-forsaken falls,

where our hearts have stumbled; no love redeemed
nor peace to find, and so we learn to crawl
and humble ourselves before the tower's light,
to reach its doorstep, to hear, to see, to burn
in sweetest fires, bright.

Our deepest holes, our darkest winters define
that tower, as yet unbreached, unclimbed -- I wonder
if this mountain's steepest peaks
are the truths it hides, and when that doorstep seek,
we reach the tower, with only ourselves to find.





Friday, September 25, 2009

My friend and I
eat sunflower seeds
sitting on a park bench
feeding birds.

I point to
a gray spotted one;
that one, I say,
that one has to have every last one.

He nods.

A moment, and a brown one
bobbing from beneath our feet,
stroking its wings.
That one only wants attention.

He nods.

A black bird,
sitting in a lone tree, watching
the others coo and garble for bread.
That one, I say, he would rather wait;
he thinks he's better than the flock.
But all birds are still birds.

My friend nods,
considers me with hollow eyes,
gathers his robes.

Death tosses his seeds
and leaves.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Show me

where the wild winds pull;

over the tilts and truths of this threshold.


So I gaze beyond

for a star's second;

looking in, wondering

how our feet can carry us into silence;

across the blackened floorboards

and back, deep into some sinking room

where I sense firelight. Surely,

I have been here before.


A glance

with the snow;

she knows the softer ways

when time was a mother,

but I traveled here over

hills and heartlands, learned

languages and traded love

for some rocks– and never once regretted

the back roads or the unknowns;

so she nodded with my shadow.


The darkness wavers, hovering between

gold and night; I am the streetlights

and the drifting snow; a simple creature,

I only know the silence beyond that top step,

a craving for what is fiercely blind,

my own darkened door wide open.


___________________________



You have the look about you

of autumn; something fiercely gold,

soft-spoken and fallen. Do you sleep?

Do you close your eyes anymore?


The sound of snow clouds

drifting low from the sky,

ready to drop to the ground.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Now what am I supposed to value?
my dreams, my future, my past?
am I supposed to hope for something,
realizing all I love from this point on
is who I decide to love, and what I become
is purely me;
to reconcile with the past, lay down
and put to rest those laws
that held me bound; where am I to travel,
now that I have no road, no beginning
and my ending only a shadow;
still a shadow, though all I've ever loved
has gone. I am lost, having fled my spring
to a forsaken winter, embraced gray dawn
and let go of brilliant cloud; I am a new beginning,
a plan unsigned, something fierce
and unbroken, driving my pathway
across the sky,
as surely as love
drives the sun.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Twilight, the Mystery

Twilight, the mystery we made
for ourselves. What lies beyond
the curve. We laid breadcrumbs
of heaven, burned libraries
to make martyrs of verse,
needles and threads
for the minds that weave.

Still, they are all just stories,
locked in deeper realities
or so we've forgotten; let us worship
the means to gather food, or
bow to the unknown that we might
tame it; that we might stare it
in the face and not know fear.


Monday, September 14, 2009




I live
where the mist hangs low
beneath the branches.

Sidewalks wind into cloud; is here a city?
Fragile lights glimpsed
between street-known-
all-too-silent-
death.

Fog shadows of tree giants
looming; I know their
murmurs, their time moments,
their footprint roots
before me all-too-sudden-
splitting-cold-brush-
of-breath,
gone.

Air stillness, the
intently curled
crisp of leaves; between
my feet a thousand graves,
watching them drift
to the ground.


Sunday, September 13, 2009

Poetry
is
therapy.

Started writing
as a child
too young to
vocalize
why.

Still don't know why,

just felt the needless push
of words
cramming out of me
had to
pour them
with the rest of that
silence.

Everything
in this life
is set up
to teach us
how to
love.
If we
could
just
conform to it,
live by all of
the cliches:
in the moment,
holding everything
for all its worth
then feeling free
to let it go,
knowing one has
never taken
anything
for granted;
acceptance is easy
with no guilt.
We would be
happy.
We would die
smiling.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

I guess sometimes Life likes to play rough...

