Ebenezer

Whatever, call me Scrooge. I officially don't like holidays.

Today feels much too like my birthday. A day I've learned to abhor since I was thirteen and began to think.

Why, you wonder? It has nothing to do with presents, expectations, etc.

It does, however, have A LOT to do with disappointments and let downs. Sooooo fucking much emphasis is placed on holidays... These - oh shit - "God given" days carry so much weight, and they only happen once a year. In turn, it goes without question that these "sacred" days are loaded with unequivocal significance, and throughout the years you are trained as a child to expect prepare for a certain something.

Again, this has nothing to do with presents. I recognize the holidays have a deeper meaning than gift-giving... such as the importance of family and whatnot. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. And that makes hating the holidays even more depressing... being unable to participate with the joy. I admit that a time or two I have found myself swept up in the "Christmas spirit"..

But that's just it. That's what I have an issue with. This spirit thing. The happiness your family not only expects to see out of you, but the happiness and excitement you yourself hope to feel. Or at least I know I was, waiting around for Christmas to come, as if it were some sort of cure-all... Because what happens when you're fucked up in the head like I am? And everyone wants you so desperately to just be HAPPY, 'tis the season and all that jazz?? And you just can't? And you lay in your room by yourself all day while your family enjoys the holidays because you can't snap your fingers and put a fake smile on? And what about when you're thrown curveballs??? So not only did the day suck before, but then it takes a 180 degree turn from how it was 'supposed to be'???

Personally, I'd rather just excuse myself from the holidays altogether. Pretend like my birthday doesn't exist. Start spending Christmas snowboarding and or some shit. It's bad enough that I have to deal with my disappointment annually, but why be even more of a bother to everyone else and sour their mood, too? I wish I could control my emotions. I truly, truly do.

And this is why this stupid blog is called "ramblings". Because I ramble over stupid, stupid nonsense. Even I want to punch myself in the face reading this gibberish.

snow

I
wantneed to go to the snow soon. I need the comfort. I need to be able to lie in the snow, feel the cold, the wet, the sharp sting of the snow touching my skin. I need to feel the suffering of my body just so I know the suffering in my head isn't alone.

risk

conflicted in happiness
torn at my essence
by a broken past and a promising future
dare i breathe in the delights of another
i wish to shed my hard protective shell
and let all that is delicate be nurtured
in the harmony of love my soul does flourish
but in discord its effect is devastating
i hang on to what is lost
so as not to connect with what is now
though i have put up strong resistance he has reached my insides
and he grasps all that is delicate
i wish to surrender to him
give up this insurrection
i want to sing in harmony a memorable melody
a song of one shared life
a song that makes cynics puke disdain
but in surrender i risk everything

without warmth

The cold finds us early now. Bites at our noses peeking above the covers, nips at our heels as we flee into the clothes that will protect us through the day. Warm me now. Warm me.

Hoping to Reciprocate

Everyone is cracked or broken in places they feel are irreparable, as sanity and joy slips through these crevasses caused by those instances in our journey we would like to forget. Are these vessels we inhabit supposed to remain in a pristine, tightly sealed condition, or are these crevasses created so others can seep in and do repairs or more damage? I have had a few sneak in and increase the gap, but this one has made his way in and patched up some of the damage with words of encouragement and an unwavering faith in me.

So after years of feeling that my broken status was less than ideal, I welcome those moments where he slips in and makes himself at home.

needy...

the need, drips from me
covering everything
I touch, everything
I come in contact with.
I try to catch it,
before it gets the chance
to ruin anything,
but it always does.
eventually, the neediness in me 
overwhelms it’s victims
leaving them 
worn and listless,
and seeking refuge

Do you ever feel that sinking in your stomach to the floor
When your hands won't stop shaking
And you can't take anymore?

