Awkward Reasons –

“God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are reasons why at times my interactions with people seem strained. I say the wrong things. I limp through my social circles, everyone making way for my awkward presence. I bring up subjects deep and poignant. I provoke thoughts, thoughts you’re not accustomed to. I speak in a way you find odd. My accent tainted, not pure, not from any one place. The same with my mannerisms. I fidget with my hands in a crowd, unsure of how to hold them. I wonder if the way I’m standing is threatening. If a purse is left close to me, I walk away, believing you’ll accuse me if something is missing. Trying to drive with a thousand choices that are made instantly, provokes these social swerves that seem ungainly and make others uncomfortable. 

 

Do you know that this isn’t me? This isn’t how I am, constrained to behave oddly, chained to a limp of the soul and mind. Do you know I’m injured? Do you know I almost died because of love? Do you know I fought for my life many times, not from just physical beatings but mental torture and illness? Do you know that I’ve argued for my release from beatings given, many, many times?

 

Do you know how these scars make it hard to smile? The hardened skin refusing to release the joy struggling to stay alive in the poisonous atmosphere of my melancholic soul? Do you know the thousand thoughts I think just to go out the door? Checking my clothes, the color of my skin, the dark circles under my eyes, the length of my nose, the girth of my belly? Do you know that walking to my car creates anxiety? I grab my keys like a weapon; I make sure I always have a knife, though these things have never delivered me from violence or comforted me. Do you know that I struggle with violence a hundred times an hour? Not only my self-imposed violence toward me or others, but of the perceived violence I see directed at me in every face? 

 

Do you know that I always try to help others? Do you know though having been burned 99 times out of hundred, I still reach out, thinking that everyone believes I’m a sucker? Thinking that they all talk among themselves, working out plans to rob me of my time, energy, and money? Do you know that I know you are using me? Do you know that I still give in spite of this? There are reasons, stop and consider why.

 

Take time to realize that the people you know and see everyday are hurt and wounded. Look out from your struggle and know that a friend, a family member, a bartender, a cashier, is on their last thread of hope, wanting to die from the pain they feel. Reach out with compassion on those who irritate you, understand that the scars they bear make it difficult to respond with graciousness toward you and your problems. We are all in this together, make room in the survival raft for those drowning in despair. Act without requiring a suicide note or a midnight call from the police before you reach out…

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

First published in Opinionsofeye.com

02082012

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Imminent Mortality –

“I want to tell you what it was really like to think death is imminent, but I can’t. It’s a taste in your mouth. And an emptiness.” – Aaron Huey

 

 

 Sneaking thing this black specter, writhing in my brain,
Coloring my bright light with shades of never

Bringing the death of my flesh

In the missing of your gray eyes, pushing in my stomach,

grabbing solitary and smearing me with earnest

Bringing the death of my heart

Swirling decisions in red clouds, failing in my heart,

a tempting success erased in a hurried smudge

Bringing the death of my work
Jumping off castles of white cliffs,
flapping frantically in the forest of the unknown
Bringing the death of my belief

First published in Opinionsofeye.com

Nemesis – Stalked From My Youth –

This poem depicts the spiritual entity that from my childhood, stalks me. I know him, he knows me, and the battle continues. I have one refuge, that of prayer. Wouldn’t you pray after seeing that the enemy’s power is far greater than your own? 

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Prowling, eyes alert, glowing red’s the sign 

That what stalks me, is a spiritual kind

All it’s attentions, frothing tongue a tell

 

With growls preaching, at me from hell

 

When it comes, the dark is it’s lair,

 

No matter where I go, it finds me there

 

Words of religion, it does completely despise

 

I’m never away, from those deep red eyes.

Related Post: Hour of the Wolf – Wrestling With 3 A.M.
012412 

The Music – Music brings a release

 “Without music, life would be a mistake.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

I turned the music on today.

I let the pain work its way out and through

my heart to my eyes,

welling up with watery release

I turned the music on today.

I let the tears come rolling on in and down

my face to my lips,

tasting my salty sorrow.

I turned the music on today.

I felt all of it rolling around and across
I let myself go

from my life in this dark room.

I turned the music on today… 

Also published in: Broowaha

12062011 

After I Leave

“Of course. That’s what people do in a disordered world, a world of freedom and choice: they leave when they want. They disappear, they come back, they leave again. And you are left to pick up the pieces on your own.” ― Lauren Oliver, Requiem

layoutsparks

I have no game not committed to any way

Change my colors blend and go

Disappear in front of your eyes.

Blowing in the wind since I was born

Not wanted anywhere where I am

Wanted everywhere after I leave.

