When I was younger,
You chose,
For some reason,
To give me support when I was broken
Offered kindness when I acted stupid
Gifted patience when I didn’t understand.
You stood by me when it felt
The whole world was laughing,
Not with me, but at me.
Because of these things
You’ve given so freely to my spirit
I’m taking the time to tell you
How very much you’re loved.
Thank you for being my friend.
The dust has barely settled.
My cup is empty again.
The protests of the floor above
isn’t you. It’s them.
I sit at my table wanting
to be left alone
I have no need for antics
knowing you are gone
I’m not really sad
I’m not really upset
I’m not really happy
Wishing to forget.
A Love Note
Goddess
Her hair flows like cool rivers around her shoulders
brushing softly at my cheeks
she leans in to touch my arm
whispering thoughts that caress my ears like a song
Her scent is musky rain with a hint of sandalwood
It cloaks my breath with its subtle incense
My heart shudders, bounces, tossed as if on a rolling sea
Her soul floats openly in her kaleidoscope eyes
Her tranquil gracefulness is haunted
with echos of vulnerability and pain
She glows like an oil lamp, flickering, heated,
fueled by a passion for life…and love
She pulls away and with a simple gesture of her hand
she proves herself to be exquisite, delicate, powerful
Her gentleness sweeps against my skin like a searing hot fire
Her giggled words, like cannons,
firing…exploding
encompassing me.
One kiss would damn me
One intimate touch would be my downfall
The consequences harsh and brutal
The risk too great
I hover, instead, around her light in hopes
that perhaps she might shine on me again.
I don’t feel like a phoenix anymore
I feel overthrown and solitary
In my dreams and nightmares
I hear his cries, his pleas
I am as defenseless as he
I can’t save him from living death
Any more than I can save myself
In my meandering daydreams
I cuddle him closely to my skin
But the sun snows clouds of fog
and I become confused in the ashes.
And I can’t feel his hair
I can’t smell his skin
My body aches to hug him tightly
To tell him everything will be okay
I wander around in darkness without him
I don’t feel like a phoenix anymore
Participation Ribbons
The ribbons that bound me to you
with generous abandon,
tied up in knots of
“I want you and need you”
have unraveled into muddied rainbows
puddled on the ground
I can no longer cherish them
because they serve no purpose
when my heart looked forward
instead of tick-tocking back
into the mess we created together
with scissors flashing
through the complicated maze
we’d woven together
then destroyed with guilty hearts &
shameless blame
of who was actually at fault
for our conjoined festivities.
I wish a special someone
had a song in them for me.
Some music they just had to sing
with my heart the melody.
I wish a special someone
had a dream in them for me.
A waking place, built on grace
a feeling like reveille.
I wish a special someone
had some words for me
a declaration of their love
that would last for eternity
I wish a special someone
had a picture in them for me.
One that captured their emotion,
from the brush that set it free.
I could wish a million lifetimes
for something as rare as this
and still quite never find it
the love that is lost and missed.
Your sugar-coated violence was used
to coax my sympathetic heart back
from where I felt safe
from where I felt protected
from where I felt alive
from where I could be myself
instead of a role that you glued on my back
a role that I allowed to be superimposed
a lampshade to dim my light which shined anyway
Did it ever occur to you
that once you punched me
that once you slapped me
that once you pushed me down
that once you pulled my gun on me
that maybe, just maybe,
you shot me alive
by demonstrating the very reason
I could no longer stay by you
because you’d have destroyed
the very me I’ve become,
a light to guide others through
the loss of their power.
Had you succeeded
the skies would have gone dark
My tears of mourning would have drowned me
I gratefully would have rejoiced in the absence of me.
As I’m scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed each day, I noticed an unusually high ratio of hate. Hate Justin Beiber? That’s okay. Hate Westboro Baptist Church? That’s okay. How about Democrats? Republicans? Atheists? Gays? Women? Men? Goldfish? That’s okay too.
I am all about personal freedom. I believe that every person is entitled to their own opinions, beliefs, and ways of doing things. What I don’t understand is why the hate of such ridiculous things? If you want to hate something, what about poverty? Hunger? Rape? Acid Attacks? War? Human Rights Violations?