Fun House Images

The timeline gets warped and I can’t find the opening – any opening – to get back in. I search frantically, trying every doorknob but they're not really doors they're just mirrors reflecting a fun house image back at me, big nose and wild eyes and electrified hair and I can't find the actual door. Life goes on around me but I don't get it, can't figure out how to plug back in and live, whatever that even means. I see them, everyday people, just walking on the street, or going to class, or smoking cigarettes in front of marble buildings built to outlast humans and I can't imagine. I just don't know how they do it. How do they get out of bed? And eat and dress and laugh and go out in the world, and how do they do it so effortlessly, so joyously? I envy them and pity them all the same. Sometimes I yearn.. oh how I yearn.. to join them, to fall in line and be one with the happy, sunny world all around – to be normal, so bone-crushingly normal it hurts my insides... and all these years later, still forever with my nose against the glass, an empty vessel waiting to be filled, a hollow head floating toward the ceiling like a sad balloon, wanting to fly free over the trees, nothing left to see except a red dot disappearing on the horizon.

Do you ever have those moments that no temperature or duration of shower can erase?

I took a shower to wash away this Grime of Emotions, clinging to my heart and soul. It wouldn't come off; soap and water does not help. The hot almost-scalding water poured over my skin, hitting every pore in case these Emotions were hiding there, clinging for life... but their power is strong and all I did was stand there with a sad face, the water hitting me with all its grace. I just stood there helpless. I felt my heart beating heavily, my thoughts can't even escape the might of Melancholy and Worry. I stood there, getting physically clean, but emotionally, I don't know. The skin on my fingers turned wrinkly and said it's time to get out. So I turned off the shower and dried myself off, but this Grime of Emotions was still there. My heart dropped and went along with the rest of the water down the drain.

Typical

The signs are all there.
Yet all I can see is
the sparkle in your eyes.

I just try to be kind
And speak my mind
Doing my best to be a good person.
Sometimes I wish I was less kind,
Can never get rid of the thoughts in my mind.

It's all in your head,
every last strain of insecurity,
and it's turning you ugly.
You internalize your own pain,
swallowing unspoken words and
bitterness until it lines your
stomach and you become
addicted like
it was an over-the-counter
drug; and now you're constantly
high on your own self-pity,
because it's easy to succumb,
easy to revel in your own despair,
easier to just open your eyes
but never actually wake up.

When I look at you...

Time stops for a while,
The rest of the world drops away,
Taking the backseat to your smile.
You are so beautiful.
All that matters is this moment,
this moment.
When everything feels out of reach,
When I can't take anymore,
The second before a tear hits the floor
You grab me and look me in the eyes,
in the eyes.

I can see your heart,
And for once,
I know that I'm safe
And that everything will be alright
Because I'm with you,
I'm with you.

dating you

Blue skies as far as the eye can see
Puff, puff on my majesty
Blank stares in the gallery
We’re all stars according to astronomy
Don’t you know I shine at night?
Dreaming in the same frequencies
Clouds align so beautifully
I’m way beyond what I used to be
You have no idea what you do to me
Don’t you know you get me high?
Parted lips but we let the music speak
Making love artistically
Just wondering how far is too deep
Bright lights, the city never sleeps
Don’t you know I feel alive?
The passion ignites the heat
Inhaling the perfume of peace
Can’t tell you of all the secrets I keep
But you ask me why I don’t need to breathe
Baby, don’t you know I know how to rhyme?

my tells and don't tells

This is why I remember.
This is why I cleave.

Because you knew the things
in me that I had kept
secret. Ego thinly
veiled and the heavy
chalk of verse
outlining my form
       in transit,
and you know
wordless
words thicken
my veins
when I speak.

All of my tells and don’t tells—
given answers to
questions which
yet, unasked,
you already know;
receiving resolution,
able to be still....
for once.

memorization

Can I trace my fingers softly over your features?
Timidly breech my curiosity with my hand,
and carefully run a finger along the bridge of your nose to the tip,
and count the number of fingerprints it takes to reach
the peaks of your cheekbones and cascades back down again,
and may I memorize the shape of your lips?
Can you hold still long enough to let me feel the creases in upon your eyelids?
Do you notice how such peculiar colors float around behind them?
As if someone dropped paint within us as children and left our minds to swirl images with it;
do yours create landscapes of faraway places like mine do?
Do they form old memories like faded photographs?
Do they create new worlds and birth a scenery in vivid detail?
With intrepid fingers and with intent, can I draw the line of your jaw,
and escape down the steep waves and hollow caverns of your neck
until the horizon of your shoulders becomes set
with the last colors of the sun and incandescent stars float around us?

