Ruptured Mind

Forgetting to Breathe

2013-04-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of reasons people forget to breathe
When you realize that the word safety is written on every gun
And that that doesn't make it safe
When towers fall out of the sky like infidel pancakes,
Smashing to earth in a reverse nuclear explosion
And Japan laughed behind tight labored skin
When you realize you are responsible for something out of control
Another heart beating
A peanut heart in black and white with a machine and jelly
Like the sandwich of was and will be and is
As a nation watches one man catch and not catch a ball
Or hit one
Or dunk one
And the edge of all of the theater seats collapse because no one sat back far enough
That moment of falling
Right after jumping
Looking at the cliff and wondering why the hell you jumped
Missing how worth it the fall had been.

But you are mine

The reason I forget to breathe
I remind myself to breathe so I can be alive for you as long as possible
For more moments to stand next to you
In such beautiful irony that doing so makes me asthmatic
And that bitch doctor won’t give me an inhaler.
I want to unlock the secret of your smile
Tuck it away in folds of myself that only you and God see
Save it for when your eyes have a rainy day
Pull out your smile like an upside down rainbow of hope
Or a bright yellow umbrella in the long-winded story of I love you
As you laugh like a bridge I can’t and must cross
I want to meet the person who told you that you could look in a mirror
And see what you look like
Darling you are more beautiful than any glass could make
Our creator is all you reflect

Who told you how to measure your years in numbers
Rather than smiles, tears, and days you watched the sunset?

Who taught you how to make a wish on milkweed dandelions?

Or told you that shooting stars were magic?
I feel magical when I am with you
Covered in tinker bell’s fairy dust
Which lands an awful lot like your kisses do

This is the deepest secret.
The one the world screams in deaf ears
In kindergarten
Or on your diploma
Or on the bus out of new jersey at three a.m. beside the little Indian boy who couldn't read
Or in the symphonies that fill up stadiums of people hoping to avoid the silence
Or when they tell you, you have cancer
Or when your first dog dies
Or when the ocean washes away your fresh footprints like a salty hourglass kiss
Or when the cancer returns
Or when someone taught you how to pray
Or on your deathbed when someone still asks how old you are
And also in your stumbling, glorious, wet, can’t have just one first kisses
The way you whispers my name and it sounds better in your mouth than my own
When your right hand doesn’t know what your left is doing
And your left hand did something good
When you realize that god designed your fingers to fit perfectly in someone else’s
When love arrives

The disaster my break up poem would be

When you realize that I won’t ever stop loving you
When I cry at a stoplight because your gone
When I turn the car whatever direction you are
When I drive to see you with the heartbeat of a bumblebee
And sweaty palms gripping the wheel
When everything seems to be taken but they can’t take what you have
When someone tells you you're beautiful

When you learn that if they stripped you to your elements you would look a lot like stardust

Baby you must have been fashioned there
With your galactic love and star flecked eyes

Here is the deepest secret
This thing that is keeping the planets from crashing into each other
Like towers planes weren't supposed to hit
Like your eyelashes beating as your cheeks blush
Like citizen feet on the road to Selma
Like rebellion, love, and mistakes and also like sweet tea on a Sunday afternoon
That there are a lot of reasons we forget to breathe
Ellie, you're mine.

196 miles

2013-02-26T19:59:00.001-08:00

When we date in our dreams

When I close my eyes and open them

Behind third base at Yankee stadium

In an old truck we both wish was ours

Blankets that keep your toes warm

And we look up at the stars

Diamond vignettes of promise

Supernova passion in steadfast guide-stars

Promises of forever

I promise

I promise to always look worse than you in pictures

To never look at the bad ones from Taylor’s birthday

To make you laugh when you are crying

To gather our tears in jars

Sacrifice them to the Father of time

As humbly as possible

Asking for these tears to be turned into smiles

If I could wake up beside you

Open my eyes and see you do the same

Eyelashes crashing like operatic cymbals in the key of our love

Tuning themselves to our tambourine knees

And the rhythm of our hearts beating

Imperfect but big

Like our love

I would take your hands

Both of them because I can’t afford to let you slip away

Look into your eyes

Which you stole from heaven

And whisper good morning

Like a hummingbird I love you

And you move closer

On purpose

We stand in Barnes and Noble

Surrounded by thousands of stories we wish were our library

I look around curiously

Pick one up

And as I do, like a breeze,

You tornado your arms around me

Let me feel you breathe

I am addicted to your smell

Love-spell

Your yellow jacket and purple scarf taunt me

With how much you are worth the wait

I spin you around

No one cares who is watching

You twirl cautiously like glass

It wasn’t long ago that love arrived

Fragile and delicate

I will kiss your forehead

Where the stumble into our first kiss began

And your hair will pretend to get in the way

And won’t

And in that moment when you are in my arms

The distance doesn’t seem so bad

And even when you are away

And our tears form a river

Across the flat land from my home to yours

I will learn to float on the jazz strings of our love

I will make it to you

196 miles in say 17 hours

Till I arrive on your shores

Till there is no till.

When I can wake up beside you

2012-11-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

When I can wake up beside you

I swear your butterfly eyelashes taunt me
As they blink
Revealing the heaven I knew before I was born
(And the one soon to come)
When I see how talented God is at creating
You

You whisper
It sounds like hummingbirds saying I love you for the first time
The first time I kissed you
Our mouths stayed together for more than a moment
Locked and defying any search for a key
We kissed until biology reminded us that we need some of our own breaths too
But you make me wish I was a tree
Not just to have such strength
But that when we kiss, carbon dioxide is good enough for me
Maybe I could be a tree
Kissing you makes me feel alive
And when your long lashes roll back
The green in your eyes reminds me where I’m home.
And when your cheeks dance there selves into a smile
That melts me like an icicle sword in the warmth you beguile
And yet you wear no mask
Redeemed though you’ve been broken
You love with heart open
My arms
Bury yourself in my chest
Fall back asleep snuggling your curves to my heart
If it’s still dark
Press yourself against me
Let me know you
Every dimple, every curve of your skin
With no light and only my fondest memories to guide me

I wake up every morning and still have to ask if this is just a dream

When You're too Damn Beautiful

2012-11-22T20:41:00.003-08:00

“to the girl whose eyes will help me recognize heaven, to my living dream, to the one God’s pointing me towards, to the girl I can whisper with, to the girl I will dream with, to the only one whose made me smile this much, to the girl I can’t wait for”