So the last few days have been a strange fluctuation between periods of bizaar euphoria and the very pits of hell. I'm a little confused. I think part of me, a good 50%, one could say, is completely baffled by this whole situation. I feel like I've had a rug pulled out from under me. I feel like every dream and expectation I've had for my entire life has been turned on its head. I feel like my plans have changed so suddenly, completely, and abruptly that I don't even know where the hell I am anymore. This is my home... but suddenly, it's MY home, as in... my house... and never again will I have a safe place to run to, someone I can turn to at any time who'll put up with me and help me no matter what happens. And Dad wasn't just a normal, average guy, either... he was that kind of guy that you only meet once or twice in a lifetime. The kind that went out of his way to make everyone else around him happy, and not in a pathetic, spineless way, but in a genuinely good and caring way. Dad was great. I don't know what I'm going to do now... I don't know how I'm going to deal with this, or how I'm going to make it through. This hurts a thousand times worse than losing my mother... and the pain is immediate, right here in my face, shoved under my nose. Look, he's dead. He's dead. He's dead.

Fuck.

Just fuck. Sometimes I feel so fucked that I want to scream at something, a wall or a floor, or someone who'll understand... I'm so fucked, I'm not ready for this, I mean I am... or at least, I keep telling myself I am, but the honest truth is that I'm terrified. I'm a terrified child, alone, a little girl who just wants to hide in a corner. How do I go back? How do I get out of this? I am so blindsided right now that I can only think up to a week in the future, otherwise I start panicking. The panic doesn't come from the idea of not being able to keep the house, or not being financially stable... it comes from the realization that from now on, this is it. I'm on my own. There's no turning back; if I decide I don't like life on my own, I can't come home again for a few years to get my shit together... no, I have about three months to go from a completely dependent child to a full-fledged, functioning adult who can provide for herself, and a house, and a car... and sooner or later go back to school... I know I can do it, I know I'll survive... but it just seems so overwhelming. It's just me. Just little old me.


Friday, September 11, 2009

Testament from a survivor

Death strikes
like a pin-prick;
one flinches,
no blood.

Then the infection
sets in.

She walks a little slowly now, neither
left nor right, she stumbles there alone and
needs a place to lay down, but no rest comes
on a road of no moss, just broken bones

that line the pathway, and old, splintered teeth;
she tried not to look, but his hand was so cold
when she touched it, she remembered his grip
she would hold, as they walked, as they searched

for the road that she wanted; well now here
it is, though it's nothing like glory, a bit
more than she asked, and his warm hand is gone.
Is there no place she can rest? how does one

finish a story, or replace all those pages
with no chance left of love...

She has nothing to write for, no meaning transcribed
on this bone-laden road, undisguised.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Terrified
alone
they keep saying a word
orphan
but that means
no parents
and I have parents
had parents
never will
know them
again.

***

In all of my imaginings of God,
I cannot imagine Heaven.
Nor can I imagine grace.
Nor can I imagine wholeness, or home;
And often I wonder
was it somehow planned this way,
How do I live through
one more day--
I can't; but the body can, they say...

I am dying a new kind of death.



***


Monday, September 7, 2009

Experiments.

We sat
darkly
listened intently
thought something
dead
as lilies
we waited
listened
waited
listened
listened

**

I would blame,
but I have only
myself
to blame.
I will say sorry,
forgiven,
it was just a
simple
mistake.




Here in this room, behind shuttered windows,
dark shadows are rising from under the floor;
defenseless, my heart has taken the corner
to huddle in silence, slight-shivering, sore

as the ice in my throat, a settling sickness
to stifle my lungs; I am bled of my hope
like a stuttering candle. I've forgotten
to breathe for days now, but at least I can hold

my breath as a shield, my only defense,
a measure of time in this heart of an ocean,
I am trapped in this room, surrounded, captured
and bound, all dreams dark-dying and frozen.

How do I rise? Surely, I've lain here before;
trapped in time trapped in breath upon the floor.


_______________________________

For he was as fallen as Satan, but he was also the Son;
John Milton, who saw God as he was.



I am but a silent soul,
with secrets that escape all worlds,
and so I travel, life to life
to give my gifts, as you are owed--

I'd like to gift you with a heart,
and eyes that might see through this dream,
for all we lose are shadows
of their true, unrivaled vibrancy;

and the words I try to speak with,
all the methods that I use--
in the end, I am a simple truth:
I give everything out of love for you.