Can I keep searching your eyes? Peering in, trying to learn the art that is you?
I need to memorize you, so I know that you were real, when you, too, poof out of existence.

so happy I could die

"I will always make you feel safe. I will always make you feel wanted.
Kaelee, you deserve to be happy."

I died.

when we lay together quietly,

listening to perfectly mood-fitting music, and when certain lyrics stick with me because they can't say it better:

"I belong to you, you belong to me, my sweetheart"
"I know that I'm sleeping because this dreams too amazing"

sensuous

it's the way my eyes jump wide with sensuous surprise as you make your way inside, the way we multiply and divide each other's primes with each fingertipped prick running from leg to chest to face to neck and back again. nails writing backs like desperate pens carving sinful poetry into skin. soon like trees in the wind we take the appearance of motion by our own volition I watch with devotion your pursed lips slip to reveal a mouth half open in no longer candid delight. brain signals lungs gasping for more of your air as i comb my shaking fingers through your hair, we collapse by natural chemical highs and with each breath recognize, we are indeed alive

I want to read

I want to read your story
your skin’s braille
words written
in the lines
of our scars
and find poetry there.

I want to read your verses
your sinking touch
words written
in the spaces
between breaths
and find existence there.

I want to read your words
your soft whisper
words written
in the air
next to my ear
and find peace there.

It’s funny how quickly you disarmed me, how efficiently you breached every tier of self-preservation and unlocked the riddles beneath each illusion, almost as if someone had given you the cheat-sheet to what I thought had been my impenetrable heart. For so long, I was forced to stand as lone sentry to my own frailty, and so I buried it beneath every imaginable trapping of steel and sarcasm and somehow, you've managed to smelt steel and sarcasm alike to reveal a prize so un-beheld, I can barely recognize it anymore. Stranger still are the quiet bursts of elation that light up behind those barricades you scaled so irrefutably, like bonfires to my sanguine surrender.

hypotheticals

What if
I knew what your thought process was like?
delve straight into the anatomy of your mind
without trying to criticize you? And maybe I'd
analyze you, but I'm emphasizing
the fact that I find you so intriguing.
I appreciate the masterpiece,
a work of precarious architecture,
your mind is.

And what if
I said I would like to be
acquainted with a human in rare form?
abstract from this traditional norm,
asymmetrically created and
composed of complexities,
nurtured into you.

Because, what if that "what if"
becomes a "maybe"? and what if
I maybe knew what your thought
process was like...
delve straight into
the anatomy of your mind
and the science of us could transpire
as I hope to inspire
you...
if you only knew.

How do you do that?

How do you do that? How do you make me feel as though I'm falling at zero gravity, about to hit asphalt, my heart splattered like a Picasso on pavement... but at the same time, it's like I'm finally breathing after 100 years of silence, like I've sprung free from a prison cell filled with too many ripped pages of Catcher in the Rye... and I see that I'm about to crash, that death is the only possible conclusion to this flight or fancy... but I keep breathing in your cologne anyway, just so that I can remember what it feels like to live before I die?

mind over matter

Make love to my mind
before my body,
I assure you the latter
is far easier to do.
Caress my thoughts
in the palm of your hand,
experience the immensity
of my walls caving through. 
Explore the depths
of a world hardly known...
not many people have
even made it to the door.
Watch me strip down
the barriers of protection,
undressing each defense,
they fall to the floor.
My body is quite simple,
more like the rest than not,
and spreading my legs
is merely exerted motion...
But take the time
to glance at what’s inside,
sex becomes more than sex,
but rather naked emotion.

“What’s wrong?” I hear.

I look up at the ceiling, your heartbeat a metronome for my fear as my head rests against your chest and all the silent words coalesce into our magnum opus in the distended darkness that presses in and cradles me like you had cradled me.

trying to at least

Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted.

