Lost

“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.”
― Masaru Emoto, Secret Life of Water   

 

                                Ships wreck

Walking through the question marks
Where will I go in this dark?
With the light dimming behind
How will I go being blind?
Screaming in my head, holding the candle near
Where will I go from here?
The path is crooked with cliffs along the way
Fear says never to go but only to stay

When there’s no sight from lack of light there remains no assurance in the steps. My soul’s being torn between ravenous beasts manifested by my torment. Faith, will you save me now? Will you come on the white horse of sanity and redeem my soul? These wasps follow me, stinging me where ever I go. I can hear the buzz of their wings while I sleep. There’s no healing from the swelling injections filled with the puss of their rape. What parts of me have died or are dying? Why can’t I tell? I know that bricks are missing in my wall and deleterious eyes stare at me from the holes. With all of this hell raging in and around me, I call out, as we all do in the foxholes of life, “GOD HELP ME”! He will, but how, it escapes me, but when, it eludes me, and in this moment I hang to what I know from His dealings with me in the past. I know He’ll help me, I know He’ll come, I know I’ll survive and be stronger yet for the next wave of human devils and demon thoughts.

The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not Want?

“When those who found this skeleton attempted to disengage it from that which it held in its grasp, it crumbled to dust.” ― Victor Hugo

 

            Sandra Ramos

 

When for ages the wind swept years away, there remained little of the life of the hermit, a stir past the window reminded eternity that mortality has its limits. Another flicker of movement that proved a harsh statement against all the laws of nature that screamed to be true. There’s always an exception, always an intervention by the divine laws which are generally ignored by the empiricists knowing they cannot tame the wild west of the spiritual. Though the house is dimmed by age, and windows covered in dust, sagging in their own way from age, life refuses to die. He holds on, battered and calloused from the struggle of living, refusing to crawl under the comforting sheets of the deep unknown. Something has died however, his passion has suffered the mortal wound. When it’s all said and done, am I alive if love is dead? And if so, what good is it?

Internal Dialogue

“Inside it felt like the hardest thing in the world. To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying.” – Laurell K. Hamilton

 

annacastrolima

 

The blind call the shots, when what’s heard isn’t seen
When I deal with me, it’s never what it seems
Though sight’s not given, still I judge the call
Crazy as it seems, when I can’t see at all

Medicating the pain, shown by blood not red
hoping to numb a shitty feeling, living in my head
Hoping desperately to find, a happy trail this way
Depression makes it hard, to get out of bed today

The movies are seen, and replayed with renewed vigor
Forever playing with, and pulling the hair trigger
Conversations bad when, the mirror won’t talk back
Only one side of me, carries on the attack

I want to sing and not cry, to take me through this time
The song I settle on, isn’t a lullaby
The mirror shuns the man and tears blur the day
The end of life it seems, points to a better way

Going Gently Into That Good Night

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”
― Stephen Hawking

                         The Crossing Over

When from birth the swaddling of obscurity
Covers my face with the harsh reality of life

How will I discover my soul and carry
the torch of meaningful purpose to my progeny?

Left with only the struggles of faith and doubt
over what my life should be or have been.

Why do I live, why has God given me breath?
Why go at all into the void of the living?

Of what purpose can it be to drag my soul
through a thousands horrors only to be reborn?

Does it matter at all and why
when I breath for the last time?

And then He whispers,
“That you may know me, this is your purpose”

It’s a fact of life that we
become disenchanted by joy without pain

And barely fight to know someone or something
unless extinction threatens to take them or it away

 

Imperfect

“I realize the imperfections in this composition, and I left it so because we’re all imperfect and need to accept the message of who we are and not what they say we are.”

I wish I were clay
then I could change myself
everyday

Today I should be this and
tomorrow I should be that
and for the moment
society says I’m fat

But not so long ago and
in other royal cultures so
this was a good to go

But merely because times
have changed and lenses
have different colors

I’m resigned to serving
like slaves in chains
I’ll be your skinny mistress

I am whatever you say I am (Eminem)
and that, by the whims of
a psychotic society

And even in writing if I forget
to dot an I or a comma I relent
of that you’ll never forget

I’ll be forever judged and that
it’s a fact of this life
YOU WILL NEVER BE ACCEPTED

Except by those who understand
that hats turned back and
hats turned to the side
are all a part
of the same ride

Rescue

“and it was he who some fifteen feet down spotted the body of the young man  floating like uprooted seaweed, upward, a brilliant white in the underwater space, and it was he who grabbed the body under the arms and brought him up, and also he who made the young man vomit all the water he had swallowed.” ― Roberto Bolaño, 2666  

bbaannsshhee

Wave after wave full of debris. It’s not just the water, it’s the stuff in the water that hurts. I’ve learned through years of playing in these waves, how to hold my breath to wait out the turbulence above. Being beneath the ocean isn’t always a bad thing, but necessary for my survival as I dive into the deep to let the rolling trouble pass. Lately I’m a land dweller and though having never entered the ocean for years, I can still learn from those water bound lessons. It’s not so much the living, the actual breathing and going through the days that brings the danger, but its the stuff that’s in the living that hurts. 

