Wasteland

I don't write a lot these days because I just get hjhlkjhjh when I do (that isn't a word but I can't think of an adjective to accurately convey the emotion, so). Writing is cathartic, yes. But my blog is public, and I'm afraid I'll write too much. Not that I have a lot of readers, but I've found out lately that I do have a few ghost readers (people who read my blog anonymously). Not that that is a problem. I am grateful that I am not just writing to myself. But, because of the mystery behind who my few readers are, I can't just say anything. And I prefer to just feel nothing about what I want to say. Leave everything unaddressed until I actually have something to do about it. But I am always honest. Because I can always turn around an omit things or delete my post altogether. I'll do what I always do and drape my unbridled, bare thoughts in a figurative cloak. I know a lot of the writing on this blog sucks. It's unrevised. Raw. Streams of consciousness. Anyway. Do I sound like I'm on drugs? I'm not. Maybe I am being too esoteric.

Wasteland

Love is a rope. Dangling and frayed. Fashioned into a waiting noose. Or a lifeline. A fibrous knot. Or pulled taut. And nearly breaking.

You were my crush. Now you're just crushing my heart. And I crush myself. Maybe I was better off. Heart in the gutter, lips near the mic. Making music in the cafe where I was sitting uptight before you, sitting upright. Singing to faces laden with shadows. And the mint tea on your lips. Sugar? the lies. But now I'm the liar. Stirring tears in my eyes. Erase it all. With melody and songs about last fall. But you aren't there to hear.

You're gone soon after you appear. Unspoken words run in rivulets. Down my heart and into a void. Where you and I were in love. In danger of..dying together on that battlefield. Hand in hand. Afghanistan. Left you well. Time will tell.
But snipped the rope
I
f
e
l
l
Knees skirting the dirt in this familiar wasteland
Unheard song, unsung. The end, written on a leaflet wet and went with a maelstrom:
Your tea down the drain.
Walking home alone. Drizzle to hard rain.

Sojourn

It's late. My thoughts are marbled, but clear. I'm over it. Checking out. Seems these dreams were filled with psilocybin weeds. But I'm beginning to see where I really am. There are better fish in the sea. So I'll unhook this old one that's been slithering for so long in these hands, and throw you into the small tank where you belong. I can already see your nacreous scales flickering like watercolored gems in the sun and then fading to black beneath the sinking depths. Like the idea of you and me. My world is widening now. I'm smarter now. Forget the stupidity and naivety of my youth.  I go back to the things I wrote and said, and I laugh. But I've been journaling since I was 6 years old and I've been through many laughable phases. Multi-faceted laughter. Hysterical, sad, embarrassed, nostalgic, angry, humored, joyful and traumatized laughter. Which face is it wearing this time? How did I not see this before. I've stood at this embankment for so long (years). I thought this water was crystal, but it is black and seething with regret. I saw the embankment falling apart, but allowed the murky waters to spill over and push me down. And I've been lying belly down in this stagnant puddle of a sea. But my mind has been too clouded by affections and metaphors and the preternatural of the fictional worlds in my head.

But I sense a scent like honey lingering in the adjacent valley. So I will fly there. Below the clouds where you will see me and lament. Forget invisibility. I am the snow capped mountain which erases the blood horizon, no longer the pebble wedged between two concrete slabs. I am here. But I am also gone. And my laughter will echo in the valley from which I first sojourned. And you will keep running after it,  hoping to find my wings protruding from the next corner.

"By tomorrow we'll be swimming with the fishes
Leave our troubles in the sand.
And when the sun comes up,
We'll be nothing but dust,
Just the outlines of our hands."

I hate MV

I've created a new world. I've put idealism in a bubble and made that my retreat. That is the problem with being a writer and a reader; I can't find solid ground in reality. At least not recently. I go to work and drift through the hours. I watch people walking around and watch them interact with each other and realize that the city I work in is a black hole. Once you come near it, it sucks you into a dark place and won't let you go. Is everyone here a carbon copy of each other? Impolite? Hostile? Illiterate? Crazy? Uncultured? Everything bad that has ever happened to me has happened in this city. How is it that it is so hard to escape. I've taken dust from the sky and rain off the pavement and molded them into hills to hide behind.

Dead Wood in the Water

A sad sang is adrift this last wave. This ocean is a kaleidoscope no more. It is still. A picture of the beauty that once was. Framed by dead wood.

There are slits in the thinning skin of the sun as the slivered clouds pass by.