Lift me into the arms of acceptance and I will try to find the will to believe

Tomorrow spells light in your eyes...
a hint of something to come,
something that was,
something that could be again?
I will accept the unbinding feel
of a touch, of a whisper, of a linger.
You shower me in undeserving praise,
and you almost have me convinced:
that maybe I am okay, likable...
maybe there isn't something wrong with me?
Lift me into the arms of acceptance
and I will try to find the will to believe.

A Haiku For Sleeping With You

I love to feel the
Rise and fall of your chest, you
Press'd so close to me.

from "Women who are Difficult to Love" by Warsan Shire

“you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
and you tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.”

Bites and scratches
down my back.
Tiny pings of pain
throughout the day
to remind me of
our nights together.

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

Morning Would

It’s funny how I fall asleep so hungry for you I feel as though a hundred tacit fingers are teasing and pulling me apart until my body surrenders and becomes a cavern for the unspoken and illicit. Yet when I wake up in the morning, my body feels lithe and stretched, as though you fed me in my dreams, leaving me satisfied and filled so that I almost forget that I even wanted for anything at all. And then the day wears on and my toes curl and my neck cranes and my fingers wander and I am left panting and starving for you again while my lids flutter in anticipation of the night.

Something about you has stolen me away... coaxed me out of my window and into the lonely fog to dance beneath the moon; and now there is only you.

no phone, can't stop writing

I spoke too much
Of feelings and such
It burned to keep it in.

It burned to think
This too would sink
Once I first touched your skin.

When we first kissed
A serpent hissed
I killed it with a glance.

You killed the time
With pain sublime
We never had a chance.

Like Only Home Can Feel

I used to rummage and scour, dig crater like holes, all in high hopes. Kicked up moon dust brighter than the sun, red paint on my hands like a surgeon smearing parts, legs ajar. Fingers crossed, intently decided on understanding you. I used to want to crawl up beside you, burrow myself a permanent, pressed securely next to you. And for a woman who sees so little, I was becoming adept to the art that is you. Held against your ribcage, nuzzled safe, like only home can feel. I listened earnestly. Heard Hendrix and jazz mad sorts of eclectic jams, words, wars and wisdom. Delighted to be webbed in your abysmal labyrinth, thought our mass countered one another; I used think you mattered. 

I pledge

to make today a better day than yesterday

this one always gives the best advice

"Your problem is that although you are subservient, which is my favorite thing about you, you need to stick up for yourself. You aren't a loser, you know."


true wordz of wizdom

surprising

that I don't even really care that I don't have a phone
you know when your phone dies, and you don't have to deal with it, and it's kinda nice?
it's like that... but not, cause it's missing
that's my fault though
what I get I guess for wildin out,
trying to de-stress and whatnot
I guess that's what I got in losing it,
a huge relief of stress:
constantly lurking
constantly anticipating, no more
but I'm curious...
if I like not having a phone because I don't waste time on stupid shit
but more importantly
because anyone who actually gives a shit about me
will find a way to get a hold of me,
and I don't have to deal with people who don't actually give two fucks
(been dealing with too many of these people recently)
(why yes, I am realizing the numbers of such mentioned efforts are staggeringly low)
but I wonder,
if enjoying this signifies maturity,
detachment, and independence?
or does it really just exemplify
how depressed I actually am?
either way,
not knowing, being numb
is very nice


I'll just pretend I'm having imaginary conversations with people who read my blog (as if they exist). hello, friend. thank you for noticing me, and listening to my bullshit ramblings

Fun- SNL

I was watching the SNL I recorded last night featuring Louis C. K. and Fun. I kinda wasn't paying attention, but this performance made me drop everything that I was doing and drew me in. Just the powerful performance and such sincere passion coupled with incredibly inspiring lyrics... blew me away. I've listened to the song many times but have a whole new appreciation for it now. Those lyrics we're exactly what I needed to hear, at exactly that time. It was one of those how-to-breathe moments.

Anyway, if you're interested/needing some inspiration, here's the video of the performance.
I also included the lyrics... because they're the shit (parts in bold = my life).




"Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck
Some nights, I call it a draw
Some nights, I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights, I wish they'd just fall off

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for oh
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don't know anymore...

This is it, boys, this is war - what are we waiting for?
Why don't we break the rules already?
I was never one to believe the hype - save that for the black and white
I try twice as hard and I'm half as liked, but here they come again to jack my style

And that's alright; I found a martyr in my bed tonight
She stops my bones from wondering just who I am, who I am, who I am
Oh, who am I?

Well, some nights, I wish that this all would end
Cause I could use some friends for a change
And some nights, I'm scared you'll forget me again
Some nights, I always win, I always win...

But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for, oh
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights, I don't know...

So this is it? I sold my soul for this?
Washed my hands of God for this?
I miss my mom and dad for this?

No. When I see stars, when I see, when I see stars, that's all they are
When I hear songs, they sound like this one, so come on
Oh, come on. Oh, come on, OH COME ON!

Well, that is it guys, that is all - five minutes in and I'm bored again
Ten years of this, I'm not sure if anybody understands
This one is not for the folks at home; Sorry to leave, mom, I had to go
Who the fuck wants to die alone all dried up in the desert sun?

My heart is breaking for my sister and the con that she call "love"
When I look into my nephew's eyes...
Man, you wouldn't believe the most amazing things that can come from...
Some terrible lies...ahhh...

The other night, you wouldn't believe the dream I just had about you and me
I called you up, but we'd both agree
It's for the best you didn't listen
It's for the best we get our distance... oh...
It's for the best you didn't listen
It's for the best we get our distance... oh..."

Sipping on Spirits, Tastes like Forget

Sit down to this bottle,
commence with civil sips.
Tastes like forget.
Responsible
gulps and refills,
it's not enough
and the wine
turns to beer
turns to shots,
sipping on spirits.
I'd be alright
if I could sleep in a different body
for the night.
Tonight it tastes like forget.
Tomorrow, regret.

nauseous

I’m sick of missing you. I’m sick of being lonely, I’m even more sick of being let down. I’m sick of being put last, I’m sick of hollow promises, I’m sick of waiting around. I’m sick of this, sick of being so miserable.  Most of all, I’m sick that none of this makes you sick. I’m sick of  my mind's consumption with you with when you spend all your time consumed with anyone, anywhere, anything else. I feel fed-up. I feel hurt. I feel angry. I feel sick.

Filled

This is why it hurts the way it hurts. I have too many words in my head; there are too many ways to describe the way I feel. I will never have the luxury of a dull ache. I will always suffer through the intricacy of feeling too much.

like unwanted notes
or failed poems
she has been shredded
bone-white confetti
scattered to the wind
papyrus leaves
an unwanted Autumn
no more scribbles for her pages
just drying, forgotten inkwells
no tape or glue to repair her
she will remain
    ripped
           ripped
                  ripped 

Flitting Eyes

Leading up to
the unwrapping:
an advent of courting,
kisses courteous,
not so ravenous,
flirtatious giggles
and flitting eyes meeting
a switch flicking.

All the magic
of first times...
We may be wounded,
we may be ready.
We maybe kinda shouldn't be
pushing back covers
or shirts over shoulders,
the clothes over bones
in drunk alleys or homes.

my problem

me

an extremely relevant repost from before, you think I would have learned: "Jesus Christ"

Every guy I fall for becomes Jesus Christ within the first 24 hours of our relationship.

I know that this happens, I see it happening, I even feel myself, sometimes, standing at some temporal crossroad, some distinct moment at which I can walk away and keep this all from happening, but I never do.

I always imagine the end, the despair I will suffer when it comes, and it makes any happiness I have in the present seem not merely ephemeral, but doomed. Because the happier I allow myself to be, the more undone I will become later. And it always comes.

I'm so fragile. Sometimes I wish I could walk around with a HANDLE WITH CARE sign on my forehead. Sometimes I wish there was a way to let people know that just because we live in a world without rules, and in a life that is lawless, doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt. Sometimes I think that I was forced to withdraw into depression because it was the only rightful protest I could throw in the face of a world that said it was alright for people to come and go as they please, that there were simply no real obligations left.