These are things that should be hated. These are things that should not be tolerated, but we do. We allow it because it isn’t in our own backyard. It’s okay because it isn’t directly affecting most of us, thankfully, on a daily basis.
STOP HATE! GO LOVE!
If you’re reading this, you at least have electricity with pretty good odds you have clean safe water to drink. If you’re reading this, you’re probably not worrying about soldiers breaking into your house, killing the man/men and raping the women. If you’re reading this, odds are you have at least a rudimentary education that taught you how to unlike the millions of children who will never witness these words. If you’re reading this, odds are you’re using some sort of electronics device that cost enough to supply an entire village for an entire year clean water, food, and/or medicine needed for survival.
The generosity shown by the United States when 9/11 happened, when Katrina hit, when, most recently, the tornadoes hit in Oklahoma, is amazing. That’s because it happened where we couldn’t ignore it. We couldn’t walk away because the victims of these tragedies are our neighbors, friends and relatives. They have faces like ours.
Think about this: The people in a remote village in South Africa, in Russian States, in China, in Singapore are someone’s neighbors, friends and relatives too. They have faces, but they don’t look like our well fed American selves. They don’t have the resources we do. They don’t have what we do, but that doesn’t make them any less of a human being.
Hate is such a nasty thing. It takes away from our compassion. It takes away from our kindness. It blurs love into a meaningless statement of favorites instead of being the action it is intended to be. Think about what you dislike. Now think about all the wonderful things we could be doing for each other right now in the name of love. Do not tolerate the abominations against humanity. Find a way to change the hate speak into love speak. It’s the only way the human race, humanity, will survive.
This may cause some discomfort who have suffered from trauma and further, may cause discomfort in those that have not experienced this. In my personal life, I feel raw and violated due to circumstances of which I have no control. I am regarding another time in my life when I felt this way because currently, I’m unable to deal with recent events without turning to past emotions for reference. I am strong. I will make it through. I will win and succeed because that’s my destiny. In the mean time, I write not so pleasant and work through the not so pretty.
Before cutting was glamorous and utterly common
I showed my wounds without spilling bloody ribbons
I displayed my afflictions with self-violence abloom
Tacked to my flesh in kaleidoscope bedrooms
Begging for love, praying for forgiveness on my knees
With my eyes looking upward into those of my savior
With a little “s” and his little “o” appreciating my prayer
I rejected that which defined my “child”hood
Defined my worth from knee to waist, absorbed my youth
Sponged in sweat, punctuated with a God I knew didn’t exist
Because if he did, he surely wouldn’t have taken my sacred
And violated it upon the altar of evil in the name of my father
A likeness of god himself, would he? I did not believe.
Our personal music composed itself
on the breezy breaths of our being.
Our eyes blinked in metronome
as we witnessed our lives quietly,
the creak of a knee as it’s repositioned for comfort,
the crumpling of the cushion’s fabric
the way the richly creamed coffee we share
is sipped and swallowed with sensational delight
eliciting murmurs of approval.
You spoke truthfully to me with words
that had no letters, no order, no punctuation,
But every meaning I needed was there.
I heard you. I understood.
You are not alone.
I let out a deep sigh.
Your eyebrow quirked upwards
making a question mark of your eyes.
I smiled half way lost in our song
because it has been sung so often
brought up familiarly during times of great loss
And yet this symphony remains blank of content
consolation filled with the tunes we know by heart.
You place your mug on the table with a wobbly balance
reaching out your hand to hold mine.
Your eyes remove the question reassure me the answer,
that you’re with me; I am not alone.
An Independent Nondiscriminatory Platform With No Religious, Political, Financial, or Social Affiliations - FOUNDED 2014
Life is a patchwork of moments — laughter, solitude, everyday joys, and quiet aches. Through scribbled stories, I explore travels both far and inward, from sunrise over unfamiliar streets to the comfort of home. This is life as I see it, captured in ink and memory. Stick around; let's wander together.
True wealth is the wealth of the soul
ईशा वास्यम् इदं सर्वम्
Daydreaming and then, maybe, writing a poem about it. And that's my life.
Psychology, Mind over matter
Life as an American poet of excellence
Epic fantasy & military sci-fi author.
Love Letters to the Tar Pit
Making Space for Dreams
binge thinking and other things in life
Mare Martell 