Pro[cure] Me

I watch the others
Pry open eyes
Beg for attention
Dust their eyes with
Saltless tears
I roll mine
Like dice
Vacant pupils
Hollowed fears
to determine my lot
And turn away

Lonely channel carries cure
it floats about
like a golden leaf
Glitter of sunset
Detached reef
Swept along
by sea breeze
I jump in after it
Water to my knees
Water to my chest
Water overhead
It runs deeper than I'd guessed

I'm not sure I feel this thing anymore

This thing. The engine that spurs life. I don't feel the rumbling beneath me. Don't hear the revving and the purrs. I feel locked beneath the tires. I feel the hot rubber of the tires skidding over me. Leaving me behind. Maybe I felt alive before, but now I watch my life speed away and shrink to an ephemeral sparkle in the distance. Let's just lay it out now. I am sick of life. Sick of people who disappoint. People who you choose to trust and know, people who you are forced to trust though you don't know them. I am sick of them. I am sick of the places these roads lead me. I am sick of the mishaps. Sick of being nice and being demoralized and being diminished and being disparaged. I'm sick of the secrets that I have sewn into the hem of the cloud my head is always up in. I am sick of making mistakes and poor decisions. I am sick of being here. My only joy right now is my daughter. But to be honest, I am lost in this thick, enervating fog. Black and dense and heavy with misery and doubt. The exhaust from this "life" vehicle. I have lost sight of the Lord. I have lost sight of myself. I am full of disappointment and wonder and thoughts and I envision myself as a balloon. A dark balloon in the dark sky, floating upward. Flying far away from the constraints and the sharp talons of this stalking, hungry world. No one looks up and sees me because over the years I have become invisible, devoid of identity, of self. I imagine myself atop a cloud. Like a coral pink satin pillow. Like the clouds you skim when you're in a plane at dusk. I sink into it and it cradles me. I am. Unreachable, untouchable. Unable to be hurt or scarred or damaged. The drone of passing planes is a white noise shield. Blocking out the memories that I wish to reclaim but that are out of my reach now. Blocking out the sorrow and the regret and the guilt and the wonder. I study the monotonous hum and curl into it, fold myself into it, layer it over me until I am no longer a blip on the radar. I am gone. The pain of this world has left me numb, whitewashed and blank. I am an empty stare. The stare one has in the moment when a hallucinogen takes you beyond consciousness and you are slipping down a black hole, the slime slick and unrelenting as it vacuums you inside its tube, stretching you like taffy. And you just stare, as if you are behind the curtains of a nightmarish dream.
I am reaching for a wall to press against, to hold me up. Feel the cool lacquer against my face. But there is no support nearby.
And I am fading away. But no one notices. My heart breaks everyday that I'm alive. I am a shadow fading with the rising sun. And no one notices. Not even Him.

Journaling Nostalgia

I'm sitting at my computer. A pile of my journals lay on the floor beside the bed. I have been journaling since first grade, when I received my first journal in the Christmas gift exchange. They are my most valued possessions. No, they are not possessions. They are clouds, thick and heavy with the rain of my thoughts and days. When I want to run away, I step onto one of these clouds and float into the sky. Watch the pink cream of the sky glow on my skin and swirl into the setting sun. Like an orange globe, orbiting time. These are my worlds. When I am stuck. They free me. They are my prayers to my Father. Rippling over the still, placid ocean, like fine lines aging its countenance. They are my memories when my mind is too swollen with worries.

Each page is a mirror. I see me. I know her. I think that when I read the sharp letters on the worn pages. Ink and lead and words smudge together like bruises over my fingertips as I trace the years. I fall asleep because I'm weary like the time I walked home in the untimely night, just a few hours after (high) school. When the campus was quiet and void of its usual clamor and chatter and chaos. And he was gone. And the rain fell sparingly in large drops overhead. And I was forgotten by my parents.

I wake up because I am happy. Like the sticky sugar that coated my hands that one summer day. As the  slitted honey sun melted my half eaten watermelon popsicle. And the joyful shrieks of my peers echoed though the neighborhood as the street lights lit like flickering lanterns on fishing poles and our mothers called us in for the night.

But every day is smeared with sadness. Listless and aloof. Like the time I fell away from the refuge of Your arms. Backwards onto the dusty ground. And I stayed there, cloaked in darkness. And hidden by shadows.

I read my journals and see how much I need you. Infuse my life with You. Take from me…the sadness, the listlessness, the aloofness. Let me set my burden upon Your shoulders and swap it with your yoke.

I was afraid to go back to the world after you saved me at camp that last beautiful night. Filled me with your Spirit and took me away to our secret place. I was afraid to go back because I feared going backwards. And here I am, back to back with the world I hate so much.

