Empty

Lost inside an endless sea
Thoughts and time small comfort to me
Limitless, limitless space
Full of heavy, weighty, aching emptiness

Poured out like a full cup
Emptying, emptying from its chattering waters
Into silence.
Drip drip drip of echoing quiet
Yawning as wide as a dark chasm
Glacial rivers and black streams churning and twisting
Somewhere, somewhere in the darkness

Feeling warmth against the pale cold of numb skin
Somewhere life courses inside a deadened mind
Void of all but the lingering residue of sadness
The bitter taste of tears
The heady wine of loss
Drink me down, drink me down in your arms

Down into the graceful sway
The liquid flow and dance of thick music
Move like a purple sea
Turgid and slow
Rippled reflection wave like a dying swan in my tears
They fall like crystal glass
Hot and sweet
So bitter-sweet

Regret

If I thought I had the strength to say it
I'd say I'll always love you.
If I thought I had a voice to sing it
I'd sing of moments passed and days gone by.
But for right now in this moment
There's no question for my mind to simplify
It's enough to wonder why

Days gone by as swift as roses
Fade into the sunset and close at night
Lives we lived and dreams forgotten
Away from dancing in the light.

What fight is there now in us?
What fight from what will be?
It has passed into oblivion
Never more shall we fully see

Time echoes down eternity
It knocks and passes through with sweet cruelty
A drum-beat in the dark sky of infinity
To You the blink of an eye
But each of our breaths held in Your hand like precious jewels
Breathless in wonder of this marvel
We fall on our face in humility

The Art of Sanctity

It took 8 yrs. for the reality and the loss to begin to twitch. And then after so long, there it was, bald and open like a page of my history that had for too long been closed and hidden. Exposed in its raw and naked state, the wakened memory stared me in the soul and dared me to face it rather than run away yet again. I never really thought of this memory as a living, breathing, continual entity. It had always been "something that happened", an occurrence that I brushed aside with elegant (yet ominous) disregard. I suppose I knew that the past has a way of resurfacing; that what I could not keep hidden from my family could also not remain hidden from my own heart...

Why is it we might wonder, that we are so set and bound to bury our deepest and most painful experiences? I believe we are survivalists. As we know that we have physical imitations, our endurance is often tested. So we must have soul limitations. But we're even more loathe to test our spirits endurance.
And yet we serve a God who has no limitations of body, soul, or mind who calls us to be and exist outside of our mortal selves and in Him. And I think the way He calls us to practice this is by allowing and bringing up those most excruciating and testing hours of our lives - the trial-by-fire of our souls. That is His art of sanctification.
Jesus is the sanctifier. But we practice the art of submission. Willingness to allow Him to use every part of us, good, bad, and painful to turn us into His great work. To sanctify all of us to be worthy children of His grace.

* * *

Note: I am aware that we will NEVER be "worthy" of God's immeasurable grace. But I recently heard some teaching that was new to me that was from scripture. God gives us opportunities to be counted worthy - to build up treasures in heaven. (I Thess. 2:12) And in Revelations 4: 9-11, it says that we then lay our 'crowns' at the feet of Jesus. We give back to Him the crowns of endurance and refinement that He gave to use during our journey. We owe Him everything, and all praise and thanksgiving is due to Him. It is to this truth that I refer in the last line of this reflection.

English Paper/Mid-Term

1.