When you’re too damn beautiful
When I behold you
When I hold you
When your fingers slide home between mine
When you speak like angels took over your mouth
When your song sounds like a throne room
When you put the stars to shame as you walk outside at night
When you make creation jealous
When I feel you relax for me
When I hear your soul like my future heartbeat
When I sense how much of you I live for
When I almost but don’t tell you I love you
When we almost kiss
When in that trance I find why I’m here
When I can no longer go to sleep
When reality is just that much better with you
When I’d rather talk to you than do anything else
When you make my mind wander
When it wanders too far
When you tell me yours does too
When we don’t know what to do
When I reach my hand in tomorrow for more time with you
When we figure it out
When we don’t
When I can’t see life without you
When we plan our future
When we outdo it
When you dare to be beautiful
When you fall for me
When I catch you
When you tell me how you feel
When they let us be real
Your smile is cemented on the back of my eyelids
Your eyes known more by my retinas then my own
Your perfect form molded just for the puzzle piece of my body
Your question asked just for me to answer
Your laugh the best sound of all time
Your hands around mine
Yours
Your Jesus
Too perfect for me
Too many better moments with you
Too many tomorrows I want with you
Too many bingo cards in our retirement home
Too much love in this heart
Too close to give up
Too many breaths of mine you’ve taken
Too much of you in my dreams
Too much of you to do anything but be with you
Today
Tonight
Tomorrow
To you who makes my heart speak like a saxophone,
Damn
Spelled D-A-Y-U-M-M-M
Damn every picture
Damn every thought
Damn every living instinct for just me
Damn every bad word I’ve spoken
Damn my lies
Damn my arrogance
Damn my sin that almost didn’t let you in
Damn the pride I should’ve fell from
Damn all I will do incorrectly
Damn the past of all it tries to hold
Damn, when I see you I melt like a cheap advent candle
Beautiful
Beautiful I will never know how many colors glorify your eyes
Beautiful like our first sunrise as a couple
Beautiful like making breakfast together
Beautiful like family
Beautiful over pain
Beautiful who I can’t get out of my brain
Beautiful who washes over me like dew
Beautiful, Beautiful is you
Beautiful like sundresses and winter coats and fire places
Beautiful like hugs and kisses and sweaty palms
Beautiful like no kisses lost
Beautiful like Proverbs 31
Beautiful like the air I can’t get when you are around me
Beautiful, I can’t breathe

Finally

2012-10-22T21:14:00.002-07:00

Your eyes are one of the few things that make me smile

They light up when I talk and my insides are on fire

Your voice is pure and imperfect like Katy Perry without auto-tune

It beats the drums in my ears like the heartbeat of a blue whale

Your hands are always cold

But I will hold them in the dead of winter so you are always a part of me

Your legs are slender ivory towers

Often caressed in tight denim and all I can do is want you more

Your hair holds more secrets than any chamber

It is dark like the night but then

Your smile shines like heaven in Paul’s eyes

It’s so beautiful it could kill a man

I fell in love with each part of you

I fell in love and wrote 7 different poems

All about a different part

Idolizing each individually because the thought of them together

Was too much hope for my cynical heart

When you came along

It took me way too long to see

I looked at you and saw only my dreams

My heart blocked off everything about you

You were like pictures in a mansion I was unworthy to look at

When you let me in

When you let my heart search and know you like the back of my eyelids

I shot myself with hope

Drowned in the galaxy of your mind

Melted into your subconscious

Found a place to sit with you

I sat with you decades under the stars

I wrapped myself around you like a blanket

Folding myself into your curves tucking you in

To my memories

So I knew you weren’t my imagination

I wanted to borrow God’s breath

Whisper the stars to you

Hurricane the moon to earth

See it light you up in my dreams

As we watched tides that were way too large

My mind longed to watch you every second

Clicking photographs every moment

Watching you change

I zoomed way too close on your eye

The camera exploded in green and gold

Like the sunset of resurrection

Your eyes, indefinable like an eagle

Played freeze tag with mine

In space

And comets struck the chartreuse plain of your iris

Colliding and fracturing bits of emerald and flecks of gold

And at that moment

As planets spun in your eye

As your face looked like every smile you’d ever wore

Dancing with your hair

Like Etta James, “At Last”

I realized

You were the one I’d written for

Almost Christian in a not so almost hell

2012-10-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

This poem may hurt.

It may make you want to cover your ears

And you might as well close your eyes

Because you’ve already closed your heart and mind

It’s amazing how comfortable you are in your masks

For some of you it’s light because you’ve eaten away all of the you that used to fill it

You’re now just an echo in a shell
You are a snow machine hooked up to a beeping lie detector

Some of you can hardly carry your mask

But you insist on pushing it in front of you like a Grand Piano playing a tune you wish you spoke

This is for you social drinkers

You one time smokers

You just a kiss turning all-nighters

You who make out in tinted windows

You who blame it on the alcohol

You barely survivors

You who speak at your parents

You who don’t speak at all

You electric smilers

You hypnotizers; Womanizers

You aborters

You thieves and robbers

You joke-too-far-ers

You liars

You lusters

You over-trusters

You who cheat on homework but not tests

You who cheat on multiple choice but never short answers

You gamblers

You judgers

You hypocrites

You insulters

You who step on other's backs to keep your head afloat

You who don’t give a flying fuck

You attention whores

You gossipers

You pillow talkers

You one-nighters

You people over God-ers

You blasphemers

You self-servers

You who raise your hands because you like being looked at

You who cry so people will give you a hug

You gorgers of selfishness

This is for you.

Mr. or Ms. First Priority

God

He looks around

He can’t help but ask, “Where is everybody”

Where are the altar prayers?

The scar free prayer warriors?

Where are the Amen-ers?

The hand raisers?

The Jesus shouters?

The VBS-ers?

The church dinners?

And he looks down from his throne fashioned of grace

Into a pit he intended for fallen angels

He will find you there

Confused and thirsty

Gnashing your teeth

He will see you Oh Almost Christians

And almost wonder if His way was too narrow

As you wish you were in an almost hell

He will remember calling you

Remember knocking on the door of your heart

Having the key but not barging in

He can still feel what stone your heart is made of

He remembers your memorized prayers

Your go-with-the-crowd lifestyle

Your “I am God” attitude

Your lack of real belief

How you tried to cover his creation

How you failed to create your own

A tear falls

But it evaporates just before your parched mouth

You were soldiers without scars and this is your share of hell.

Your Hands

2012-10-16T19:22:00.001-07:00

Your hands are cold.

But they are soft

Closing

Opening

Folding

Praying

Your hands fit perfectly inside mine like the underside of a boat

We float

Your weaknesses covered up with my fingers

Connected

This union is endless

Sometimes when the world is too loud

When your eyes are too beautiful to look into

When it feels like time is slipping away

I reach out and grab your hand

So I can enjoy saying something without words

Saying I am fragile

Saying I love you

Sometimes I hold onto your hand too tight

It is because I don’t want you to disappear

When time sands down the puzzle pieces of our fingers

When it bedecks our hands with wrinkles

Like someone who stayed in the pool way too long

I will still hold your hand

Still weave my fingers inside yours

Locking them into place

Listening to the echo of the silence

Like the sound of the ocean in a conch shell

Conducted with sound waves

To the rhythm of raindrops and beating hearts

The first time I held your hand

It was wet

My hands sweat like an equatorial noontime

I was nervous as hell

You pretended not to notice

You grazed your long left forefinger on my palm

As if my hand could melt any more from your touch

And best of all there was a second

And a third

I held your hand this morning for the 4,982^nd time

When I hold you tonight

When I stop kissing you to reach for your hand

When my fingers finish their tango with yours

When they slide into their place

In the valleys of your knuckles

When they squeeze you one last time to make sure you're still there

When they open musically, like an accordion for air

When they let you slip away

Hugging the space between your fingers

Letting go

Defying before we sleep

Any thought of not being we

4,983

Vampires (a question poem)

2012-10-04T18:20:00.001-07:00

Maybe the reason vampires live forever is because they never have to see themselves in a mirror.