Jesus. Even as I write Your name in my journal and on this blog post, I am overcome by the force of Your power. By the reality of Your grace. And I close my eyes and see You. I walk slowly but with urgency toward Your throne of grace. I don't drag my feet. No, I need You too badly. You sit so high, yet You've brought yourself so low. Your eyes are filled with so much love I feel like I might burst from the guilt of my own lovelessness. I don't deserve You. This. The thickness of Your presence surrounds me and overwhelms me, pushes and pulls me, down and up and forward and back and side to side. A gentle but powerful storm. I fight the urge to fall. No, I need to see You face to face. One touch is not enough right now. I need to fall into You. I need You so badly. You see further into me than any journal could ever show. Cover me with Your nail scarred hands. Look down at me and see me.

Stuck

In between two rocks. One is jagged and pocked. Iridescent under the moon. The other is smooth and gray. Like a dark cloud, stretched and spun through a spindle. Pink seaweed wraps around its base like consoling arms. I'm stuck. Lodged between them when I fell overboard, almost 2 years ago. Each of my hands rest upon one rock. And my body is cold and frigid when the tide laps against me. Spray of salt lingers on my mouth and everything I taste is bitter. Ocean drops roll and dry. Like falling stars across my skin. They leave stains of sun baked salt like tiny silver flecks, down my arms, through my hair and near my eyes. All I see is bitter. I scintillate at sunset. Another sailer off in the distance mistakes me for a mermaid, peeking through the rocks. He thinks the pink seaweed twisting around my legs are fins. But I am nothing phantasmal. I call out but my song for help besets him. Thinking of me now as a siren, he quickly turns away from his curiosity and watches me with a leering gaze as my image shrinks in the increasing distance.

Maybe I have become a mermaid. Or a siren. Or both. I have lingered in this sea for so long now. And I have forgotten where I am going or where I have come from. Perhaps I've been here all along. If I am a mermaid, I can swim down, into the deep. And stay there, amidst the coral reefs and celestial creatures. Abandon boat. That boat that waits for me to return. Like a loyal companion. Rocking in the distance on the stream of liquid sunlight. I know I'll find my way again. Back to it. Back to our journey. But for now, my boat waits and rocks and sways. I wish I was in it now. Rock me to sleep like a child. Watch the birds fly overhead. Go wherever the wind blows us. Close my eyes and let the tangerine blanket of the sun lull me to sleep.

But I'm not in the boat. I am in the cold. I am in the sea. The only warm embrace is the sunlight streaming through tendrils of my wet hair. And even the sun is descending. Below the horizon. And the wind dances around me like a mischievous child and whispers,

"Wave goodbye.
Sing your siren song and hope that a sailor will find you
before the stars dot the sky."

I look back, behind me. At my dark past. The smooth gray rock, like a dark cloud, reminds me. And I want to rest my head on it for a little while. Will this salty sea turn my heart into a pillar of salt? Like Lot's wife? No. That is not me. I must be salt and light. I refuse to turn back. No turning back.

I know the force of the high tide will eventually release me from the grip of these binary rocks. I can't stay stuck forever. And I will swim back to the boat which is shrinking in the increasing distance.

Message in a Bottle

Sometimes I wonder. Wonder about my life. My choices. The things I've done to disappoint those who mean the most to me. Everyone has darkness in their past. Some walk in darkness for all their days and beyond. Others have darkness in their past, but eventually see dawn. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the darkness of my past. Maybe I am walking backwards. Always confronting my past instead of facing my future. The darkness is like a mist. A cloud. A high tide and I am the fixed shore. It's chasing me and I entertain it by running away. Am I a coward for not being still? Am I faithless for not trusting the Lord to protect me? Or change me? Or cover me in the warmth of day? All I know is, I have thoughts. Thoughts that make my mind go dark, until the darkness bleeds out around me and I am invisible. To everyone. And I'm no one. And I am convinced I can't be found. And I am still because searching for a way out would mean feeling my way out of the darkness.

Why do I feel like no one knows me? But my past knows me. It calls me. Calls me by a name that I refuse to respond to. Calls me by a name that Jesus said is no longer my name. But why do I turn? Why to my ears perk up when that name is called. It's not me. But if it's not me, then why do I see my past when I look into my reflection. I gaze into the face of the sea. Wondering if I should throw myself in. Dive down to the bottom. Cover myself with seaweed and rocks. Disappear forever beneath the foam. I gaze into the face of the sea and the only thing that stops me from diving in and ending it all is seeing my dark past staring back at me. I don't want to touch it. It is the only thing that stops me. That and her. She is the gold flecked in the sands that hold me still. And He. He is the wind that pushes the wave backwards when I reach out to it. To become the nothingness. Sometimes I wonder. About all the things I could have done differently. I wonder and as I wonder I try all the different paths in my mind and for a moment I am free, until I leave the reverie and refocus on reality and find that I am tangled. Tangled in the present. And my present, buried in the past. My legs are tangled and I can't get out. There is no way out.

