Tag: light

I Love Beautiful Dark Things – Not all things dark are evil

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” – Mary Oliver
afanador
I love beautiful dark things,
that bring shadow to your life,
making things come alive,
with depth and mystery.
These beautiful dark things
are what’s between bright and nothing,
a hope of a world beyond extremes.
 
I love beautiful dark things,
without which you’re two dimensional.
Lost on the page of life.
I bring direction with my beautiful dark things,
They show you where the light is,
the subtlety of life,
bringing texture from flat canvas.
 
I love beautiful dark things,
Not all that’s dark is contrary to light.
I’m wherever light is found,
I’m the coolness in the heat,
I’m the protection on the run.
Beautiful dark things are
mysteries of things to come,
A shroud to cover your soul.
 
I love beautiful dark things…
 Also published in Broowaha
09022011
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Echo of Woods – Missing parts of me

“Their screams would echo through the house and reverberate against my eardrums until my mind would fracture. Years went by and with each fracture; I lost a piece of my soul until I became lost and empty inside.”
― J.D. Stroube, Caged in Darkness
am-ende-2punkt0

My lover, you followed me on lost paths, chasing my longings deeper, before I turned and saw, you’re not there. The pieces I broke off to mark my exit you ate and then flew away, without any words, disappearing in hollows of echoing woods. I know my soul’s alone by the absence of those missing pieces. How can they be gone, slipped into an eternity of forgetfulness, or thoughtlessness, pushed there by denial and an intense effort to pretend you didn’t happen, unless they were born at sometime in the messy afterbirth of a mind gone mad? If I let my thoughts take these updrafts of imagination, to soar above this wilderness of lore, I’ll see you again. The pain’s breathtaking, should I plunge back below to the feigned wellness of peace? Or perhaps, stay on these heated gestures of reaching and slip into the coldness of space losing the oxygen of you, and with tears and a reluctant release, my light will dim and finally extinguish.

06262013
 

Yet I Live

“Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.”
moluscators
If not for the Lord, my life is lost, my soul buried beneath issues and vanities. In my longing for a father, I find it in Him. He teaches me wisdom and picks me up when I’ve once again skinned my spiritual knees. When I make mistakes, and they’re many, when I choose the wrong road, and that’s often, He forgives, directs, and provides for me. This is my testimony that thus far, I shouldn’t have made it alive, much less profitably, and still I’m here. My way is full of enemies who hate for no reason, other than color, or jealousy, or because I refuse to die. I’ve seen them tapping their foot, looking at their watches wondering, “When will he fade out?” For that I’ll give thanks again to my Daddy, my heavenly father, who puts light back into the burnt out shell of me. The devils know me as I walk past, whispering “Thissss issss he who left us and yet lives!” Yes, I live, at times only a breath away from crossing over to the evil camps of malignant foreboding that shudder with anger at my betrayal. My body belongs to that camp but with the help of my Father, I’m able to choose whether or not I stay there. That choice is my everlasting evidence that God is real, for where He to be my fantasy, surely you’d read of the savagery of my soul and the punishment of madness that overcame my mind. Thank you Father for the self control you give me and teach me to use. Those choices are hard, and as with all discipline, painful. I press on, with no turning back, to see what things will be revealed in the blasted lands of my life.

Outside Night –

 “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Plato
love-pray-hopee

I’m hiding in this darkness so long
That I don’t remember light.
I thought I’d open a window and see
What lives outside the night.
But on the glance of what should be hope,
I was blinded by the ray.
I never knew that light could
cause me this much pain.
But its warmth had a touch and
A sight of what could be,
I was still scared by the pain of knowing
That I really wasn’t free. 
The prison I was locked in is
A cage of my own design.
Only I could use a key of faith
One had left for me to find.
Breaking the hardened seal
of my sepulchered life,
I blinked back tears at
What’s outside night. 

Also published in Broowaha
First published in Opinions Of Eye
06262010

None Shall Escape –

“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”
 – Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees

s-a-e-c-u-l-u-m

This is no ordinary little house, in a dark wooded lot, with a long curving driveway. Quintessential in time, the smell of rotten leaves, moldy dead trees, and moss create an invitation likely to instill fear. Leaves and draping parasitic vines serve to block out the intrusion of light. Things crawl and slither, poisonous things with teeth naturally sharp to penetrate the hood of protection. A damp chill wraps up the weary and pulls them to the coldness of the nether world. Light mists drift low to the ground, creeping with ethereal madness. Large things, nightmares, snap twigs and disappear with startling proficiency. These all have conspired to hide escape and draw the fearful soul deeper and deeper, sliding down the viscous sides of mortality’s flowers in a one way trip. The house is ancient in design, hundreds of years ago the brick and mortar were set and stony copper gargoyles put here to observe the folly of one gone mad. The door’s misleading, it’s a lure, pulling and tugging to get it’s prey close, crushing hopes with its efficacious skill of holding fast against panicked desperation. Fists pound against it creating unheard echos and with beastly strength the spell is transferred from spirit to flesh. Vibrant greens are subdued to the gray and black of lands beyond. The colors are smudged by an errant creator attempting to dismiss this aberration. Bones of lost hope litter the exposed roots and walkways, little roads to nowhere showing tracks of the worst going in circles. This is the notorious lair of depression, many will enter, none shall escape.