Saturday, September 5, 2009



Doubt
would destroy me
in a time like this.
The heart is an offtimes mysterious thing,
dangerous as sunset, bright-painted as dawn,
false-gilded in romance and love's faded song--
may we remember the moonlight
and the roads we walked from;
this is the heart that I carry,
you may gaze at it plain
for I've structured no walls,
I've no buildings to name
that are not built of love,
found through darkness and flame--
I am made of my faith, conceived in Its name
as a hell-walking creature, bent backwards
and drained, though no hate taints my lips,
and I shall not complain
for we all are our paths, and my path
is my choosing; act not with attachment,
so gaining and losing my only reward,
taking all I've been handed
and giving myself, as my faith has demanded--
and here I shall stand, a pillar of fire,
a light to the wall through your dark-driven ire--
I shall give you a hand and lift you awake,
let us pause, let us breathe, let us pray.

Wouldn't you rather....

Wouldn't you rather
run on the sand?
Let it slip
like the rugs we stand on,
flip away from us
in a thousand thoughts

feel the salt breeze play
on our salt-worn cheeks,
brush away the salt-drops
and slit our eyes to see,
we'll claim it is the wind

Wouldn't you rather
be at peace with this sea?
I don't need to understand
anything, only that the sky
is free; I can afford to keep it,
though its not much of a roof,
and its reaches are
too high for me.


________________________



Just live for a day like you would live
if you could, forgetting that here are
boundaries that cannot be crossed, and there
are eyes that would surely see--
wouldn't you rather just hold her
like she was your last breath, breathe her
like she was your last scent, keep her
as though anything can be kept

Friday, September 4, 2009

I put one of my dearest and sweetest souls
in your care, but only for a few years
because you see, I need her to be like me
in all of her ways. Many of your ways
were my own, and so I kept you, and trusted
you would teach her how to think, how to be kind
in the face of hate, how to hold herself proudly
when she is humiliated, how to bow herself humble
when she knows her betters, and how to sit, and listen,
and learn. But there are parts of her that still
must grow, and I have many parents and teachers lined
up for her in the future, people who will also take
good care of her, and will allow her to bloom
and receive all parts and facets of me, that she might
fulfill the task she has taken on herself. It is she who asked,
and I simply give what she asks for; she asked for help,
I gave her help; she asked for hope, I gave her hope; she asked
for love, and I give her love, and I see that the love I give her
she gives the world, as a whole fruit, as a generous heart.
So I am sorry, I know you have loved her dear
and that she is your child as much as she is mine; but you are all
my children, and I allow you each life to only have a few, that you
might know what to value, and why I value you,
and why we must value each other.
Seems that we are only a little wind
and a bag of flowers, wrapped in twine,
sitting in the sunlight, growing
until we grow to mud.

Seems that we have only a little sky
and a patch of grass to cushion our feet,
and then we are forever encased and veiled,
packaged and displayed in long, silent hallways,
bordered with flowers trapped in vases.

Flowers grown in boxes,
buried in boxes,
seen behind glass
or under roofs; how many flowers die
to grow inside this place,
and give it the illusion of life?

Thursday, September 3, 2009

My Long-missed Muse

Suddenly the glorious sun has fallen;
embraced once more by night's sweet breath
of remembrance, here I stand again
and prepare myself a seat with death.

I wait upon the white-washed stone;
he is an old friend, long acquainted
yet seldom seen, he's hovered here and faded
to the back of my book, but now has deemed

a visit due; I suppose he knocked
and I heard him, though my ears were tuned
to other things, like my father's laugh
as he fell in love; 'twas just too good to last.

I sit here with my childhood friend
in silence, no words to break this place--
I bow to death, my long-missed muse,
here come to prod this hand awake.

On Age (II)

Tell me now, who will I love?
And for what purpose shed my tears?
My heart's been hammered to the mold
and yet found lacking, as my years
are lacking still of wisdom's grace,
though I have walked this withered road
twice, no lines have graced my face;
badges of courage in a world
where beauty replaces chivalry,
and age has become a disgrace.

I would remind you now, I have not age
to offer, though my lessons are well learned--
I shall sit here, silent, listening clear
to gain the years your heart long earned.

I would beg you for just one cent of love,
a penance' worth, if one might be so kind
to give me leave to speak my heart, you'll find
a moment's worth is all I need

to float me on the harshest ocean, sometimes
just one whisper can lift me along
to the future's bow, driven by forward motion
in the heart of change; I am lost, surrendered,
here avowed

and trapped, my heart a road in winter,
fallen, false standing, adrift in snow
to see the stars, a desperate distant glow,
hidden, dimmed, their light misty now

and drifting, so I beg for love--
just a second's worth, for my heart can take no more
than a simple dose, enough to clear my voice
and hold me close; I've been afraid before.

This dread winter has already marked its years,
and they shall never be restored.