Naivety, ignorance, stupidity, selfishness, pride, anger, fear. They brought me here. They were my comrades. I defected. Again and again. "Who's side are you on?" They ask me. And I cower beneath their words and wish I never made this journey with them. I'll never be on your side, I think. I want off this ship. But they tell me I will never get off this ship. They are cold comrades. They do not hold me. They do not speak to me. They do not love me. They do not value me. But what is the difference. Someday I will have to be still and let the past run over me like a waterfall. Rush over me and mute my pleading voice with its screaming accusations. And everyone will know. Everyone will see what I have done. Everyone will know what has been done to me. Who will be my advocate? Who will plead my case? I always believed You would be there. I still do. But this room that I sit in is cold. And your warm arms are wrapped around everyone but me. I am cold and still. And your gentle songs are blowing through the boughs of the trees but you won't sing to me. I want to cry because of what we once had and because I'm not sure if you'll come back to me. I've lost it all. And you let them take it from me. I've lost my identity. The wind stole it from me with a swift and forceful blow and took it far away. Shattered it, like a broken seashell against the jagged pier. And I want to feel warmth and joy and love. But I am shattered. And every time you pour into me, the warmth and joy and love spill out of my cracks and deficits.

Maybe it's just one of those days. Those days where you lie in the chilled, wet leaves and stare at the sky. Wish you were a bird, a feather, a butterfly. So that you can escape this wayward, toxic, downright scary and confusing world. I just want to change my past. Let the clouds become white liquid paint and wash over every mess I've made on this dank canvas. But I am inside a cell called "impossible". My shoulders are sagged like weeping willow. Strained and pain. This burden is not easy and this yoke is not light, Lord. I found a world of music and writing. It is a world of streaming colors and light. I found a world inside my mind. It is here that I find freedom. It is here that I get off the ship and escape captivity. Until You come and free me for real. Please come. I'll never forget the sight of that deflated balloon on the hill. Will I find a deflated bottle at the bottom of the hill?

Pink Hydrangea

The sleepy town that sits beside that river. Hushed and lulled by summer breeze. Warm and mist. Glistens on the faces of youthful blooms. Who wait patiently. To be plucked by a frivolous boy. And gently placed behind the ear of a longing, sad girl.

The freckles on his hand are copper under sunbeams. And she covers her coy smile. A pink hydrangea behind her ear, wet with staining words.
"Don't leave me. Don't go into the river."
Bold and dripping from the veiny petals, and onto where her skin is warm from her beating heart. But she is blinded by the light in his eyes. Milk and pearls and fire. And deafened by her racing thoughts. Whirlwind and she is spinning in circles. Like the cinnamon curls in her hair that he can't seem to untangle his fingers from. She'll never quite untangle him from her.

She's never felt so much before. But she'll feel numb from the cold when the river drifts her over to the estuary. Where she is no longer seen. She is no longer significant. But rather ordinary. Unseen in such vastness. She'll feel numb. And no one will read her words by the light of the moon. Not even him.

There is a river that runs along the center of my heart. With every breath, the wind blows, and a current carries my thoughts downstream. They pool at the river bank. Pile and cake to the sides with mud. I have no choice but to face it. There is you. Your face shimmering and emerging from the sludge. Eyes closed because you are no longer a reality. Your hand spreads like a star over aging black leaves. And a pink hydrangea flickers like a mirage between your fingers. But I took another way. Followed a separate current. We never would've worked anyway, I think, as another current comes and carries you under and away. Further down the stream until you resurface again another day. But your hand, spread like a star, has left an imprint in the bank next to where I stand. And I cry because I wonder which channel really called to me. The wind only blows one way now. And I can't turn back. Only go further into the path I've already taken. The river crowns me with foam and tumultuous sounds. And dumps me into the estuary, where I spread like a star in the moonlit ocean. And I hope to someday be found. And I hope that someday you'll read my words by the lights of the moon. Message spilled out of a bottle. And I hope that someday you'll find me.

...We've gotten so used to being happiest in our dreams. But like a mime, I'm stuck inside the nonexistent...