Maybe it’s because the dust of deceit can’t rest on their skin
They never have to wake up thinking themselves in a different age.
Never forced to paint themselves for a judging world
Modest out of necessity
Because sometimes the truth is too much to leave bare
They sniff out the lies of the masses like fresh meat
Chasing it down with alacrity
Biting the deception from the jugulars of the adolescent
Bleeding their own truth in
Sucking out the falsities that define us until we shine.
Truth glitters.

Do You Hear Her

2012-09-18T15:09:00.002-07:00

It’s her Birthday today—

They don’t keep track

In a culture that’s more about building houses than making homes

Always growing out and never growing in

She has only a fake fireplace

As a candle. No cake.

Confetti.

The shrapnel of a broken family.

She sits in her room with her door locked

IPod in to drown out the domestic abuse she never passed out as party favors.

All of the silences when they aren’t around.

Do you hear her?

She sits in the back of the class

She has seen too many masks and heard too many fake laughs.

She lost her own long ago.

Leaving only black eye shadow

Like paint

To cover her empregnant eyes to deep for any other color

She wears hoodys and bracelets

Failing to hide the shame of her scars

Refusing to be called on

Too many people have walked on her opinion

Her wings are clipped

She no longer believes in flying

Just getting by and...

Hoping that she only has a little while left

Before she finds a decent way to die.

Searching for the right last breath.

One as dissatisfying as her life

Do you hear her?

She speaks with the scent of alcohol in the stagnant air

Dripping herself out of her wrists

Longing to cover herself up

Fully convinced the only way was drowning.

She is tired of being wanted like a victim

For her waking up is something

Breathing, not nothing.
Every second she makes a burdened and conscious choice
To re-enlist in this debauchery of life
Only out of fear
Not dying is her life
The passion is dying away

You sit in the front of the class

Making bad jokes

Whispering your loneliness away.

She hears you.

A Letter to the Galaxy

2012-09-04T18:42:00.002-07:00

I wrote a letter to the galaxy today
Just to tell it that 2 stars had moved to a better home in your eyes
And I postcripted a question to God
In case you really were an angel
You didn't understand what I was writing
But as you laughed
I can understand why the stars flung themselves from their thrones
As if the only thing that held them up were broken yo-yo strings
And when I look into you and see the star that sparkles each pupil
I sense what it must have felt like when they collided with your eye
With the color of a golden butterfly wallowing in an Oregon sunset
It was too beautiful
It forced the lines around your giggling eyes up
Like a sandstorm kneeling in prayer
Yet even when your eyes are closed
You lullaby my traveller's heart to sleep
With the violin and cello duet of your eyelashes
Blinking
You put me at peace like a jazz chord that sounds more like summer rain
Evaporating
And then you let me swim in the floodwaters of your kiss
Drowning you in it
Just so I can save you
Filling your lungs without air
So you know how I feel when you aren't beside me
When you smile
I want to hold you
Like the big dipper holds the sky
I want to dip into that infinity
And find even more time to hold you
So I can squeeze you like Orion's belt
Let me orbit you like Mercury, you
You can be my sun
And I know i'll get burnt
Because I'm way too close
But I don't ever want to know what it's like to not feel your warmth
When you die
If I can still breathe,
I will blow your ashes into space
Where they probably ought to be
And you can trail the back of a star
And I will wish on you
Crash into the sun
So I can dream you ever into my tomorrows
And every time I open my eyes
I will realize
Just how much you take my breath away.

Your smile

2012-08-30T19:03:00.001-07:00

The first time you loosened the hinge of your lips and smiled in my direction.
I sacrificed myself to hope
And tried to drown in it—
Just to see if hope can still float
I want to float on your dreams and never let go.
Darling you are the lone tenant in the galaxy of my mind
You embody the entirety of my subconscious
So even when you aren’t in my arms I can still hold your hand.
And we will dream-date above the clouds
So it can never rain on our parade
Beloved, I want to be the sole proprietor of your ring finger
I want to love you ‘til our bodies sing songs our mouths don’t yet know the words to
And relish every moment of silence
Because I know it’s simply that we haven’t had the time to make up enough words.
And in that silence I want to hear your heartbeat and your breath like your first name and my last
At last
And let our hearts beat to the rhythm of one drum
So that together, together, standing next to you we could be music.
Let us love like a flood
Kissing with open mouth
Sharing the same breath we can live our lives under the water on your inhale and my exhale.
Let our teeth shatter with the weight of our kiss,
And I will die for you daily to prove I will resurrect in your memories—
In your thoughts
And your dreams.
Crucify me on a cross of myself
And let me bleed every lustful thought of everyone else
Bleed every other woman out of mind so you can fill me only with yourself.
Tattoo my name on your lungs
So I can be all that you live for.
Carve yourself into my smile so you will always be in my conversation.
Pierce me with your soul and shatter every mask I’ve ever put on
Like a 12^th bottle of whiskey
And when I run for them keep your eyes open
So I can always find my way home in the light house of your iris.
The first time you laughed.
I melted.
But you fit me with myself
Now fit me with you
Like two puzzle pieces and pray,
That as time sands down our edges we fit just the same—
And pray that God adds this sawdust to the sands of our love-story
And you can be piglet and I
I will be Pooh,
Because I have a thousand daydreams
And not one.
Not one.
Is without you.

A love poem

2012-08-28T18:38:00.003-07:00

I want to be the leader that deserves the following of my shadow

To lead you as well.

I want the surface of your heart to be found with my fingerprints

I want to be the rolling stone you can't resist turning into rock

Your rock
I want you to be able to stand on me.

When it feels like your drowning

Breathe and know it’s only my love.

I want to be the sole proprietor of your ring finger,

To be the lighthouse that forms the sparkle of your eye and always guides you home

And we can be piglet and pooh

Because I have no daydreams that don’t include you
And if you live to be a hundred
Let me live only that too

The first time we said hello

I took all the butterflies hurling themselves down the corridor of my stomach

And I put them in a jar of my uhms and mumbling and handed it to you with my head bowed

Because I saw too much in your eyes

And yet you relaxed your lips and smiled at me

And spoke to me

And you’re voice was worth all of my nerves

No one makes them feel like you do.

And that first time when you spoke

I sacrificed myself to hope

Crucified myself on a cross of my dreams hoping to bleed into yours.

The ones in the day

The ones you could act on.

Darling act on me.

