Thoughts on Life, Love and Hope

Seclusion

2010-02-05T13:50:00.001-08:00

Why can I not tell you the truth?
Why must I always lie?
I know not why, I know not how.
I dream of clarity
Of a time of hope.
I dream of a day with truth and life.

But how can this be?
Right now I am a pit of despair,
Lost in an eternal state of loneliness.
Those closest to me are not truly close
For they do not know the truth

And I fear that if they did:
They would not love me anymore.

In My Dreams

2010-02-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

I cannot see you in the day
Come to me in my dreams
and cradle me when in despair
Love me when I see no future
Play with me when I need a friend
And never let me go.

During the day I am empty,
My savior is gone.
I live each moment wasting away
Holding on for one more moment,
One more dream with you.

Without Life

2010-01-28T18:07:00.000-08:00

Vampires, werewolves and ghosts,
These our modern minds do see
When we hear the word called death.

Much like the late romantics,
We dream of adventure, of
Mystery. Stories from far
Away lands, full of fear, love
And betrayal, we crave these
Stories, our dear Hollywood.

James Joyce attempted to tell
A new story, life over death
In reality, not pretend.
What is the true meaning of
Life? He asks us, what is death?
He tells us these things:

Death is mindless following
Of Traditions of old. Not
Stopping to think, Is this still
useful or has it become naught?
The Sisters from our tale do
show, the hindering effects
of the Hostess' role. Why
cannot a younger lady
take the hat, of the hostess
for each annual bash?

Alike The Dead in mindless
Tradition is another
Tale, more horrific still. This
One is known: The Lottery.
Telling the story of poor
Mrs. Hutchinson; winner
Of said lottery, only
The irony of this sad
Lottery is the winner
Is the loser. When indeed
They drew her name, they cornered
her and shouted her name. The
Youngest and the oldest of
This small town, threw rocks until
She fell down, and lost her breath.
The sadness and despair is
This: each year this tale occurs.

Death is without individual
Opinion, Joyce says. He tells
Us this through poor Gabriel's
inability to love.
He cannot even see the
capacity of love in
Those closest to him, namely
His wife. But she did love one
Once. She poured her heart into
That boy, and thus, meek Gretta
Is stronger still than her spouse,
Gabriel. Not only can
He not love her, but he can
Not even begin to know
What love is. This lack of love
Is no fault of his own, but
Rather of societies
Persuasion. “Marriage is
More important than love, you
Need not love: its meaningless.”

The sisters from the tale, The
Daughters of the Late Colonel,
Do show us still the death, the
Emptiness of life without
Personal problem solving.
Without their father to lean
On, they can't make decisions.
They fear everything, from their
Innocent servant, Kate, to
Their dead father rising still
To find that they had buried
Him: “Buried. You two girls had
Me buried?” How worried they
Were, never having to take
Care of a thing before, what
Would they do with this newfound
responsibility? Dead,
These women are indeed. They
Are not living as they stand,
but instead are surviving.

Joyce tells us another thing
Of Death. Joyce says: If one
Cares what society says,
Then one cannot live a life
Worth living. For life that is
Lived for others is not a
Life at all, but rather an
existence. Gabriel shows
Us this, through his simple fears
and hesitations. He fears
Stuttering in a speech. What
If no one likes what he says?
What shall he do if he dares
offend someone without thought?
Joyce shows life not worth living.

Another place we do see
Societies pressure take
Hold, and that is of our dear
Lionel, in the tale: The
Other Boat. He falls in love
With not a woman but a
Man. Not only a man still,
But a black man indeed. Now
What can one do, when fighting
society? Lionel
Does not know, and indeed I
Haven't a clue either. His
Mother knew what had to be
Done, to protect herself and
Continue on. She disowned
Her son, said: Leave me be, I
Cannot be your mother if
You choose to live this way. In
Response Lionel did choose
To end his life. For life, when
Societies approval
You do seek, is worthless: Dead.

Now one more thing, does Joyce see
As valuable in order
To live, and that is speaking.
To communicate what one
Is feeling is to live. The
Sister's party lacked open,
Honest communication.
That is key to a life worth
Living. Exchanging ideas
with others, while growing with
Them in harmony. All our
Other tales do show, errors
In communication. For
At the root of all life, our
ability to discuss
Is key. The Daughters of the
Late Colonel cannot discuss
Anything significant,
They simply do not know how.
And with such handicap comes
Ineffective living, death.
Within The Lottery, the
Citizens of said small town
Cannot communicate to
Understand that lotteries
Are a waste of human life.
Within The Other Boat, our
Protagonist cannot bear
To tell dear Cocoanut the
Truth, that he cannot bear to
Live this way anymore, so
He kills lovely Cocoanut
then he dives in overboard.
Without communication
We cannot hope to live, we
Can only be, Joyce claims, Dead.