Marriage & Divorce

Instructions: In a 5 paragraph essay, explore the following topic: In her article "For Better, For Worse," Stephanie Coontz argues that as people began to view marriage as more about love and intimacy (rather than a social means of regulating sexuality and child-rearing), the divorce rate has soared. With this in mind, describe what you think marriage is and what grounds individuals have to terminate it. Note: Be sure to support your discussion with quotations from the article and/or examples from your own life (or observations) Student Response: Stephanie Coontz article seem to indicate that the institution of marriage has become devalued and is almost impractical on modern-day society due to the rising change in societal culture and free-choice. She states that "as soon as love became the driving force behind marriage, people began to demand the right to remain single if they had not found love or to divorce if they fell out of love." While I believe there is some element of truth in the fact that love and child-rearing should not be the only driving force of marriage, I do not agree that "the origins of marital instability lie in the pre-conceived ideal of love, intimacy," etc. While writing off the idea of ‘re-institutionalizing marriage’ as mere ‘fantasy’, the only ‘solution’ the author seems to give for the increasing level of devaluation of marriage is that it is foolish to use any method we have yet thought of to try and reverse it. We should adapt ourselves to the incontrovertible change. She does not go quite so far as to say that ‘in modern society marriage is impractical’, but I think she infers it and comes frighteningly close. And I think this also perpetuates the unhealthy belief that 'free choice' and giving in to social flow raises practicality above principle, and wisdom. There is wisdom behind principle; there is weakness in giving in just because the current statistics seem too powerful to fight. Call me a ‘traditionalist’, I will wear the label proudly. I believe marriage is an institution that was created by God for a man and a women to love each other, yes, and be devoted to each other's well-being. I also believe it was created to give glory to God and symbolize in some sense His love for us. I also believe marriage was created to present a whole family unit and that it is therefore, healthy and the original intention for that family unit to stay united and work together. Based on these beliefs, I contend that the grounds for terminating a marriage are Biblically based and, to some extent, also based on psychological issues. A partner being unfaithful to their spouse is obvious grounds for divorce, and neglect of marital duties and responsibilities (be they sexual rights or emotional) is another. I also contend that physical, mental, or emotional abuse is another perfectly acceptable grounds for divorce. There are certain things expected of and ordained for marriage. Child-bearing and a mutual love and respect for each partner to the other are two. Too often, particularly in modern culture, couples feel the increasing need to be their own individual and make their own decisions without the input or coordination with their spouse and this can lead to marital discord and failure. A man and women are to be 'one', to make decisions together, to plan for the future together, not to be two separate entities whose goals are as numerous and foreign to each other as two strangers would be. It is a man's primary responsibility to provide for his family, whether that is in a job, or by taking care of the house. Either can be perfectly acceptable, but when it comes to emotional, spiritual, and fundamental stability, that is the man's responsibility. It is the wife's responsibility to nurture her children and to allow her husband to be the father, and leader he should be to the family. It is also natural and a 'marital right' if you will for the couple to be intimate. If either partner is not willing to follow this and is not dedicated to keeping their family together, this is a neglect of their marital responsibility. It is debated today, even in Biblical/Church circles what those grounds for divorce can be, and I was raised to believe that infidelity and marital unfaithfulness are the only grounds for divorce. However, I have come to disagree with this. There are reasons why a women or man may divorce their spouse that are unrelated to unfaithfulness. If one spouse is abusing the other, or they are abusing their children, that is clear and sound reason for divorce. This is acceptable I think from any modern societal view, but I also believe in holding to my spiritual beliefs, that it is Biblical. God did not intend for someone to be in a relationship where they are being wounded and damaged on a regular basis. It has been suggested to me by a respected spiritual leader that abuse is an extension of a neglect to fulfill marital responsibility. Men and women are to love each other and serve each other in a self-giving manner, and to provide each other with a healthy and safe environment, for their sakes as well as for the sake of their children. In conclusion, I would say that, regardless of what society dictates, it is not the pursuit and expectation of "love, intimacy, fidelity, and mutual fulfillment" that generated modern marital instability. Those expectations are not the only ones marriage should have, but they are foundational to any healthy, stable marriage. And it is the break-down of such fundamental requirements that have generated the decline of marital stability, as well as the fact that society has shifted so far to an unhealthy extreme of free-choice and compromise. I believe that principle is, and should remain, a higher authority than convenience and apathy. The costs of neglecting the essential roles and functions of marriage are far too great to not be aware and fully dedicated to preserving it. Our children's emotional, mental, and psychological future depend on us making every reasonable attempt to create a healthy family environment, whether that be in maintaining the marriage, or if necessity demands it, in ending it. Score: 15/15 Comments: Thesis Statement: A Development: A Grammar/Word Use: A

-Kaylie

Almighty

Should I look down from this lofty pedestal from which I have made my place
Would I see a world that is grand, or small?
Should it inspire me to greatness
Or pierce the smallest puncture in my egotistic bubble
That will slowly, but thoroughly deflate me
As realization comes that no glory I could achieve or hope to understand
Could compare to You oh God

Yet from the mountain of Your presence
Underneath the lightning flash and the mighty thunder's bellow
You hear the smallest whimper, catch the faintest cry
And lean down to listen with a Holy loving ear.

