when you look at me
the tenderness of your stare
brings warmth to my wounds,
my fractured scars
it wraps them around in a blanket
( and they have been cold
for so long, you see )
you heal pieces of past traumas
without even knowing it, my dearest
the ones that have been with me
for years ( decades? yes, perhaps )
and you do it
just by the love that pulsates
out of that universe
that sometimes you let me see
out of those deep brown, amber hues
Lately
I'm finding faith
Between
Questions
And
Self-laced intentions,
Like a dot to dot
Painting insanity
Or something else.
So I interrogate
My eyes
And why they bend
And spin
Light as they do.
Is anything real?
So I will follow
my greed
Into the foundation
Of everything
I will never know,
And create night
With eyelids and hope.
And I will see her
As more than
An outline,
When I can trace
nothing
But darknes,
Peeling like scars
From from the center
Of me.
I peak back out
At the dawn.
And i wish I
I could see everything
Like this.
And follow the greed.
The truth is,
Being wrong
Is fucking
Beautiful.
Because she looks good
In both outfits.
If only I could
Also
See
Myself.
Dapper as fuck
In my confusion.
Maybe truth
Would never
Drop beneath the horizon.
But when it comes
To her,
You always squint
At the fucking sun.
Normal People
I hope we are the normal people that they refer to. The ones who find each other no matter what. Throughout all of the life changes, preparing us for what's to come.
To love. Like we could've. But it wasn't the time then.
I hope the time is approaching, as I need you more than ever before. I beg that you still like me like you did back then. I couldn't bear the heartbreak I would feel if you got up and left. After countless nights of crying for you, pleading with the angels to bring you back to me. Please, stay. So I can too.
2 Samuel 18:5 - Betrayal (Bible Journal)
"[5] And the king gave this command to Joab, Abishai, and Ittai: 'For my sake, deal gently with young Absalom.' And all the troops heard the king give this order to his commanders.
[14] 'Enough of this nonsense,' Joab said. Then he took three daggers and plunged them into Absalom’s heart as he dangled, still alive, in the great tree (2 Samuel 18:5 NLT)."
David certainly dealt with betrayal throughout his life, from being the betrayer in his affair with Bathsheba, to being the betrayed when his son Absalom stole his throne, and also being betrayed by his right hand man Joab when he ignored David's request to spare his son Absalom. Hopefully we aren't hit with the same extremes of betrayal that David experienced, but we will feel betrayal at some point in our lives, whether we are hurt by someone we love and/or count on, or whether we mess up and break someone's trust through our actions. We are in good company when we remember Peter's betrayal of Jesus when he denied him three times, and the betrayal of Judas after being one of Jesus' disciples. Jesus understands the pain of betrayal and can help us process it if we ask Him, and like His disciple Peter, we can still be redeemed from being betrayers in the past if we repent and turn to Him going forward.
Thank You Lord for being relatable for the times we have been affected by betrayal, whether we were the victim or the villain. Please forgive me for any times that I have been the betrayer, and thank You for walking with me through past betrayals that happened to me. Please help me to be a man of my word that is true to those I interact with, and please show me how I can bless and minister to those that have been hurt by betrayals in their lives. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Person
I’m often reminded of you.
When I feel joy overwhelm me.
Joy I thought you were faking.
When joy reveals itself plainly.
When joy reveals itself through song.
When synths feel cinematic and manic
and make me want to morph my body into a star.
When I hear lamentations about our eventual fate
that still allow space for awe amid lingering angst
When I want to feel everything, everywhere, all at once
When I want to feel everyone I love.
When I am wondering where I learned how to care.
The Birth of the Universe
In the beginning, there were two lovers
locked in eternal embrace
and they dreamed of stars and super novas
alone in the dark of space.
The male pulled away in order to see
his lover in full view,
but as he gazed upon her beauty,
the winds of darkness blew,
and death with his pure lack of mercy
struck with deadly haste,
stealing the male’s ever-living soul,
leaving his body to waste.