And I would bet the reason you always wear a coat,

Is because you wear your heart on your sleeve

And I want to hold you and make it a part of me

And let our hearts beat to the rhythm of one drum

To the tune of my knees when we kiss

And the strings of your eyelashes when you blink

And let it be the drum-line for the greatest song of our time

Let it never play a last song.

You own the whole property of my mind

Consuming even my unconscious so I could see her in my dreams

And stand beside her in the day playing the music of our love.

I give myself up to be next to you.

Your Beautiful

2012-08-08T09:51:00.004-07:00

Your knees shake like Native American tambourines in the sunset. You shiver like an autumn breeze on a street in Brooklyn. Your hair waves unbounded by the wind. It carries you off. Your eyes; they are too half-moons that almost but don’t fit together. That have seen too much shit in the world to sparkle themselves with hope. But your body is a war zone covered in Never-land lingerie and when I touched you for the first time and felt the infinity of your scars, I swore I heard them shout at me. With a malady of hate like a praying mantis his head halfway eaten by his wife, and you didn’t move away. I don’t know how this will end. If my love can carry us both if you can learn to love again. Because I would carry you across the ocean if you let me because when we kiss breathing in and out we could live days without coming for air. And I don’t know what you're feeling or who you are thinking about on those nights when you lie away from me in a dark corner of our room trembling like a leaf, when the scars you bear screech in your soul and you wish God let man live alone. When your past hits you like a train coming from the wrong direction and carries you off on bad memories and old feelings. But when you drown in your tears because the icicle shell you’ve formed begins to melt and water seeps into your scars and floods into your heart, I’ll be there. I want to be the tree that makes sure no matter how bad you shake I will fling my roots further into the ground to hold on and when you blink with the orchestra of your eyelashes and kiss me with reckless breath and sharp tongue and I feel you pour into me and bare the soul in you sneaking out, I will promise you I will be there. Because even though I don’t know how we will end I can’t see my days go by without your face close to mine and one day I want to read the wrinkles on your face as the greatest novel ever written and I want to watch you cry a happy tear. And see a shooting star so you know that flying can sometimes feel like falling but that you can never love too much and when you feel empty like a vase I will fill you with the sweetest lemonade since you don’t care for wine and I will kiss you with you kissing back. I want to wish you into the sunrise so that you know how to get up after you fall. And I want to bless you with my fears so you can bandage them over your own and I want to find what makes you smile most and etch it into my lips like a tattoo so that every word I say would sound like you are beautiful. You are beautiful. You are beautiful...

In the Name of "They're Christian"

2012-07-26T08:27:00.003-07:00

This should not be taken as an essay or a position or a vignette. This is merely a rant.

Sometimes as a Christian in this tolerance-turning world we feel a sort of pressure to promote Christian art and Christian artists and chick-fil-a and any other person or company willing to slap a bible verse on a cup or close on Sundays or play Christian music or say that they pray or an athlete who points the proverbial finger to the heavens. And all this may be good in the ‘us not supporting sinfulness’ kind of way, but what’s the middle ground? How seedy does a great song or artist have to be to warrant a boycott, how unmerited does a Christian song or artist have to be to not forgive him because he or she sings or plays or writes for Jesus? It’s not that I necessarily have a problem with this first question as there are songs that I don’t listen to because they take me into darkness rather than lighting my way, and I think this list of songs is different for everyone but is surely not one that can be exclusively genre based or one that can be a list of songs to listen to because there are way too many edifying, powerful, bold, telling, and truthful songs out there that to create a list of ‘do’s is too small a thing. It’s this latter question that has been much the struggle for me as a 17 year old soon to be 13 year-running Christian school graduate with a church and family walling me in with whatever heaven, hell, punishment, forgiveness, judgment, or mercy they need too to keep me within those walls. For the most part I haven’t wanted to live outside of those walls but only because my ultimate goal is living inside God’s will and when that fits in the walls it works great and when it doesn’t...well…it doesn’t.

Neil Gaiman in a commencement speech said that his life was entirely centered on getting to the place (he called it the mountain) that he desired to go, and he said that sometimes he had to say no to good jobs because it would be taking him away from the mountain whereas if those jobs had come earlier he probably would have taken them because they still would have been closer to the mountain then where he was at that time, but sometimes those very good things if they are the wrong choice can be very bad things. Christian music, Christians in the arts, Christians in sports—it’s all wonderful…done right.

God is glorified when anyone raises their voice in praise to him— even so far as to promise that one day the rocks will cry out if we don’t. But does that mean every Christian ought to be a singer or a musician. Certainly every aspiring athlete that does their best does not make it to the pros, yet those that do get inflated to demigods and skyrocket to stardom on the wings of religion. Similarly, I feel that as Christians we forgive poor talent in the name of Christ when what we ought to be doing is praising Christ for those with talent and praying for these people to praise him as well. I am tired of turning to the Christian radio station to hear a 3 chord song screamed by an average singer with lyrics that are so shameful I’d think it was a different God. My Jesus is not a deity fitted with appropriate words only the explicit ones and the imaginary ones can get at his majesty so why do we forgive these artists for shanty songs? Because they said Jesus in it? Because they have a good testimony? Is that what we pay for? Because I’m tired of hearing Jesus’ name on bad art. Jesus is not the good that makes bad art not bad he is the good that makes sinful songs and sinful people’s actions reflect glory to himself. That’s my Jesus

Your Voice

2012-07-26T08:25:00.001-07:00

I’m tired.
Tired of writing so many love poems for someone that doesn’t exist
Or at least for someone I don’t know yet.
So instead I’ll write about your voice.
I’ll write about how it is music
Music that drowns out my stuttering
You, you breathe like a symphony and you speak like a song
A sultry mix of strings you have yet to go wrong
When you talk with the wind each word is just strong
enough.
And when I reached for you in infinity and could pull out only this voice
You shattered me soon after I believe
With the sound of silence
With the evaporating sound of you not speaking
Into me
When you talk to me you take each piece
And with the intricacy of eternity you mold me back together
From the ends of eternity you gather me and fit me with myself
And that’s enough
For now
Because I have run out of dream to keep making things up
And your voice melts me
And then floods me with sweetness
Drowning
In a sea of your smile and your words
I haven’t to say if I lived before but I know not like this
Not like now
In each moment you’re here
Playing orchestras in my ear
Without fear
And part of me wants to kiss you
But then I’d have to bear the silence
With you not there to make such amends

As to open your mouth and fill me

With the one thing you can--

With your voice

Life's Short (especially if you're an ant)

2012-06-02T20:02:00.001-07:00

I ran over the top of an ant hill today with my lawn mower. It was the 2^nd time in a row I had done so with purpose, though I run over it every week regardless in order to cut the grass. I sat and watched as hundreds of ants scurried from their caves widening small holes in the surface like an inverted meteor shower scampering on top of each other with a unity about them arming themselves to fix their fort (from my intruding blow) with alacritous speed and burdened backs. I came back around the circle of my side yard’s mowing circuit to see about half as many ants as before still working like crazy even though I could no longer see the imprint of my tire in their mound. I thought about how disheartening it would be for the ant to work so hard to rebuild their fortress only for me to knock it down every 7 days on Saturday. Does the ant know this pattern? Can they predict when it’s coming?