Alone

2010-01-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

My heart is as an ocean
Deep in darkness and mystery.
Some wonder whether they
Can enter deep and know.
The attempt is futile.

It breaks me to be alone
In this world, without a
Soul to understand. Once
I thought I had one, a
Soul to live with, but alas
I am alone once more.

Let Life In

2010-01-11T20:15:00.001-08:00

Storm's sad symphony, the
World is weeping for me.
Thunder screams of despair.
Dark sky surrounds me and
Nature sings the song of
Sorrow, knowing loves lost.

Why can I not choose who
Gains my love? My heart has
Picked one, hate incarnate.
Foolish tricks of heart can
Not pick one deserving
Love of friendship and truth.

Futile heart, it chokes my
Mind. I dare not think, I
Dare not breathe. Love lost is
Death to hearts unknowing.
Save me, knowledge safe from
Hopeless heart, let life in.

With You

2010-01-01T22:24:00.001-08:00

Hold my hand
Sit with me
Tears fall from my eyes

Hold me fast
Don't let me go
I miss your warm embrace

Pain replaces your love
You left me here alone
You ripped my heart out,
left it torn on the ground.

All I dream of is to be
with you

Change in Perspective

2009-12-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

I sometimes wonder why it is that I want to be around people, that I plan time to hang out with them, that I miss their company, but they don't miss mine. I mean, how is it that I am constantly in a place of disappointment. Where constantly people are telling me that there are better things to do with their time. And the sad part is, it's not like this just happens once in a while, or with one person even. I feel like it consumes every bit of who I am.

Today for example, I had planned on driving my sister to the train station. Stupid thing really, but I had planned it, I wanted it to be a special time. To drive her, just the two of us. And I don't know, I was really looking forward to it. But then, my dad just stepped in and said he would take her, I said I was going to and instead of backing off and saying ok, he said, "well, why would you? I'm happy to take her." It may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but it was kind of upsetting to me. I don't understand why no one takes me seriously when I say I'm going to do something.

Also, today is my mom's birthday. We're all sitting around watching her open presents and she gets a new Ipod from my dad. Now, let me explain something, my mom hates technology. She uses it when she has to, but as a whole it's definitely not something that excites her and learning new technology is incredibly overwhelming for her. So, she gets this new Ipod so I go to her computer and install Itunes.

It seems like a little thing, just trying to get it up and working so she can learn the new software. So she comes into the room after it's installed and I show her how there are two tutorials she can take, seems simple right? Tutorials. And instead of getting a "Oh thanks Sam, I really appreciate you taking care of that for me, I'll look at that tomorrow ok?". I got a "Well Sam, I really don't want to deal with that right now and I wish you didn't keep trying to deal with stuff like that because I don't understand what you're saying and you're driving me crazy!" It may sound silly, but when you're being yelled at when you didn't do anything wrong, well, it's pretty disheartening for me.

I love my parents, don't get me wrong. I really respect them and they've been really great and all, but sometimes I think they don't see how their words affect me. Hmmm, I wonder, what do my words do to the people around me? I mean, here I am, moping and complaining about how my parents words are so painful to me even when they don't mean them to be, but what about my words? Have I ever inadvertently hurt someone's feelings without something I've said and to this day have no idea about it? Probably. Sometimes I think that we need to step back and see things from other people's perspective, I mean, I mope and complain when people do wrong by me, but I don't even stop to notice the negative impact I have on others.

If we all took a step back and thought about exactly how our words were impacting the people around us, we would live in a very different world. Think about it, before you speak ill of that rude cashier at the grocery store, what if we stopped and thought about how she would feel about our words. What if before we continued the gossip train about Tiger Woods and his many mistresses we stopped to think about how this was affecting him. Or even better, how our gossip is affecting his wife, his children. If we took a minute to stop and think about how the things we say affect everyone else, than maybe we can make this world somewhere we actually want to live.

Is this possible? Could I actually make a difference in this world? I think so.