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Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Without Sugar

Hi. It's been about a billion years since I posted anything. I feel like my style and voice has developed significantly since my last post. So here's a thing I wrote entitled "Without Sugar". Let me know your thoughts.


I watch my people,
stumbling in this corner of the sandbox
where the weeds grow.
A messy meeting of atoms
feeding on words and feelings,
lapping each other up like cats do milk.
No bodies for the brimstone
to bother, a smokey existence
with no blood to hold brandy.
Regret steeps this smoke,
a black tea without sugar,
and I sip and muse,
save us from our souls.
Melt this place.
Give us lungs to drown with.
Teach us how to swim,
and to die.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Lion Tamer

One day she batted her fake lashes and told me that she hated writing. And I just smiled that smile we make when someone speaks on a subject on which they understand very little. How sad that she didn’t realize that words aren’t just letters and sentences aren’t just words. That words are lions, and pens and tongues the whips cracking in fluid succession. That real readers hold their breath because they can feel the steam of the lions’ beating body boiling out onto their tucked noses as their brains balance between the beasts’ golden lips. And that the ringleader, with the snap of a single syllable can lock the jaws on exposed gray matter, can wake the apathetic, can remind us that we’re human.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

You Alone

Sometimes you just have
To breathe. 

I mean it. A big breath that you
hold in close to your chest and
let it out slowly enough that you
have time to THINK.

That there are people 
who are going to 
Put
you down. 
Cut
you down.
And Kick
you while you're down. 

Now take that breath and 
HOLD IT.
Decide. Decide who you want 
to be and who you want to help
who you want to become and
who is going to get in your way
and decide and 
HOLD IT.

And don't let it go. 
Don't even CONSIDER
Giving up.
Letting up. 
Looking down to where you
MIGHT end up if you fall. 

Never be afraid to fall,
because FALLING
and FLYING
are not that different. 
Flying is just taking your fall and
CHOOSING whee you want to land. 

You'll hear otherwise. 
They'll tell you that you've 
fallen and you're hurt and 
broken and worthless. 

THEY. They'll call you stupid.
And ugly. 
and fat and lazy and disappointing and a waste of time and space and a lost cause 
and that
you're nothing. 

And Now. 
now's the time. 
For you to let out that BREATH. 

The time for you to decide 
if you're going to let them hurt you. 
Let them destroy your ego. 
Kill your dreams,
and and break your spirit. 

Or
will you decide to fight?
Fight for what
you 
deserve. Fight for 
your 
happiness--Fight for
your
Life.

YOUR life. 

You 
can choose what to let into your life. 
You
can choose to stand just a little taller
whenever they pass by. 

Will it be hard? Frightening? Overwhelming?
Of course it will be. 
Because they are the wolves,
and you won't always be surrounded
by a shield of friends. 

so

Every time WITHOUT FAIL,
when they look you in the eye
you meet theirs
and you stare right back. 

When they tear you down
you pick up the pieces and you
build a new defense. 
A STRONGER defense. 

Because 
you? 
You're worth defending. 
No matter what THEY may say,
you are worth defending. 

You
are beautiful and unique
and bring something to this world
that NO ONE else can. 

You are YOU
and that's all that matters. 
And that's all that will ever matter. 
And THEY can never change that. 

Take another breath. 
Again,
hold it. 

Don't think about anything this time. 
Let go of your fears. 
Let go of your worries. 

Now, just let it out. 
And choose to smile. 
Because everything is going to be okay. 


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Writing: C17H21NO4


Mom said some people get hooked after just one time.
Granted, it wasn’t just the gateway stuff done five minutes
before class that everyone was doing in high school.

The first time I experienced it was late one night after
an emotionally ravaging day, in room-provided solitude,
eye-contact with a hummingbird silence.

Deafening heartbeats, injecting the day’s events into my
bloodstream. Hypothalamus overload, delusional parasitosis—
words crawling  just under the skin, pausing at my fingertips

expressed through a cracked shaky #2.
Ten minutes of ultimate inspiration, ultimate confidence;
euphoria, sweet euphoria, meet the brain.

A god for a single moment. Fifty thousand words,
fifty million thoughts, infinite possibilities. And yet
you? You granted life to a breathtaking new combination.

 Addiction.

I get it now. Every night I crave to reintroduce myself to
that divine creator living deep, deep within myself,
but many of these nights end with restless, sweaty
palms, and ravenous appetite for syntax that isn’t being fed.

The words again course through my veins, surge
through exhausted gray matter but I can’t. I can’t get
them out. They burn inside me and some days you have to
itch and scratch  at them until you bleed them onto the paper.

It’s a dripping mess, kindergarten finger-painting on cardstock.
Honesty in its purest form accompanied by increased body
temperature and pupils dilated twice their normal size,
courtesy of the dim desk lamp everyone buys for college.

And I admit it, I’m always looking for new ways to
reach the feeling of that first time. Speedballing syllables
with rhythm, I’m just a delinquent in downtown LA.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

A Breath Upon Mine Ear

O my soul
why hast thou departed hence,
leaving me alone to bear the burdens of this life 
in quiet solitude? 

Doth thou wander now
among the throngs of spirits lost? 
Perhaps thou art seeking me even as I seek in
desperation for thee.

Not only for
the gentle strength of thy
supporting presence, but for the value which
comes with thee, to me. 

Swallowing my 
weakness, fears, and pain
I dare journey through dark places til we meet
again and I beg

for thee to stay.
Again to whisper in my ear that
I am so much more than the masses fault me
to believe.

Exhausted 
after many days of unfruitful
seeking. I rear my head and cry out to thee.
Please! Why?

In earnest
I have sought for thee
and never hath my trials seemed so great
and I needed

Thee. 

A voice, a
breath upon mine ear.
Here I still reside in thee, and hath witnessed
all thy trembling.

For I knew
that I alone could not
support thee through thy life. These trials I 
did allow thee

to face alone,
though heavily it weighed upon
my heart to witness thy pain these days. 'twas
for thy good. 

No more tears.
For I am here and thou 
art stronger than if I had held thy hand or simply
carried thee.

Now let us
face the world together,
with eyes radiating strength and experience that
we may be

Teachers.



Sunday, August 11, 2013

Letting Words Fall Out

Drifting in and out of thought
up and down
a waterfall of words
Salmon swimming upstream.

Struggling to breathe because
the Thoughts are more important,
the Words are more important
than air is. 

Calypso less word more sound
echoes through my veins
pulsing to my very brain
I hold tight to every moment.

As the tide rolls in I can't help
but wish that my thoughts
were more Appealing, more
Appetizing, perhaps. Something
of 
Substance. 

But is substance what I'm really
going for? What I want
in my life? There is a superficial
beauty in simple nonsense. 

Nonsense. Nonsensical. 
Completely underrated, yet
gives me complete motivation
To let my mind give birth. 

A pregnancy of thought. 
Conception, development,
pain, stress, suffering form
into something that becomes
Nothing

short of a miracle. 

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Float and to Fly

It's like standing on the edge of a pool,
with the rubber of your sneakers hanging over the concrete edge.
Moonlight reflecting in the solemn waves.

Never before has the water seemed so appealing.
To be engulfed in its chilling but somehow soothing grasp
would be learning to float and to fly.


--Disclaimer: I'm a terrible swimmer. I frequently find myself using my fear of swimming as a comparison to other fears I have. Unfortunately, when I write about it it can be easily misinterpreted to have suicidal tie-ins. This is not my intention, but for those who may themselves have suicidal thoughts, remember that it is always better to float and to fly.--