The average ant lives only about 40 days which would allow them to see their hill destroyed only 5 times at what would feel like 12 year intervals for a human. I thought that maybe I shouldn’t feel bad about it (after I convinced myself that it may have been a little more vindictive than necessary). But then I thought that perhaps just once is enough to ruin a life. Even an ant’s.

The "Weed Culture"

2012-05-16T19:25:00.003-07:00

I haven’t officially written on the subject of marijuana though I’ve had the conversation a myriad of times. This is not all I have to say but merely a small portion of a large and influential topic. I will begin by saying that I do think that it should be legalized, that I believe there are positive effects, that medically there are few negative effects. I am neither a Doctor nor a licensed professional in any related area and I can speak only from what I observe. I hope these claims allow you to keep reading for it’s mainly the smoker that I write.

Not once have I lit a cigarette or joint or cigar or pipe or sucked by any means any illegal substance. I do not write this as a fellow smoker but one having known a number. I write this knowing that this already lessens my credibility, but I hope you continue because it is that very feeling—the feeling that no one has the right to tell you differently, that I see as the real problem with weed. Marijuana does not necessarily hurt people. It ought to legalized however, for a different reason: because marijuana infiltrates people. It becomes all they can talk about. It’s a not-so-secret society of shared experiences that in this present state is special for their “moral resistance” and bold face defiance of government’s imposition on their personal proclivities. This is what is wrong: the weed culture. It has flourished because of its illegality and it has almost demanded its constituents to engage in its culture exclusively. The drug may not in and of itself take people away from functioning sober society but the culture almost demands it.

Like all secrets it becomes so much more glorious when someone else knows. But now, that someone else has turned into a society, one filled with long-boarders and beanies and cut-off jeans with Rastafarian shirts. Not to say that these any of these are bad, I possess many of the items but it has come to define a culture—one that everyone knows exists but no one can make assumptions about. How many old women must we stop to justify searching the one way suspicious passenger? If it bothers them then they should act less suspicious. The problem with this “Weed Culture” is that it centers on the ecstasy of being suspicious, the effervescence of flirting with the line of law. No one changes and pretends they aren’t a smoker because they enjoy being one. It is their identification, the group to which they call home. Most people can’t call one group home. Most people have a much harder time searching for people like them and growing themselves to make that happen. Weed offers an escape from this. It is an all unifying bond that allows anyone to fit in somewhere. This is nice; a high in life, but it can’t last. It doesn’t last. There is very little addictive in the substance yet the culture is nigh impossible to resist.

I believe that this government must relinquish its grip on controlling marijuana. They are doing an awful job and in an obstinate effort to remain stringent on their past rules they have allowed this culture to grow and grow and expand further and further into the youth of the country. I firmly believe that when my country steps in too close violating God’s laws that it should be dealt with passive or even violent resistance however, just because marijuana is not bad it serves no good and necessary purpose for me and while being a long-time proponent of legalization I’ve often wondered whether I would smoke or not, but I realize that my desire is only for the culture, that fitting in to a mold, and when that is removed I, along (I believe) with many others will move past the immaturity of weed. Some will move to other drugs but I refuse to believe I need them. I refuse to believe that my mind cannot reach the same level of depth on its own. My philosophies are no less certain sober than that of someone high. Weed now is grown up. It’s mature and idyllic like driving a car at 14 before you are supposed to and not wrecking. But just because weed doesn’t wreck me doesn’t mean I need to get in the car. This maturity is façade. This whole culture stems out of insecurity and immaturity—considering ourselves less able than we are, rushing towards ease and comfort settling in anywhere whether than striving for somewhere.

If I had invented the moon

2012-05-14T19:17:00.001-07:00

If I had invented the moon it would have been 3 times as big as the earth so that the Light would kiss everything. It would have been able to smile so that those who don't dream could close their eyes. It would shine through walls so that I never have to live in darkness, nor open my eyes and not see you. It would have earth orbit around it fast enough that we would feel like we're twirling, and the world would be a stage and nothing could stop me from watching your performance. It would be so bright that my dreams would become reality because I could not close my eyes. If I had invented the moon it would be weightless on a yo-yo string tied to my hand so that I could push it away only long enough to know how much I missed having it so close, and never push it far enough away that it can't come back nor push it so far as to erase that smile on its face when it comes flying back to share itself with me. If I had invented the moon gravity wouldn't exist and we could float to its surface as it shines through us and i could put out my finger and conduct you. I could charge you with the light of the moon. And in a way it would be only our light and though other's would see it, only we could feel it. And I would kiss you and it would shock you because we would be charged with each other; this light would be ours only, and from a million mile a way we could touch the same moon. But if I had invented the moon it would be all I could do and my imagination would never do the justice of inventing you.

I stood there (a second attempt at spoken word on wasting opportunities)

2012-05-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

Rain fell that night

You and I dripped in the house

Sweat and summer rain formed puddles on the hardwoods but we didn’t care

It felt like kissing in a pool; the water in between your mouth and mine

I’d swim that ocean however long if your lips were on the other side

And we stopped and I saw that question in your eyes

I said, “don’t close your eyes I can’t bear not to see them

And I hope that’s not a tear

And it wasn’t,

You blinked and I kissed you

I missed you

My hands landed somewhere on your back I guess

Though I wish they were elsewhere.

I was feeling much now

You leaned in a little more and kissed me back

This time I stopped confused as to why a woman like you would want to do so

And you did so

You smiled unfreezing me my mouth dropping open

You numbed me and filled me flying inside

And I stood there.

I longed to love you and wondered how

But all you needed was me present, now

And I stood there

As you played the lead

And I not an actor more like a stage

You poured yourself into me and I let you go through

You poured out my ears and out my nose

You dribbled out of my mouth and fell like sand through my fingers

And I stood there

Later that night as you did all that you could do

You left as I stood in thought

And as I pondered,

You wandered

I wondered where

There

in your bed you fell exhausted, disheartened

As the rain washed nothing away

You loved that night

I thought that night

You cried that night

And I stood there

Did he really say no?

2012-05-05T20:58:00.001-07:00

It’s a sweet irony—love. I don’t ever claim we had it, just that one night, that first night—and what can you even say of sex in a bed, that conventional bullshit. It’s meaningless—perfect only for drunks in need of comfort and old married couples grown out of spontaneity. Despite this, our first time soars with the wind lost among whorring clouds—a terrible night with too much passion thundering the entirety of my mind. Affairs can do that I suppose. Increase passion. Such is the case with filling any need. And here I am on the ground looking up and you seem to be flying through me that stolid expression. Am I a ghost? Like a tissue for your adulterous sneeze yet unable to wipe away your tracks— like water in need of washing itself. My knees burn from this rug (I don’t know why in hell you keep this ratty thing). Will you not say anything? I come at you begging at your door; in your house, but you can’t give me a response. You stand there leaning on that vomit of a sofa with that contorted and grotesque face of confusion. (You never like to be confused—you can’t be confused, you run too fast from it.)