Be it hell or heaven, shallow light or deepest gloom
Even there your hand gracefully orchestrated the foundations of the cosmos
And maintains its synchronicity with the slightest wave

Tragic

It is our purpose in life to look for something we cannot see

When we need only to look in the right place

It is our nature to search

But we search in vain when it is what He has already found

It is our place to cry and to grovel in the dust

When He has already offered to heal and to raise us back to life

It is our ambition to wander aimlessly

When in Him we are safely found

He taught us to die to ourselves

As He died with us in mind

But we cannot stop burying Him

And forget that He wants to allow us to rise again with Him

He speaks

Though it is only when we are silent that we can hear

No Despair (unfinished)

Despair is giving up hope that things will change

Giving in to sadness
Leaving no more room for joy
It is forgetting the progress and focusing on the defeats

Letting You Work

Is there a dream You have for me
That I can't grasp without letting go?
Is there a hurt You cannot heal
Without my submitting to the pain?
Is there a day I cannot see
Because I'm mired in today?
Oh precious Lord, please give me strength to let it go.

Written: Oct. 6th, 2010 (Wed. night during a prayer meeting/class)

I Will Praise You In This Storm

Lightning flickers outside my window

Numbs the heart that's struck by pain

Thunder rumbles loud and strongly

Not as loud as this internal rain

Tears seem a hollow consolation

What comfort is there now

What comfort in goodbye?

But I will praise You in this storm

And leave to You the reason why

I will prase You when the light

Is over-shadowed by the dark

Knowing there will be a brighter morn'

Though there are days I can't find words to pray

I will praise You in this storm

Though my path be dark and steep

And though at times You bid me weep

I will praise You in this storm

Written: Sept. 30th, 2010

(Note: This may not be finished yet, and prob. isn't.)

Discordant Tambourine

Discordant tambourine
Shiver like silver ripples
Vibrations through liquid glass.
Light sparkle above like diamond shadows
Against the white sky.
Tingling cold and new as the snow
Foreshadowed in your icy wind
That scalds against my weary skin
Slashes at my weeping eyes and cries its lonely lament
To the trembling trees.

Beat your resonating melody
Deep within my bones.
Pulse, merry calamity within my breast.
Clang the melancholy song to the marrow of my soul
Then rise up again, up again
Like a phoenix on this winter night.

No Condemnation

No condemnation for the self-condemned
No scourge and cross waiting for me
What I deserve You've already taken
What grace unimaginable You cause my eyes to see

Breathe into me new life again
Help me remember the price that You paid
And carry my cross in Your nail-pierced footsteps
Knowing every moment of guilt on You was laid

Vulnerability

My heart bleeds, but still beats
The voice in my head echoes, but cannot scream
The soft under-side of my soul is exposed, but wants only to curl up and hide
What can I not share with You
That is not already known?
I try to pull the skies down around me
To make me a target much too small
Covered by an infinite blanket, numbness a disguising wall
I am too tired, too weak, to vulnerable for this fight
I cannot go on without Your rest
So enfold me in Your arms of grace
And tell me what You know is best

Comfort

I will sleep
Ever in the arms of grace
I will remain here against the side that bled
I will sing
Forever of Your love
And stay beneath the wings that brush my head

A shelter for the heart that's broken
A resting place for me when I am weak
A quiet place of company
When I feel the most alone

You Are The God/When I Am Weak

(two worship choruses)

You Are The God

To You I write a song
I'll sing it all day long
How much I love You so
I want to let You know

You are the God who saved me
You are the God who raised me
You are the watcher
Who patiently guides me in the night

You are my great Redeemer
Counselor, teacher and friend
You covered my very beginning
You'll cover my very end

(REPEAT)

When I am Weak

When I am weak
You are strong
When I am weary
Amazing grace You provide
For every heartache
And every trial
You wipe the tears from my eyes

Oh God, how amazing
How amazing You are!