Also published in Broowaha
Also published in Opinionsofeye.com

No Fear –

“Bran thought about it. ‘Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?’
‘That is the only time a man can be brave,’ his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones 
Noctturnalromance

 

Walking towards the house, I just finished spending another evening with my church youth group. On the way something sinister stirred in the shadows. No sound, just glimpses of dark figures, darker than black, accompanied by a deep foreboding fear. Forcing myself along the path, all my nerves on end, I scramble to find a weapon worthy of this opponent. My fists were no match, guns likewise. I needed something without form to battle the unseen opponent. Words, that will do, they have no shape and find you even when your hiding. I’ve got the weapon, now which words? The pastors taught me words exist that are extraordinary, having more weight and value than common words, words that were in themselves different. The most powerful of these are the words that looked ordinary, but are changed by my belief about the source and effectiveness of them, i.e. they gained value in this battle by virtue of the faith I placed in them. It wasn’t that faith did it, because I had to actually use the words, but it was faith that gave them the edge to cut the dark. I read this somewhere, “You light a lamp for me. The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.” Repeating this I tried to understand how to fight the fight that is not fought with fists but with belief. I believed that Big Daddy (that’s what I called God) let me find those words as advice. Fear has torment and I was always afraid, so this whole thing was a training ground to overcome fear and learn how to fight what is called by others as “the good fight”. The victory to press past this feeling and not turn around and run, was not a gallant one at all, it was horribly clumsy and vacillated between wanting to run and wanting to face this fear. All said and done, I made it through, I didn’t die and I learned a valuable lesson that equipped me for the rest of the craziness called my life.
Also published in Opinionsofeye.com

New Rain

“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”
Written with the realization that when she left, he would never be the same again.
trashyybarbie

Drain my living essence with the leaving of you

Pulling my thoughts beneath muddy waters of left

Puddles of dreams gather before the melted man

Remains of the show shimmer in dazed light

He evaporates and the hope of new rain is born

 

Leaving – The Death of Love

“With my last breath, I’ll exhale my love for you. I hope it’s a cold day, so you can see what you meant to me.
” 
 

radikal

I gave love the last burst of my precious energy, 
hoping to revive her before she passed on to the light. 
No shock on earth could ever start her heart again, 
growing cold as stone before my eyes. 
The hardness creeps in like darkness at sunset, 
first intriguing and beautiful, but then, a cold wind 
blows from the darkness, night is coming. 
One last chance I gave love, I started a fire in her, 
using all the dead things I had in me as fuel. 
Nevertheless, she refused to breathe. 
Now I feel her life ebbing from my soul. 
Her presence evaporating from my heart. 
Left with the cracked parched earth of my soul, 
thirsty for wetness, she refuses to live. 
Have you ever felt someone leaving your soul?

Have you ever felt someone leaving your soul?
Also published in Broowaha

The Light…A Parable of Discovery

“It’s not easy to be Light when you’ve been Dark. It’s almost too much to ask anyone.” 
what2Blight

Waking up, where am I? No lights, dark, eyes need to adjust. Gotta get some light. Swinging my feet from the comfort of billowed quilts, I find the floor cold and uninviting. Standing, I feel out of place, hands outstretched, groping, grasping for the light. Shuffling my feet, one bold step to reach my goal, but stopped by a jolting pain…. my toe, I believe it broke, going sideways with a pop. With faltering steps now quickened by anger and pain, an intoxicating brew, I press forward, “Where is that damn light?” Determination slowly replaced pain, I’ll find that light. Thump! Stars, a bright flash, dark again. That bump on my head is crazily thumping, a cry of pain, actually a shout of agony, as my head and toe joined in a chorus, pain accompanied by my own thoughts of “stupid, stupid, damn where’s that light?” Tripping, I slap at the air which becomes a wall at half arch, then the wall becomes a switch and, sweet luck, my awkward and painful search had uncovered the light…now with full knowledge of my surroundings, I without injury, find the warmth of my bed, its comfort made all the sweeter by having found the light.

      

Red trails – (Poem of the cutter)

“In case you didn’t know, dead people don’t bleed. If you can bleed-see it, feel it-then you know you’re alive. It’s irrefutable, undeniable proof. Sometimes I just need a little reminder.” – Amy Efaw, After 

  

“A razor drawn, through the colors of my life

Red trails follow, enough to spite
Angles deep and narrow channel
Direct the flow, excite the annals
Now I’m left with the tint of life
Spreading quickly toward a light
I yield again to the cutting’s peace
Nothing left not even speech.” – DMW

“People always want to know what it feels like, so I’ll tell you: there’s a sting when you first slice, and then your heart speeds up when you see the blood, because you know you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, and yet you’ve gotten away with it. Then you sort of go into a trance, because it’s truly dazzling—that bright red line, like a highway route on a map that you want to follow to see where it leads. And—God—the sweet release, that’s the best way I can describe it, kind of like a balloon that’s tied to a little kid’s hand, which somehow breaks free and floats into the sky. You just know that balloon is thinking, Ha, I don’t belong to you after all; and at the same time, Do they have any idea how beautiful the view is from up here? And then the balloon remembers, after the fact, that it has a wicked fear of heights.
When reality kicks in, you grab some toilet paper or a paper towel (better than a washcloth, because the stains don’t ever come out 100 percent) and you press hard against the cut. You can feel your embarrassment; it’s a backbeat underneath your pulse. Whatever relief there was a minute ago congeals, like cold gravy, into a fist in the pit of your stomach. You literally make yourself sick, because you promised yourself last time would be the last time, and once again, you’ve let yourself down. So you hide the evidence of your weakness under layers of clothes long enough to cover the cuts, even if it’s summertime and no one is wearing jeans or long sleeves. You throw the bloody tissues into the toilet and watch the water go pink before you flush them into oblivion, and you wish it were really that easy.” – Jodi Picoult, Handle With Care

Also published in Broowaha
01042012