I grab at everything, I end up with nothing, and then I feel bereft. I mourn over the loss of something I never even had. I am a sick, sick girl.

Yet Again

I've got a handful of feelings
that have no meaning;
in context, they make no sense,
and are commonly much too extreme
for the situations at hand.

I've got a pocketful of star-crossed lovers
that have long since died out;
my mind keeps them alive,
an army of zombies resurrected
despite my fervent protests.

I've got a heart full of love
that I've been told is misplaced;
I do not have the capacity to hate,
even though I've been slighted
so many times.

Despite these heavy burdens I carry,
despite my breaking back
and buckling knees,
though they say I care too deeply,
I can never ever stop.

masterpiece

He paints pictures
with his mouth
impressionistic fragments of beauty
and landscapes richly textured
layer upon layer
as he strokes his tongue
across the pale canvass
of my thighs.
I am his work-in-progress,
the word made flesh
from the palette
of desire.

So what if his arms curled
as Picasso wilted? I watched
his back with my eyes closed,
counted the moles, there, until
my teeth fell out, jangling like
a bag of quarters that could
no longer pay for the calls
I tried to make.

He would not have picked up anyway.

hahahah, Krista

"...dude are you a pussy? NO! You were written up for battery. You're not a fucking pussy!!!!!!!!"

Acidic Properties

Your fingertips of
acidic properties.
Slip under my tongue
and tastes of nectar
and deceit.

It burns a thousand
words into my skin,
and you’re unaware
of bare-handed sin.
But I stand with

eyes open, and a
heart thrust with
intention to listen.
Ready for defeat...

tricks

to feel the absence
of hands i never knew,
will never know,
is fate's cruelest trick.

Some words, if left unspoken, will repeatedly carve themselves in you until you preach them.

Keep It Together

Safety pins are
only safe
if you remember
to keep them pinned,
and paper clips
don’t hold as tight
as staples, stuck
through papers’
tattered edges,
and glue sticks
can’t fix
broken hearts
or shattered windows,
just like 
duct tape
won’t save
a leaky pipe 
or make you
forget
last night.

I grab at everything, I end up with nothing, and then I feel bereft.
I mourn over the loss of something I never even had.
I am a sick, sick girl.

cycles

This is the same war
I fought before.
      Different man,
      Different lips,
Same deception.

ambiguity

confused uncertain insecure self-aware worried paranoid frustrated stressed etc etc

all bad things

Cozy

Eyes fail under the sun,
they've adjusted to the night,
and I'm eating at the darkness
because I hate my own light.
I'm wearing myself down
though my spirit wants to roam;
these walls I built around myself
were never meant to be a home.

Sight is another spectrum
that I don't understand,
the wrong sensory input..
like tasting with my hands.
And this prison that was safe
is where I'm most alone
and the walls I've built around myself
is the place I call home.

ugh

just a while
just enough
to catch our falling breath

don't look
as i change
just promise
you'll still listen

if i change the tone
of my voice
it is only
to near the surface 

if i come out
looking worse
then hand me honesty
honestly

there are words
still left unsaid
before the clouds burst

and if it pours
you know
you can always, always
stay with me

time well spent

I'm spending my time
rediscovering myself in
all the spaces of you:

the round dent in my pillow,
my place on your lap,
the dip in my bed,
your hands on my back.

Combustion

Are you the hairs that stand
At attention on the back of my neck
When I experience the juxtaposition
Of language I never imagined?

Are you truth compounded
Upon truth birthing beauty
So much like the burning elements
Which bore our first brilliant stars?

Some fires just can’t be put out.

How bad does it hurt

to fall from that high cloud nine?

Comforting Silence

He didn't know he could write, but he can, and so beautifully. He wrote this for me after I told him his silence is comforting, using my shoulder and an index card while I dozed on his lap:

"This is true silence I suppose,

with shallow breaths,

lips sealed, and eyes closed.

I let you rest because I know your emotions are overthrown,

and to see peace in you, that angelic glow,

is the most comforting silence I have ever known."