When no one else can see me
When no one else can know
You see right through my defenses
And tell me You love me so

God how amazing
How amazing You are!

Written: Sept. 2nd, 2010

Hope

Leaves turning the pages of time Chronicling the passage of these moments Like the common detritus of all our lives Blowing into a whirlwind Round and round and round they go Where they will fall, nobody knows And into our darkness You step in to shine Your great light Though we are dark There is no darkness to You And though our bodies decay in time You are the healer and restorer of our souls You grant peace to the war-torn spirit And relief to the soul collapsing and faint from battle There is life Even in the most painful of places We are met by You in the shadows And lifted up to a higher place Where goodbyes do not seem like forever Merely as though waving farewell until tomorrow And these momentary struggles Are just passing sorrows Death is overwhelmed with life And pain overcome with joy -Kaylie These were my reflections when thinking on the scriptures - 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, 2 Corinthians 5:1-9 Written: July 11th, 2010

Mercy Through the Waters

I am not fond of any of my writing that rhymes, inevitably at some point I lose the rhythm, or the rhyme, and I'm sure this is no exception. But, I thought you might like these song lyrics.

In the deepest darkness
In the midst of scorching pain
You have been my brightness
You have been my rain

In the midnight hours
In the quietness so long
You have been my comfort
You have been my song

Nothing now, no nothing
Can withhold my praise
In the grip of winter
Or sunlight of my days

Joy will come with sorrow
When in You I dwell
Darkness cannot swallow me
Nor stand the powers of hell

Your love a mighty fortress
A shelter for my sleep
Sustains me through uncertainty
When my trust in You I keep

Precious, oh how precious
Your voice, Your loving ways
Fairer still than all my dreams
Or lips can ever say

What can I offer to a King
Who laid out the starry host?
Who holds eternity in place
Of Your greatness I will boast

Your Spirit drew my wayward eyes
Forgiveness took away
All the restless wandering
And gave my heart a home to stay

I cannot fathom fullest grace
That did bid me come
I cannot decipher all the plans
That You have long begun

Your beauty shames my waking eyes
A glory I cannot know
My guilt I cannot hide from You
But Your mercy draws me close

-Kaylie

Written: Aug. 3rd, 2010

---

Life & Death's Thin Border

Life and death are connected so closely, in ways I cannot fathom
We must live with death because death and life are a part of each other.

Death is alive in the ghastly imprint left behind
A black fingerprint left called memory
Its like we stand on the dark side of the moon
The sun of true life held out of reach to our mortal eyes
A gift we long for and must wait for.
What we must look like from that other side of heaven!
Eyes eternally downcast and fretful
Our heads full of our earthly thoughts
Thinking it lasts forever
Not understanding 'forever'
Nor the One jangling the keys to infinity

Written: 05-28-2010

Coiled

Coiled and set
Like a tightly wound spring
Rusted and worn, forgetting its purpose
Knowing the destination to which I cannot rise
Stuck half-way between
It's like being half alive

Written: June 1st, 2010

Lingering Goodbyes

Perhaps I should have grown from this….

I don’t know

No, I don’t know

Perhaps I should have seen it coming

Winding down the road to say ‘Hello’

Perhaps I should have built the walls

Girded my heart with iron fences

Just to guard against what I didn’t know

Yellow roses in a twilight bed

Wave hello to the southern sky

Whose fading glory casts a passing shadow on my soul

Summer breezes whisper past my window

And rustle tender leaves still numb with snow

And don’t know where to go

Moonlight sings a lullaby

Dreams the lazy hours all away

Yay yay yay

Forgot to turn my eyes back to watch you go

Walk away from yesterday in every dream

In every happy glow

You walk so slow

Maybe when then sun fights back the darkness

And morning wakes the memories from my sleep

There you’ll be

Maybe if I keep wishing, always believing

Then you’ll come back to me

Or maybe I should give up on my foolish waiting

And know that dreams can only bring you back for moments

And will not last through the day

Perhaps I should have turned away

When you walked up to me and said, ‘Hello’

Perhaps I should have locked away

The way my heart turned your way

Even when my lips told you ‘No.’