Oh now you want to talk, now you think you have some words—no. You don’t think this has been hard for me. That every phone call I want only to hear your voice at the other end, how when it doesn’t come I hate myself for hope. This isn’t easy! Kneeling alone with you standing right there as like a mediocre tapestry my life and my dreams unravel themselves and sweep hope in the dust pan and recycle my future—our future. I don’t know her, how she makes she feel, how she does the things that I can’t, how she says the things that I won’t, how she makes love to you. Wake up! O don’t give me that look, with the red in your cheeks, 17 months ago that was you and me and those cheeks were not red, that mouth was not so dangling. What has she done to you; that girl, you deserve at least a woman. Or maybe that is the biggest irony of all, me on my knees I think all stand up so I can you look in your blank eyes. That’s what you deserve, to be penetrated by a capable mind, to be looked at by someone able to judge. So I’ll have a look not that you’ll mind nor could you say so if you did.

Still no response but that half opened maw?[she says with a laugh and a grin] However strenuous my earlier efforts forgive my mendicancy for I have found myself no longer in the emptiness of your eyes. Your smiles corners no longer contain me.

Thank you I guess, I’ll just go ahead and go

Wake up (and get a new rug),

lock the door behind me

give that little girl a hug

Wake Up Dreamer

2012-05-04T19:52:00.002-07:00

As beckon Twilight rises moon
And bed to me it calls
Reconciling me afternoon
My sleep in dream it falls

Away to fantasy whisked away

Freedom by me alone, it rings
And shadows and death die and play
And about I dance and run and sing

The road is marked with candy not yet bit

In a rabbit suit, a constable
Waging a wagging, long-eared fit
Erupting with a high scream pitch implacable

And the rose faces in the sky twist and moan

And the green sun sets beyond the smoke
Of the house that sits upon a stone
On a single side unbroke

With shudders rusty and of purple roof where

Inside drinking sugars fit not this world for

In I enter and welcoming there

Is my furry family matadors

They fill me a pour though small am I

In their great big colorful world
Clapped we our feet and fly we tried

And sometimes we even could

Happily in land this me ‘til with alarm arisen

And see otherwise my eyes

The loss this sun has driven

In morning with its lies

If Jesus Came back for the Day

2012-04-27T19:43:00.002-07:00

I got up early that day, took a shower for far too long ‘til I smelled like Fabreeze and Gatorade. My hair I fashioned backwards as if to erase the time between the last time He came here. I put on a suit at first but as I looked in the mirror I saw a Jesus in a tunic and coat and asked why I would try and improve upon this. Fashion is the myth of an era and Jesus, of every one, never seemed obsessed with looking the best. I didn’t shave but merely cleaned up the stray hairs which sought to grow in patches instead of a beard. Putting on a white V-neck and jeans ‘cause I couldn’t figure out why not, I sat down on the bed. Usually I would lay down again since it was nearly 2 hours before he was coming, but I knew enough of myself to know I would fall asleep. Like Peter and James at Gethsemane, I would miss my Jesus’ pain and agony for my own pleasure. I have done that enough and if God was to condescend to flesh again and spend a day with me, I would not miss it. In part because I have the faith of Thomas and in part because I want to learn, but mainly because I refuse to hear the words, “I never knew you” when I stand at His judgment seat.

Jesus came to the door. He didn’t need to knock but I let Him, immediately regretting how I made Him wait. He stood in the door of my house under the shade of the porch. He wore a white linen short-sleeve dress shirt and light khaki pants. His shirt was unbuttoned the first three buttons and it wrinkled around his tan chest. He had brown leather bracelets around his wrists and penny loafers on. I fell. There was nothing else good to do at that moment. All of my questions seemed to skyrocket out of my skull and into his being, as if he had consumed me. So much I wanted to say, gone in an instant; thankfully, or I would have never learned anything. I don’t remember a span of time after that but I recall there was an amount of walking and then we were sitting on a bench at Squirrel Lake Park. I’ve tried ever since He left to remember His voice, and while I feel Him as if He is still here, the sound of His voice seems quenched. We drove for a while and he made me drive. I guess it makes sense, he probably doesn’t have a license, but Jesus wouldn’t wreck. I made a stupid joke about Jesus take the Wheel and He smiled—actually I think he laughed; yes, it was a deep and hearty laugh like Eli in I made you special. All afternoon Jesus seemed to be working on my mind and soul. They were certainly His. I felt higher than a kite—drunk on peace and overflowing with love. For brief moments I was pierced with the insecurities brought by my sinfulness and a shameful feeling now having seen the Son, but at these moments He never failed to fill me again. All I knew was Love and everything of my past—my arguments, my sins—all was overcome with the flood of His love and Grace. I melted beneath the weight of His love. I melted silently—which is rare. Before I was aware He was saying goodbye—as if it were some surprise I threw my hand up like a toddler and mumbled goodbye. Yet I didn’t say I Love you. Maybe I was embarrassed maybe I forgot, but I would have done anything at that moment and anything now to share those words with Him. I missed Him as it turned out—still do.

I want to know the secret of your smile

2012-04-23T19:46:00.001-07:00

I want to know the secret of your smile
to know what mystery belies your eyes
to see the eternity of your soul
I want to know what makes you cry

Your taste I know, or think I do
But I do not want to give it up
not for a moment do I want to lose
a second's wasted without loving you

I haven't met you yet, or maybe I have
Yet I am sure you linger
I do not know your face, but I feel you
And I know how you will touch
I know that brown, black, gold or white
your hair will surround me
I know that your smile will speak to mine
The corners of my lips following your lead
I know that I will give myself over
Probably far too soon
But what I know of my nature
Whether I have words or not
Not even forever can stop my loving you

On the benefits of Arranged Marriage

2012-04-19T19:01:00.005-07:00

In order for one to understand why I, or anyone would advocate for the abandonment of such sweetisms as true love and “the one”— of anybody being any more special than another, in favor of the constrictive sound of marriage arrangement; it only takes that we find within ourselves the reason we feel the need to love, to be in love, to choose love.

This reason, I feel, is fear— fear of not being loved, of not loving. Fear of being alone—not just single, but truly alone— when you are, yourself, sitting in that dark and dank hotel room, suffocated by the weight of nothing, crumpled on a mattress unable to die for no one would notice, unable to live for no one cares—that state, where filled up and spilling out with loneliness, that this modern melodrama of relationships, hook-ups, and ceremony are born. It is in the heart of every man. It is in my own, but love was not introduced here.