The universal mother,
struck with maddening grief,
gave birth to all that is
a universe beyond belief
with planets, stars, comets, suns,
expanding out away,
with gods and spirits, angels and demons,
and lords of night and day.
All the dreams she and her lover dreamed
became real and new,
as there she stayed, an unmoving center
from which everything grew,
and as the mother watched with sorrow
as her children drifted out,
always moving further from her,
closer to death and doubt,
her sadness, guilt, grief and suffering
encompassed everything
with death and darkness surrounding all
ever looming, ever waiting.
Ghost
Forrest Gump said: Life is like a box of chocolates. But I'd argue it's a walnut: crack it open, and little useless shards fall out. Or maybe that's just what someone who has 'aftermath' says. I say that because at one point, the walnut was whole, and not broken, a bad analogy. There was a distinct before, and after.
Today I walked around my old college campus, the one I spectacularly dropped out of after one semester. I have a lot of somber thoughts about this experience. I went to the campus cafe and had a muffin and coffee and wrote down some thoughts on a napkin in blue ink. I prefer blue ink - on some documents, your signature is not official unless it's in blue ink; that's how you discern it was not forged, that's it's real. I am not forging these thoughts, this peculiar feeling of separateness.
I watch the college girls around me. One is staring at me. I like that, that I'm someone worth staring at. I don't question it. I do question the clothing choices - all parkas and mittens, zany hats and corduroy pants. And then I realize I'm judging them because I couldn't be them.
I dropped out, choosing mental illness over conventional quirkiness.
The girls fifteen years ago, when I went to this all-women's college, were horrible. They were mean, bulimic, and petty. I overheard one girl, when told I was to join a party later that evening, yelling - how could you invite Alison to this party? She's weird. I'll never forget her. She was my roommate.
Today, walking around the campus, I felt like I hadn't had the upper hand, the advantage. It wasn't just mental illness. No one understood the particular feeling of being disliked for who I felt I really was. For I had thought I was interesting back then, both for having a mental illness and not, but I most certainly wasn't. I was just eighteen. And young, and naive - so naive it makes me wonder that I lasted even one semester.
The 'aftermath' is what happens when you give up something that could have been great, and then spend a day fifteen years down the road admiring the girls you could have been; the infinite possibilities of them dressed up in winter clothes, but I just see straight through them to ghosts.
In fact, I wrote down "ghost" on my napkin, but that probably meant me.
This piece must be so boring to read. I feel boring just re-experiencing these emotions.
I wish I could wrap this up neatly. But these feeling just sit there, lame and intolerable to sit with.
I could connect this back to my walnut analogy, but who cares? When you crack open something not meant for you, it falls apart, sure. It sits in a million little pieces.
A million little sorry thoughts that add up to only one girl staring at you, and probably not for the reasons you think.
Battle Born
I come from a long line of rugged frontiersmen. Men who did whatever they had to in order to survive. Tough. Independent. Resilient.
For five generations, the unforgiving landscape of the Nevada desert has shaped our lives. The Wild West has been a major character in all of our stories, and no matter how hard we try to leave, each of us is called back to dance with the desert again. For me, that call came the summer after I turned eleven. I never could have predicted how my time in Nevada would shape the rest of my life, but I’m glad I got to spend a decade breathing in its untamed air.
There are few places that will foster a spirit of adventure like the absolute desolation of the high desert. Wide valleys bordered by rugged mountain ranges and covered by clear blue skies; and, once in a blue moon, a blanket of black clouds echoing with thunder.
Long, straight highways that cut their way through sagebrush-covered valleys and connect small town, to smaller town. No one around but you, God and the devil. That’s when you really get to know yourself.
There are no distractions out there. No one to compare yourself to. It’s in the desolation that you learn exactly who you are and what you’re made of. The desert will weigh and measure you, and if you can’t cut it, you’ll know. There is no hiding.