Maybe someday I won’t see your eyes

In every sunrise

Or hear your voice in every song I hear

Maybe I won’t hear your laughter in every child’s voice

Or feel the pain of your parting with every lost goodbye

Maybe I’ll forget what it meant to me…

When I knew that you were near…

Hovering above the water

Barely taking in a breath for fear of the ripples on the water

That they might shatter the image of you

That I’ve kept close inside my heart

Is there some law against forgetting someday

What I once held most dear?

I wrap your weeping limbs around me

Pull your leaves into the pond like falling, falling tears

You ripple in the breeze like waves on the sea

And tremble just like me

When will we be free?

Written: 05-19-2010

NOTE: (a few months after writing)This was written, in part, to express a grief in letting go, and losing two children. I have since gained a better perspective I believe, but there are moments that are still difficult. It is a pain that is largely inexpressible to all but to those who have been through it and understand. But no longer will I be shackled to memories or a person that I used to be.

Wrestling With God

My hands are full
But my heart is empty
My mind is weak and tired
But my will is still strong
My ambitions are in vain I say
If I cannot handle all this strain.

And so again You find me here
Alone and scarred, beaten to my knees
Too much for too long I've carried along
Wholly unnecessary weight upon my back
Forgot to give up what I could not hold onto.

So You wipe away the tears of anger
Brush away the dust of apathy
And help me to understand that what You have given to me
I should lift right back up to You.
And what I've come to love more than You
Can be taken away in the flickering of an eye.

You wrestle with me as I fight with You
Just to get me to look up into Your face
And remember who is carrying who
Nothing, no nothing
Can ever take me from Your love
Yet so easily I lose my sense of direction
Can't give You more than a moment's attention
In all of their eyes so focused
But somehow never completely with mine

You call me to wake up
From where I've been sleeping while wide awake
To reveal just how far off track I've come.
I wrestle with a God who I will not let go of
Though hanging sometimes from my fingertips
But a God who even more desperately clings
Who will never let go of me.

Your desire to be near me never falters
Even when my head turns this way and that
A foolishly nervous twitch
A pensive owl so prone to these distractions
Distractions born out of love
But it is You who I should love first.

Never have I loved more
Than when I fear I will lose it
So it is with me
So it is with you
We cling to these earthly things
Even gifts that you bring and tailor just for me
I cling to them as desperately as I should hold onto You
And loosen my grip on the only One able to save me

I wrestle with a God who loves more deeply than I ever could
Who will not let me fight my way
(Or think my way, or cry or write my way)
Out of His arms
A God who understands that as hard as I struggle
I need His embrace
And even His wounding
Even more

Written: May 2nd, 2010

-Kaylie

ps - I guess it's really more of a ballad.

Mortality's Knock

When mortality comes to call
It has a cruel and fatal knock
You stare the devil in the eye
And cannot break the stare.
And that's when you fall
From the dagger in your own hand
That you didn't even know was there

Agony Of Soul

I conserve my deepest thoughts
The most sacred, oft' unintentionally sacrilegious fears
For no other ear but my own
So in my head, these voices they collide
They scream, they fight, they cry and sob
And they tear at my ears
Angry and fierce as the buzzing of bees trapped in a jar
I clutch at my temples and close my eyes tight to block out their noise
But they only grow louder.
Pounding like the sharp end of a pick-axe who tip only draws blood
But does not pierce my soul
Feeling like a blunt mallet that shatters the fragile glass casing of my soul

Butterflies fly free and beautiful
Brush my cheeks softly like fairy kisses
Knives slash my arms, but I cannot see
A dagger pierces through my heart
And yet.... yet I look down and see nothing
Nothing but my own imagination, a pale, empty breast
To pillow another's head
Someone takes my hand and holds it tightly, refusing to let go
Though I try desperately to shake them away
I refuse to meet their eyes, or even direct my gaze in their direction
They speak, but the words are garbled, distant and hollow
Like they are speaking through black water
Nothingness and every imaginable pressure warring and filling my tenders ears
And spurring on that sadistic war-drum in my brain
Its pounding fills all of my world, drowning out that friendly voice
With its soft message.
Only the wounded heart crying tears of blood can understand the need
Need to listen and to hear the one reaching out
But it is beaten into silence by its own vibrations, by its own utter weariness.
And so I cannot hear the one that holds my hand at all...