Flashing colors, calling my mate

In a blink I’m gone, left with the wind.

Laughed at, but changed quick

What they laughed at yesterday

Is what they desire today.

Constantly evolving, never staying in a rut

Never know what I’m going through

Have no plans, that I cant undo

and that in a hurry.

Not wanted anywhere where I am

Wanted everywhere after I leave

Also published in Broowaha

11242011 

                                             

Synergy – Forces working together in my life

 “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” – Aristotle

phorgiven

I want fire in my eyes and thunder in my steps.
I want to rise every morning with hope in each breath.
Fire of compassion, thunder of faith.
No sigh of compromise, just strength to create. 

Also published in: Broowaha

09182011
 

Dying in the Witch

 “I love you,” he whispered, and that was the moment he knew what he was going to do. When you loved someone, you put their needs before your own. No matter how inconceivable those needs were; no matter how fucked up; no matter how much it made you feel like you were ripping yourself into pieces.” ― Jodi Picoult, The Pact

 

The light vacated her eyes and left a dull black, dull like wet rocks dried in the sun. I saw it, and ran to stay clear of that magic, only the most vile of curses could pull the life from the eyes of wizards. Hurrying to my home in the tangled roots and quickly pulling my herbs and potions from the cellar, I began making a remedy against this foe, glancing out the window at the dark eyes as the wizard became the witch. I knew she smelled my cure, her nose in the wind as the ears of the night prowlers pushed out beside her once beautiful face. How does this happen? Can purity be so easily chased from the soul? Crushing the ingredients, small clouds of dust surrounded the bowl as I poured in the cure. She crouched on all fours now, all innocence gone, the grimace of hunger replacing her kind and gentle smile. I poured in the oils of remedy and brought them to a rolling boil. She gazed intently at my door, the instincts from another world directed her to my haven. Picking up the pot from the fire, a sudden slam at the door almost made me drop the concoction, that and a frantic clawing and growling made my task all the more urgent as the sweat of my concentration dripped down my nose and into my brew. The door splintered under her assault, just as I filled a small bottle, and ran, tripping over my feet and stumbling into the cellar. The door here was made for protection and had a spell on it to prevent entry but I knew no incantation would keep me safe now. She saved me not so long ago, as I endured a moment with with wicked things of night and now I would die for the chance to repay that kindness. Shadows crept around the entrance as the smoky tendrils flung open my last refuge. I knew she would kill me, though she loved me, and with that impetus, I swallowed the cure. The potion ripped through me like freezing water, taking my breath and leaving me helpless before her mauling fangs. As the life slipped from me, I saw that the flesh she bit off allowed more of the cure to repel the evil that overcame her. With my last breath, I saw the light come back to her, and as she stood, beautiful and glorious, her lovely eyes glistened with the tears of my death.

Revealed

“Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.” 
 – Ismail Haniyeh

gorean-kajirus

Everything I want to hear, or afraid to

Spoken with sweetness, I’m lied to

Clothed in harlot’s dresses, draw me close

Words sweet in duress, imposter I chose

Winking with sultry eyes, words conceal

My ruin never to come, imposter revealed

My Girl Manny Quinn

“Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.” – Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

thestuffispoison

Pressing my lips to yours…the coolness soon gone with hardened kisses. Inanimate style, making me hard. My hands trace over your glossy skin, swollen to meet my design. My fingers skip across your seams, more oil makes it easy. I carry you to the room, your long hair falling across cheeks blushed with my paint. I fall on you with unrestrained fervor, wild horses in my blood. Turning the music up loud, and dimming the lights enough to cover your dead eyes, I leave you there, lying still in my bed. Taking enough time to adjust the amount of blood in my alcohol, I come back to you. It never matters how long, still you hold that position for me. Never being able to scream means you can’t moan your pleasure over my illegal intrusions. I love you my sweet. I think tonight I’ll make you a blonde, and tomorrow a brunette. Then, I’ll tie your stiff arms behind you and in my final thrust, I’ll feel your soul drain and you’ll lie limp in my arms. My tears wet your flattened breasts, your misshapenhead makes your eyes point in crazy directions. You are my everything, you never leave, you never complain, you never reject me, your are mine and I love you, Manny Quinn. 

(’tis all in jest my faithful readers)

05052013 

Knights Of Sleep

“Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I feel the pull of desire against my eyes

The drawbridge lowers deep in my castles of thought

These arduous doors are opened by a courting call

Lit by darkened dreams not from the day

But by the undulating billows of subtle night

Missing my physical touch I find only a Queen of slumber

I reach for you to hold the fading ethereal way

I am left with only the encroaching knights of sleep