For her...

This isnt actually my writing. This was written for me by my friend Jim soon after my friend Stef passed away.

The Day You Didn’t Wake Up
---Dedicated to Stefanie Blackburn

We first met on the day you didn’t wake up.
A sun-drenched January afternoon,
Cold and beautiful like the one before it.
Living fifty feet from each other,
Never a word was passed
And on the day you didn’t wake up,
We didn’t change that fact.

Bitter smell of frozen youth filled my lungs
In a room where the silence was heartbreaking.
I held your icy cheek in hand
As the 911 operator recited monotone orders,
But she couldn’t see this.
Amber hair flowed motionless pass
A pair of baby blues that never seemed so sad.

On the day you didn’t wake up,
You left to the beat of breaking concrete.
Tears raining down like meteors from three stories above.
Slamming through dark stretcher tracks.
The only luggage loaded into that van,
Was a maroon carry-on in your image.

How do you eulogize someone you only met once?
I couldn’t tell ya but I tried to figure it out.
On my kitchen floor for hours,
Shaking hands scribbled words
On paper that blurred with every line,
That blurred with every letter,
That blurred with every passing moment.

On the day you didn’t wake up
I wrote a poem for you
In the hopes that some how
These words might leap from paper
And transcend comprehension of life and death.
That they rearranged themselves into concentrated light
Reaching places un-thought of by men or women,
Just to say that I may not have known you,
But meet me at the gates
On the day I don’t wake up.
We will talk of that cold and beautiful January afternoon
Where the sun had never been brighter
And when we met for the first time.

Finding Peace

Peace.
I feel her creeping up my body and warming my chest.
The feeling is so lovingly threading a needle,
with the strongest of apologetic regret she has.
She gathers up all the splintered pieces
and touches their jagged edges,
one by one,
angle by sharp angle,
until her soothing brush calms their burning sadness.

She ever so gently takes them into her experienced hand
and holds them.
Just holds them.
Nothing fancy. Nothing extreme.
Just holds them.
She listens to them.
Listens as their every tear hits the ground
and their every shudder rocks through their being.

The she tells them that it's enough.
She's held them so close to her own intake,
her own outtake,
that they stop torturing themselves.
They learn to breathe again.
They learn to live again.
She proves it's possible.

She doesn’t lie.
She makes sure they understand that it will hurt.
The recovery will be long and difficult,
but it will be possible.

When they are ready,
the tiny pieces of my shattered heart hold together.
they grasp each other with a strength
they thought they had lost.

While she runs her thread through them,
They cry.
They whimper.
They smile.
They know that these stitches will leave scars.
These stitches will bruise.
But these stitches will hold.
They will hold while the cracks of betrayal still show.
They will hold while the old drips away.
While the past that was once so destroyed
is taken over by a future that holds forgiveness.

These stitches will heal them.
No more broken.
No more bleeding.
No more pain.
Only thin lines that remind me
that I am still alive.
Because when she is gone,
that’s the only way to really find her.
Peace.

Heart Of Glass

Be gentle with me,
My soul was molded out of sand
Like a child on a beach of promise.
Instead of washing away in calm, gentle waves,
It was burned and heated
By those who are stronger than me.
They scorched me; hammered it into what they wanted,
‘Til all of the tiny grains of hope were melted.
They clung to existence,
Smoothing out and clinging to each other for dear life.
Draining all the colors and unique pieces I had,
Now all that is, all that you can have, is this.
A cold, transparent glass heart.
Because of those before you,
I am holding my breath.
If your lips touch mine,
I am likely to shatter.
Be gentle with me.

Our World

Pale blue dot.

That’s all we are. That’s all we have. We are a pale blue dot inside of a space that no one can fully comprehend. We don’t understand that we are a mere skiff of life in an enormous expanse. Our race so easily smears each other’s blood around this small, insignificant piece of cosmos that we inhabit,

and for what?

Power?

Wealth?

What?

There is so much deep seated hatred and feverish urges to segregate ourselves. To classify ourselves as different from each other. How many words are there which do this very thing? Some we accept without question, they are common place. Others are extensively derogatory and offensive. All of the words do their job.

They separate us.

The one I loathe the most is race. What is race? I have always believed I was part of the human race. I am built the same way as any other human. If I take a breath of air, can they too? If I feel the wind on my face can they as well? If you took our skin, underneath would we look the same? Would we both bleed? Would we both hurt?

And on this planet we inhabit, what are we doing with our time and our energy? Polluting our waters? Destroying our land? Killing each other in the name of our deity? Or would it be just in the name of our country? We have deceived ourselves into believing that we have such a large importance. That we are the light and dark of life itself. Well, our race needs to take a step back from our enormously central position we seem to have taken. To quote Carl Sagan, “there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

Yet, underneath this pure and uncontrollable selfishness that humans seem to have, there are rays of light. Cultures that have ways to celebrate their achievements and their successes. Episodes of compassion and love. Efforts to help slow or reverse possible damage that has been done. There are moments for us when we show that we can be constructive with the lives that we have and the things that we share this pale blue dot with. We can be better at life. No one is perfect but we can definitely learn how to work on it.

Because this is our one, our only, pale blue dot.

Please take a second to watch this video.

http://www.wimp.com/betterworld/

Weapon of Choice

I unsure of where to start.
Many different events have happened in this past year. Some of which were wonderful and others left marks on me that have scarred. By scarred, I mean a sort of irreparable damage left by a weapon that you cannot defend against.
A weapon that you yourself actually wield.
An inborn destructive/productive weapon that turns grown men into hollow shells and fragile women into warriors.
Events, or more importantly the emotions that follow; the whole gambit of them will make anyone’s life turn on a dime.
Without them you are dangerous and through them you are weak.
They are the bane of my existence but also the ambrosia and nectar of my life. All you must do is learn the ebb and flow, which is easier said than done.
I know.
But make sure that you are aware that sometimes there are flash floods that overwhelm you without warning.
Just make sure you don’t drown.


This should serve as a warning. Not all of my posts to follow will be dark and sad, but some will. I have a lot of things to deal with and some lesions that I don’t think will ever heal. I also have many good moments in life. Many that make me understand just how lucky I am to be here, on this earth, with the people who have the power to elicit these emotional weapons.
To draw them from places I have them sheathed.
I allow these people to wield these weapons against me.
I cooperate when they hold these weapons to my heart like sharpened dagger and threaten to end me.
I let this happen because of two things.
One is that I know that if that person does press that blade deep into my heart, rendering me lifeless, there are others around me to protect me and help me to heal.
And secondly, you will never feel so full of life than when someone you love has a razor edge a heartbeat away from you and you have never felt safer.

Something new...

I need something different. Maybe not something different but at least an outlet.
Somewhere I can put my writing.
My drawings.
My thoughts.
So inspired by my friend Emily, I have started this. I never pictured myself one day setting up a blog.
And I want to say right away…I don’t care if you don’t like my spelling.
I don’t care if you don’t like my writing.
I don’t care if you don’t like my ideas, thoughts, feelings, vocabulary, expressions, stories or anecdotes.
I don’t care because this is the one place I don’t have to. I can look how I want, feel how I want and muse how I want and not give a damn about whether you like it or not.
All that said…I hope you do.
I hope you like it.
I hope you take something away from it or feel the same way.
A thought provoking comment or a feeling shared between people is a connection. It creates a spark.
I love that.
And I am excited. A new chapter in my life and a new pet project.
I am ready…I think.