(I ask myself...) Where have you gone love? And where have you been?
Where do you think you will go in the end?
You stop and you start, like a many-wheeled rusty engine
You love and then you are torn down by it - love that cruel, tormentor of souls

Somewhere in my childhood, someone lied in saying that love is kind
That is strengthens and heals.
Love tortures, and it stings, and it taunts and torments and lies
It leaves you laying naked in the ashes too weak and lacerated to get up.
It kicks you while you are down and laughs in your face when you cry.
It was never anything more than a lie. A transient dream meant for lesser mortals
Innocent, idealistic, naive little girls who heads were never anywhere but in the clouds.

How I miss You wise sage of the sky
The voice that whispers to me still as I stumble and fall against a cold stone wall
You whisper, but just like my heart, the voice is drowned out by my own harsh breathing.
Where am I, and where are You?
And where are we going on this broken-down carousel marked destruction
An endless circle with a falsely cheerful calliope sound.
Like laughter in the rain, or a smile in the dark where no one can truly see

A discordant melody.

Written: April 21st, 2010

Traitor To Myself

I feel like a traitor to my own heart
To my own soul more like
To the very convictions and motivations that govern my actions
That surround my heart and usually protect it
When those convictions falter, they leave my heart exposed
To the harsh light of judgment that I myself create
A judgment that comes quite punishingly from walls that I recreate

What will be left in the end?
What part of me will remain when these battles lines have been drawn
When the battle has raged and passed its course
And the cleansing winds have blown away the dust and revealed their carnage?
It seems there is less left every time...
And I have not the strength to save myself
Or to get up again and prepare for another fight...

I'm not angry
Not really
I'm no longer beating my fists against the ground
And screaming at the sky
...
Could I appropriately call that progress??
Or more just a recognition of the different stages of this process
This cycle of mourning.
But what exactly am I mourning?
The passage of time?
The inevitable change that approaches and threatens
All that I treasure and hold dear...
What questions can I ask anymore that will truly find answers
That could possibly bring some measure of clarity to my befuddled mind?
There is no one to answer, really there never was
But there was company...
And that was something.
What words do I utter in darkness that will have any response or recourse
In the light?
And what is there, really, left to say?

Written: Sat., 04-10-2010

Uncleansable Stains

You watched blood bloom on your white arm

Like a string of crimson pearls

Crushed crimson petals in water

And you enjoyed the sight

The slight sting seemed fitting

To match the stinging in your soul

And you closed your eyes to listen

As your spirit crumbled to dust

How sad that life makes no more sense in the daylight

Than it does at night

In some ways, less

For how could the sun shine and the birds sing happily

When something, or someone, has died?

Part of you has died...

And all you can do is mourn

Though you cannot weep

Your tears are dry and of no comfort to you

Why joy in the string of pearls as it burns ruby and real?

It is a mark that means that you are alive and real

Even though feeling quite dead

Devoid of humanity, and certainly of any ill-disguised spark of divinity

How could anyone see beauty in a stuffed patchwork doll

Long ago forgotten in the ash heap

But You did not forget her soul...

That You could not

But she is too weak to learn Your lessons

Too broken to be remade

Too confused to always know the difference between light and dark

And too desperate to hear Your voice when she cries for You

Reaching out for the only life-line available

Temporary and flimsy as it is

It brings only further pain after.

Pains of conscience

Because of how dearly she loves You

And how completely she cannot escape You

She does not really want to escape from You

Just from this walking nightmare

As the trail of pearls begins to sting in earnest

What is it you would have Him do?

Send down lightning from the sky to make this storm

Feel more fierce and loud outside

Than it truly is inside?

Would you have him send a spring rain

To help the bitter tonic wash down more cleanly?