No, love was introduced much before. When there were no opportunities for selective love and two individuals began to live and grow together out of necessity— out of efficiency— and from that learned, over the course of long lives, to love the other—in the manner eulogized by St. Augustine, as two trees, through every season, that at the end, you look down and realize that these two trees have become one. Here, love was not falling in love once, forever, but falling in love day in and day out to the same person, as throughout your life the person you married slowly revealed more and more—every part of their being and you found new, better, more complete reasons to love them. In fact this idea of falling in love once seems only to mean that you have already found out every reason to love that person and even if by some miracle 15, 20 years later you have maintained a marriage or commitment to that person, that flood of silence, and the desperate echo of radio that drowns out the car, thunders at dinner— after sex; it will not be some silent musical interlude that communicates without words, not the beauty of being in some inseparable union alone together, but the culmination of awkward boredom when all there was to say will have already been said. Sometimes kids come along, or sickness, or death, and it becomes easy to convince oneself that noise is there, and thus nothing is wrong when in fact love fled long ago. This love— this love that leaves both parties repeating to themselves how good things were, because good can no longer be easily witnessed nor will it be again; it is the type of love most prevalent in modern-day countries where love is self-selected. It is a love tied up in meaningless societal tradition, over-generalization, the under-representing of love with the three words, I love you. There is no justice in this for those words. All the original power is dwindled to dross, in the cold wind of this modernity as it stands stripped and exposed. In the words of Jonathan Safran Foer in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, “I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.” People are given too many chances to throw around this word. They mean it only in its basest form and maybe not even then. What if that is stripped away, the chance to fail, and instead by removing ourselves from the drivers’ seat of relationships we might experience all of Foer’s manifestations of “I love you”? As it stands, we flip a coin that can do one of three things, land in love, land in pain or fake love, or it could not come down at all, and in that interim of its flight our fears play a malady on our sensitive minds, and it is our very heart that is the coin thrown up. Is it a freedom to throw the coin, or a chain, a chain that binds you to one of these three outcomes? What if that “freedom” was removed and instead one is handed a blank coin and a blade, and given the freedom to make whatsoever they desired, with at least initial equality of opportunity? What if love and marriage is a process to a feeling not a feeling to a process, and everyone is allowed to take part in the process? What if it wasn’t just chance? Would not the knowledge of love being present, capable, alleviate the fear? Do we need to be in that ecstasy of love or is it not the presence of love that we seek. That somewhere out in the world someone wants you, and whether they are vile, whether or not you marry them, that love exists. Think of the whore. She waits like a lion in bars, in clubs, and at times on the street, braving the weather in little but her underwear for what? True love? No, she simply wants to be desired, to be sought after; she wants to know that love can be felt, that her presence means something. It is no different with the modern teen who parades her faux anatomy in the face of every boy in order that they me be fulfilled in knowing that someone wants them—at least some part of them, and the boys who would strip themselves and the morals for a chance to know that they might be let in. Take it all away!

Love by definition exists between only two parties, if it is a love with room for more; one wonders if it is love at all. How can one secure that he needs only one man or woman?

It starts young, 15 or 16, wherein parents began to arrange for their son or daughter a spouse. Schools must as a result, streamline education, become much more efficient, taking out the busy work that engulfs years in this present school system, that at this late teen age, people began to match up with what will be their betrothed. In this age these adolescents have little to know experience with relationships, especially of such gravity, but it is perfectly okay that their relationships not begin in passion. The two individuals will start at whatever stage of relationship they feel comfortable with and move forward, with no option of escape, forced to overcome any obstacles thrown in their way. Two people will be pushed together with a destination, a pen, told to write a story and they shall, a great one that gets better and better as the pages turn, and uncovers to each more of the other.

Would not the process of arrangement—of people being chosen, not encourage children to become what they want to be much faster— that they might get chosen by a number of parents and in a sense have their bit of a pick. There is no eliminating the want to be wanted, not even a taming of it, but by changing the process one can change how that desire manifests, and by virtue of who the young men and women are trying to impress, they will demonstrate themselves as honorable, loyal, and good. Clothing will finally stop its rapid convergence towards the waist. Adolescence will be stripped of the pressures of “love” and of fear, and freed that honor and decency will once again be honorable, even necessary. How many 15 year olds will be out having sex (and inevitably children and abortions) if in only a year they would be held accountable for their actions and subsequently forced to have that shotgun wedding; this time, without the chicken exit of the 2 year-in divorce?

This sounds harsh; it sounds like an assault on freedom, but do we really want every freedom? Being free to do anything is anarchy. No, we want the freedom to live ourselves, in equality with others, able to go as far as we want in life without anyone interfering. We want the freedom to be the driver of our own destiny—the ‘Captain of our own and unconquerable souls’ as Henley put it. We want justice, as a part of our staking out our own fate; we expect that consequences ensue for those who have wronged us whether personally or by association, yet can we expect ourselves to not answer for those consequences? Do we define freedom as anarchy for me and justice for the masses? Often in our relationship, that is just the case, we want the freedom to fail inconsequentially because there is a chance to succeed, and we would trade anything to avoid losing that freedom. We want to live our love life out without negative consequences only good and necessary experiences. In the coin flip of love many flail their arms at the coin coming in contact with every side of the coin, the good and the bad. So it is that many know every groove of the coin but when it lands cannot be satisfied. They have seen too much to be content. Likewise, many lose the ability to hold on to the coin like Mohammad Ali who punched like a madman in his younger years and now can’t hold his cup. There is then, little that is positive about this process of dating and hooking-up. We learn what the coin is like; if we are lucky maybe even what we are like, but we have wasted half a life learning everything about everyone only to try and settle down to learn something about someone.

Arranged marriages not only eliminates much of the failures of individual selection, but can also develop even greater a passion. Rather than nuclear bombing a single area or even two or three, marriage like this, slowly throughout its years plants little bombs across the globe until it is encompassed entirely in flame. So what of the questions about conjugal homogamy—those who feel that their sexuality might falter if it is not their decision? Of course it will. In the majority of arrangements the bride and groom will be a bit of a surprise, an awkward time of figuring the other person out, but you are given years back on your life to learn all of this. By starting young in an arranged set-up, you eliminate all the years of fear and scorn and depression, all of the woes of relationship hopping and take the average age of marriage, 27 and subtract the 16 or 17 years of before marriage and you have over 10 years to get to know that person— what they like and don’t like, what they smell like, what they taste like, what they sleep like, what they feel like, what they sound like, what they’re allergic to, what they think about, how they are in the morning, how they are at night, how their eyes mirror their emotions, how they love, how they want to be loved, and by age 27 you will know no one more than them, not even yourself. Nicole Krauss in Great House describes ‘our bodies like a great field where each day a circus is assembled and taken down again and the next day a new circus comes in, and it is never the same circus—what hope have we of learning about another if it is so hard to learn about one’s own self. Learning about one another is a far greater task, one that must start young and continue, on and on, over every storm of life, catching a glimpse of these circuses as they assemble and dismantle in the eyes and heart of your love. That is what I desire—to grow together. In the modern path we are walking around looking for someone to hold onto and hold on until we are unable to not let go. We are searching in hopes to throw ourselves into another and hold on to pretend that we are one, but in actuality all we need to do is stand beside one, holding a hand for years and years— decades, but by the end we really are one tree. Arranged marriage forces us to stand with another, and though at first it might be awkward, sweaty, or quiet, by the end when all of the rollercoaster of life has passed through and there comes again a sort of quiet, it will not be that there are things that want to be said and can’t or things that need to be said that won’t be, but rather it is a contented quiet that comes when talking to yourself, that words are being spoken but there was no need for them to be made audible. Silence scares us to death. There is nothing more valuable to ne than knowing that as I age, it won’t be in to this unquenchable silence, but a respite of happiness and the tenderness of being alone together.