I hope you all get to experience a moment as special and wonderful as that was.

P.S. you're amazing

STOP IT

there is something about your eyes
that infects my thoughts
as it searches for a spirit
that was purposefully lost

there is something about your smile
that on my walls pound
as it hunts for a heart
that refuses to be found

there is something about your being
that whispers to my pain
saying to my soul
you don’t have to hurt again

The Information Man

"After over 300,000 miles,
12-dozen breakdowns nervous,
one too many midnights
and a bunch of broken laws later...
I have come here from out of the rain
and into this rest area.
Caught 22 miles between you and me,
watching the information man
behind his information booth;
juggling predictable conversation
with folks who look like iceberg lettuce
and who believe that somehow
the flat lines of small talk
will give us life.
I want them to leave:
like a big deal orchestra
removing itself from the stringed section
so I can fiddle with fate and make music.

There is a distance the size of bravery.
It forms like words
in the mouth of a baby reaching out
for the point where all things meet.
On one end of it sits an info guy
(who I imagine holds down
his second job as church bartender
behind locked doors leading to the bell tower
we are not allowed see, sinners).
At the other end of this space
I am standing
like shoe polish on an overstocked shelf
hoping that one day
someone will pick me to make things better.
This is not a showdown or a shootout;
we are not facing off.
But I can feel the
r-r-r-r-rumble between dusk and dawn,
as if the chance to come clean with myself
will be outlawed
unless I relax.
It takes a long time to make love
with someone who hates themselves.
It feels like I've been standing here
for exactly that long when, at last,
the rain outside drops off
and takes everyone in the rest area with it
except for me, and the info guy.

If we were created in God’s image,
then when God was a child
He smushed fire ants with His finger tips
and avoided tough questions.
There are ways around being the go-to person,
even for ourselves,
but today I will get the answer
and you know what I’m talking about,
THE answer.
Emphasis on EE answer...
So I put my best foot forward
and take the kind of deep breath
that gives me away
as someone who deals with
anxiety 
and odd numbers
every other 
other every minute.
In between it,
the info guy’s eyes grab me
and shift
back & forth,
like mopping floors
(with the sweat I sweat
in battles against myself).
He’s got me locked in and is smiling.
If you’ve never been rocked back
by the presence of purpose
this poem is too soon for you...
Return to your mediocrity,
plug it into an amplifier,
and reeeee-think yourself
because some of us
are on fire for the answer.
I am ready for rejection
and rebirthing balance in my stutter steps
when the info guy finally pipes up
like C.R. Avery on a piano box
and says to me:

I can tell you're lookin' for answers...
Listen, if I didn’t have so much of this life all wrong
I would have gotten it right by now.
I talk a whole bunch
but I really only know a few things,
so I'm not saying to follow along verbatim here.
I’ll just tell ya the things I tell myself -
the things I know –
and you can see what sticks…
I know our shoes were stitched from songs about highways.
The best songs are the ones about Georgia
even though I've never been there
because it’s the only place that still believe in Jesus.
I know that no matter what it is you believe in,
you've got to spare yourself the futility of making fun of God
because that guy hasn’t even talked in like…
ever.
I know troubleshooting yourself in the foot
and acting as center of your own universe
is a tricky dichotomy to deal with
but, yes, you ARE the center of the universe.
If you weren't
you wouldn't be here.
So as the middle of space and everything floating in it
it is your job to know
that the emptiness
is just emptiness,
that the stars
are stars,
and that the flying rocks –
fuckin’ hurt,
so please
stop inviting walls into wide open spaces.
I know everything is out there.
It’s why they call it everything.
I know there are times
when you will lay your head to rest
and have a moment of brilliance
that grows into a perfect order of words
but you will fall asleep
instead of painting it down on paper.
When you wake up,
you will have forgotten the idea completely
and miss it like a front tooth
but at least you know how to recognize moments of brilliance,
because even at your worst
you are fucking incredible.
It comes honest.
So return to yourself,
even if you’re already there,
because no matter where you go
or how hard you try
or what you do
the only person you're ever gonna get to be
(and I know it)
is you."