Would it be right, would it be worth it, were it easy?

...
A question you cannot answer...

You foolish, foolish child

Who cannot know what she wants or truly needs

But wants and needs for something He promised to give

That she cannot see or find

Closing down to the beauty of the day, of the light, the sun and the winds

She hears only the birds, whose normally melodious music

Has now become cacophonous and discordant

Yet they still fly...

Even through their pain

How she longs to be rid of this sickness, this vile disease

Be free of its foul clutches

And free to allow the sunlight in again

To wipe this despair from her soul.

What would you say to her now

Oh mightiest of mighties whom she adores?

To trust?

To forgive? Others more than herself, or herself more than others?

How would you explain this state

How would you ease her pain, and make things right again?

Your purging may hurt more than the guilt itself

And the guilt tears and destroys all that has been created

Glancing over you are annoyed

By the birds clueless laughter

It says nothing to you, except that you are amusing

You are a temporary joke

To the black-bird, perhaps also to yourself...

So what's to do with you?

Are you to sit and wallow, to lose yourself once again

Give no hope to redemption?

Or perhaps... perhaps just to walk with no destination in mind...

In a never-ending circle with no end

And no course or purpose that you've ever been able to find

A self-proclaimed butterfly hopelessly tangled in her own net.

You've lost your own game.

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

Drowning

Its a darkness that suffocates all light
Drowns you in its enfolding arms
Like a lovers embrace
But with no warmth, only cold indifference
It has the chiseled features and drawing attraction
That promises hope
Companionship
A desperately needed reprieve...
But becomes cold, feral, impersonal once it has you
In its dark clutches
It swallows you whole like a bird with a wounded wing
Taken refuge in the jaws of a crocodile
Feebly flapping in its black maw, held captive by the jagged walls
Of the teeth of injustice, of betrayal, of broken promises

Gradually sinking into this midnight quagmire of all-consuming despair
Failing hope and failing breath
Gradually sinking deeper, soon disappearing
Faltering heart-beat will soon disappear, and at last
Mercifully, be stilled

Raise your arms to the uncaring skeletal trees
As they spectate your demise
Lifting out a hand in a last plea for help...
Given a slim, withered hand for just a moment
Hope blossoming like the first pink blossom of spring in your hand
Then snapping suddenly, brittle, broken, the frail, fleeting blossom withering
Blackening in your hand
Your only reminder
Your only friend
Staring back at you, the lifeless remains of what you had thought was sure
What you thought would last and strengthen your salvation
Crueler than an outright rejection, laughs mockingly now in the night.

* * *

The residual sunlight scalds my skin
With its false promise of joy
My eyes glaze over with gray film
Transforming my world and all that I once knew
Into a landscape in shades of black and gray
A freakish nightmare transformed by blind trust
Shattered into broken trust
To this hazy vision I barely recognize.
Broken and scattered these beloved and tormenting images
My aching lungs are a relief in contrast
To the tearing anguish piercing through my soul.

Will you remember me, little one
That I held you, would have killed for you
Died for you, and gladly
When time rips us forever apart?
Or will you also fall back into the mist
Not taking notice of
Or just not caring enough to reach out
As I sink beneath the rising dark
And all turns black before my eyes
When the frantic scarred heart stills
And finally, mercifully all numbs and is devoid of pain.

Would there even be an imprint left
On the soft clay of this world where I now stand?
Or more likely a quickly fading outline
Of a hand once pressed to a cold counter

Glorious autumn with its rainbow colors
Its warm comfort and sunshine despite the errant chill
Has faded into gray winter
Which lingers in my heart even as the seasons have changed.
This sorrow is now trackless and deep
My spirit lost on a sunless sea
Since you no longer believe in me
On my face, my wind-dried tears and raw skin
The residual sunlight is harsh
With its forgotten promise of joy...

(Written: 04-02-2010) - Friday

Note: It's good Friday today...appropriately perhaps, this is also the anniversary of my father's death. This poem is symbolic for me of real-life events that seem to be converging on me all at once... But, I'm not usually this sensitive to them, nor so depressed. Such is life I guess.