There are many ways I’ve held my breath to get under the trouble. Substances, relationships, danger seeking (i.e. adrenaline junkie), have all held me below. With all this avoidance and struggle its nice when I see a boat. That’s how God intervened in my life. He sailed through the storm and found me gurgling and diving just to survive the day. With loving hands he picked me up, asking nothing from me. I never made promises to Big Daddy (that’s my affectionate name for God), saying “I’ll do this or that if you save me”, I was just a panic ridden, scared to death young man who needed the rescuing power of God which He was happy to provide. 

You may not appreciate this power to rescue but believe me, when trouble comes and your life ebbs, you’ll grab any hand. Though not just anyone could save me because I have this tendency to jump right back into the frothy waters, that’s all I knew how to do. His hand not only rescued me but gently held me in the boat long enough to help me expel the water I swallowed and show me that I can ride the waves for exhilaration. That’s the wonder and love I have for Big Daddy, he teaches me a better way. So here I go, pushing ahead to the other side fully aware that though I feel like the waters will swallow me, I’ll still be saved.

The Fall

“[…] as if the next thing must quickly come along to occupy her, or the abyss might open. What abyss? The abyss that waits for all of us, when all our actions seem futile, when the ability to fill the day seems stalled, and the waiting takes on an edge of dread. ”
― Anita Brookner, Latecomers

 

 

I fell. Deep. Down a dark hole. Some call it love, some call it hell. I prefer a nomenclature of a different sort, “Abyss”. I keep falling, there’s no bottom, no end. I throw up ropes hoping they catch on ledges of sanity as I slip past in a free fall. There’s no reason, no understanding of this mystery, and still I fall. Controlling my fall is a crazy act of futility. I spin, float, and turn. Why? When I see her, my soul feels the wind of my descent. Is this free fall into love supposed to be a good thing? I stood on solid ground once, I don’t recall being happy there. Spinning out of control, I find contentment in that I’ll hit bottom one day; this hole will kill me. Does it wish me to be slain at its feet? Still I fall. I watch the faces of companions, wishing I fell for them like this. They are blurs, rushing by, in years that are seconds in the fall. The fall is only a moment, a blink, and yet, an eternal life is born and dies in that moment. Still I fall. It’s peaceful when my body supersedes reality, except for when the touch of my lover crashes through the dream. If she had hope that secured her, then she could rescue me. Still I fall. What’s left as the light grows smaller in my eyes? I smile, warmly feeling the embrace of the fall. It’s a leap that I’ll take again, given a second chance. Or would I? The Abyss waits for us all, will you take the plunge?

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

Also published in Life As A Human Magazine 

02252012 

The Dust – Apathy exposes your cracks

“Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can’t make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don’t get back on track somehow, I’m dead, that’s the sense I get. 
There isn’t a single strong emotion inside me.” ― Banana Yoshimoto
 

 

 

You see beauty everywhere, your supposed to be happy. Your not.
You see people laughing, your supposed to be a part. Your not.
You see tears falling, your supposed to feel. Your not.

You see beauty everywhere, your supposed to be happy. Your not.
You see people laughing, your supposed to be a part. Your not.
You see prayers offered, your suppose to do that. Your not.

You see tears falling, your supposed to feel. Your not.
You see life passing, your supposed to do something. Your not.

And worst of all, you just don’t care. I mean you really, really, don’t care. About anything.

It’s death you feel in every little crack of your soul.

Like dust collecting, this death accumulates in the small areas of your life.

But wait you walking dead! Be encouraged!

There’s life again, a spring cleaning as it were, rising from the dust of death in your life.

You must quiet yourself and stop running to the next thing that will numb you.

You must quiet yourself and wait to hear the voice of your maker calling after you.

You must quiet yourself and pray to the one who has the love that will make you whole.

I’ve felt the death that living life can bring, and I’ve felt the arms of my Father,

Those arms have made me strong enough to live and be safe from the dust.

 

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

01082011

Her-icane

“If people were rain I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane.”  
– John Green, Looking for Alaska 

The hurricane was coming.
 No more wondering, no more warning.

 

Grabbing the tools to put up the ply, 
I began to work, an eye on the sky

 

Nail after nail, I secured what was mine, 
my loose ends are bound with white twine

 

Wind tugs my sweaty hair now, 
as horizontal drops begin to pound

 

Forgetting one thing in all the hurry, 
the open front door in rain now blurry

 

Rampaging through my unprotected gate, 
the raging storm expresses all of it’s hate

 

It’s all over with damage everywhere, 
all of my belongings strewn around there

 

I could have prevented this wind that blew, 
had I stopped myself from loving you

02082012