Though the arrangement of marriage presents a sort of chain to what we perceive to be freedom, the freedom we perceive is not a freedom we need; if we knew the effects we wouldn’t even want it. It is a freedom to be consumed, whether by passion, or most often by fear. It is simply my freedom to throw up my heart and let it fall where it may. By taking out this process and fast-forwarding to the end—to the promise of a last page, where love in its truest form is really felt, I can be no longer bound by this system of fear, insecure hook-ups and failed relationships, and instead thrive within an institute a system by which love can foster—where love is a vessel with the promise of a journey, and though I am no longer in the drivers’ seat, I’m a passenger on one hell of an autopilot. I’m guaranteed a ride on this winged angel: love, and as it 360s and dive-bombs and twirls through the air I know I am safe. Though I wield no power, I get the opportunity to ride—for my whole life, without responsibility and stress and pressure. I get to ride where the wind goes, one with love and happily not in control as we soar through the sky where by myself I couldn’t go. Life is a fatal obstacle course, and it does me good to be on the back of the creature that knows its way around these obstacles. Sometimes life moves to fast and I run into things, but with love beneath me, those things don’t happen more and hurt a lot less.

Arranged marriage is all about trust. As a young adult right now, I still live under the fisted rule of my parents. It is not so much that I am much more constrained than others or even that the fist is squeezing hard, but as a teen and tending naturally, I think, toward rebellion I see this fist as a control I have not yet gotten free of—a power that I want for only myself. I am not so foolish to think that my parents would deliberately pick the homeliest and most religious girl of the bunch out of a lack of trust or some presence of vengeance for things I’ve done. The fact is that I have magnificent parents and though I often want power for myself, some things seem too weighty for me to bear alone, especially at this age where my hormones scream louder than my brain. I understand this relationship between child and adult does not exist in every home and that the benefit of my home may lend me unfairly toward the idea of arranged marriage, but it is a practice that I would love to be instituted on me because I’m sick of going at it alone when all I get are mysteries and games in return. I believe that as a man I am meant to hunt and seek out a woman, but this process is much longer than we think and shortening the race to simply landing a girl to date is aiming far too low. I want the girl it takes me a lifetime to figure out and I want to die still learning about her. We cheapen this journey of love to a few shallow puzzles at the beginning. But can those last? I guess it is unfair to call for a ban on non-arranged marriage, but it seems a blatant ignorance to stick our nose in the air at it every time it appears as if we are above it. I am a proud man, if I can even call myself one, and yet I need love and recognize that on my own I waste far too much time. As soon as arranged marriage gets a better reputation for the love it fosters (though admittedly I would do it sooner if I could) I will be the first one in line, because I believe that Happiness doesn’t always start with romance and that not even one lifetime is long enough to know a person and I am sick of wasting the years before I can start. Love answers no requests it hasn’t already and it’s not worth praying to. I’m tired of waiting and telling myself I am preparing for “her” as my heart turns inside me on this rough ride of life. I have begun lately to put myself in chains because I would run away otherwise. The world has run out of motivation for me to keep searching and keep myself. Where is “she”? Is she coming? I’m finished waiting for romance and not ready to dive into sex, and I’m sitting between where it seems many are. Why don’t we just sit with each other and begin to share. My heart done not living and I’m tired of waiting. Give me something to hold onto and I’ll hold it forever. Give me something to look up to. I know I’ll be better.

Life and Love: Spoken Word Poetry

2012-04-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

The sledgehammer pounds on life's icicle spike

It’s driven inside me--inside of my heart.

It splinters my chest and it opens me up

And digs even deeper as if there is treasure in there somewhere

And he finds it

That part where Beloved, your home has its place

The only place in me I don't want to escape

The head of the spike its drawing closer to my skin and the hairs on my chest stand up with a shiver

Old sweat beads down around my heart into that crease of my chest but the blood pouring out

Of my heart's not new

The spike

It is melting

Like liquid sun glinting over the dried blood of my flesh washing me clean,

A river of faces of used to be knowns, people distorted sucked up by the past

Tomorrow will hold them no longer, and we all need some tomorrow

There

You

At last

I see

You

So beautiful

Beloved you warm me up

The insides of me bubble and shake with the you pumping through me

Pulsing through my blood

Your soul

A song

Our song

Too much?

You slow down and spread e'er so slightly

You U-turn around my ear so you can whisper my name and I'll know you're voice

You bear left down my jaw and tickle my cheek so I'll know what it feels like for you to kiss me goodnight

You pause at my mouth as you roll through the stop sign and redden these lips with your tongue

Beloved you drive out to the edge of my world, circling my feet you spin around like you're a ballerina and dance a tingle into my toes

And then you return

And I only wish to do the same for you

To complete you

To celebrate our conquering of life

Sprinting through every fiber of your skin

Letting myself in

Taking notes in your eye

Counting every drop of color that paints the collage of your iris

Studying the infinity of your pupils

Dancing on the follicle of an eyelash and falling

And landing

In that hollow before your cheek where I could call my home if but a moment

You and I

Beloved

After melting life

After melting the past

What lasts?

Wont to sing and overcome

Wont to dance

To hold hands

For who?

For us?

Love

Love is not magic or a sudden exchange

But the loving caress of a palm on my face

Your palm

Your fingers

“Hold me!”

“No!” I remiss

“I can hold myself”

“I can’t”

“You must” I rebut

Dance with me too

Love me so fully and fill up and pour out this vessel

Love me ‘til bruises cover me

Love me ‘til my teeth shatter with the weight of our kissing

Love me ‘til my nose can smell you like a shark smells blood from a mile away

Love me ‘til you can feel my love rushing through you

And I’ll love you ‘til bleeding makes you feel better and comfort is comfort only when we're together

I’ll love you ‘til our dreams become reality and we dream once again

I’ll love you further, then

I’ll love you ‘til our song fills the universe's silence and conducts it with a string

‘Til the universe taps its feet

I’ll love you ‘til my insides become you and you’re the half of my whole

I'll love you ‘til all those clichés ring true and yet we won't say them

Beloved we'll do nothing but sing

‘Til words aren't enough

And filling you up and life comes once again to the door of our body and once again we send it off in evaporated dew and you and I weld the pieces of our broken heart, bending our dreams and bringing hope to our souls ‘til the universe says "Fools and Lovers! just go ahead and go"

And it'll be just you and I and we'll be filled to the brim

With love

With the other

And then I'll love you again