Blink of the Eyes

Blink of the Eyes

I don't write many songs
About the days that go wrong
The nights that last too long
And I don't sing about
How I don't belong

After all, who's listening?

No, I keep myself
To myself

So that the world might be spared
Of my uncomfortable stare

Gazing into the lives I could never have

I sit, stare, and think
And within the time lapse of a single wink
A single shut of the eyes
Just one blink

I remember to remember
To never fail to remember
Why those eyes open again

And again

And again

Uncle's Pride, Uncle's Love--Part 5

Uncle's Pride, Uncle's Love--Part 5

Frustration
Agitation
Chipped away day by day
And then a fearless little lady
Reminds me:
You don't need super powers
To be a superhero

Pressures unending
Demands undying
Brought to my knees
And then a courageous little lady
Reminds me:
There's a magic in her eyes
That makes my world a better place

Hope lost
Life's cost
And then a heroic little lady
Reminds me:
Each day brings a new promise
Of a world greater than before

Setting Sun

Setting Sun

Star falls
Stars follow
Cascading into an emptiness
They could never fill
No matter how bright they once shined
Hidden away in the deepest corners of darkness
That will, one day too, return to the emptiness

Casual Indifference

Casual Indifference

Forsaken ground
From which the fruits of tragedy
Are nourished
By the blood flow of betrayal

The value of life simultaneously
Elevated beyond mortal limitations
And reduced to nothing's end

Born into a world believed worthy
Of sacrifice both minute and absolute
A world proven indifferent
When given enough time to forget

Insufficient Funds

Insufficient Funds

There is more to choice
Than a series of proceeding consequences
There is a cost for everything
Everything we do

And no matter what
We've been through
What we choose to do
Is never free

We create not only rippling consequences
First, we withdraw from our limited reserves
To bleed the drop
That creates the ripple

Before we affect others
As a living consequence in their lives
We make a decision
Commit to an action
That could cost us everything

So long as it doesn't
We make the same decision again
And again
Until the reserve runs dry
And never again do we create ripples
Never again do we make a decision

Destined Fates: Uncertainty's Certainty

Destined Fates: Uncertainty's Certainty

Uncertainty certainly will not conform
To the actions of anxiety
      the concoctions of control
       the demands of desperation

Uncertainty certainly is what it has always been
     and what it will always be

Uncertainty certainly, simply is

So toil, toil, toil away
At walls too certain to fall

For never has there been a truth revealed
That wasn't certain to be hiding incompletely outside
The complete, absolute, impenetrable shadow of uncertainty

Within

Within

Within space and time
     wherein I once slept
Within heart and mind
     wherein I once dreamt
Within smiles and eyes
     wherein I once believed

I am left within the confines of lesson learned:

I am within my own
     space and time
     heart and mind
     smiles and eyes

I am within
Nothing more
Then what can be
Within me

Without

Without

What is it to be without?
Has one obtained so much
     they are now without need?
Has one been left with so little
     they are without joy?
Has one never had much to begin with
     they are without knowing they are without?

Without me
What is the life of others?

They are without a pain permanent
They are without a loss forever felt
They are without a reason to stop moving forward

Which means my life is without
     a legacy too heavy to lift

And this, I swear to you, is a good thing.

Without me
     life goes on as it should

I am without the motivation to change that
I am without the arrogance necessary for wanting that

I am without the desire to keep time from passing
     with my passing.

Why be a burden in death
     when I can leave people without demands?

Monocle

Monocle

Human recollection
Perceived through the monocle
Limited to the spectacle
Of the everyday individual
Wrapped up within the onself

The one eye
Of the one mind
Of the one heart
Can see
Through the faded vacancies
Of dreams no longer sought

No longer fought for
Goals long since abandoned
By an impatience forever wanting
Something more than mere mortal eyes
Could ever love

Songs to the Sung

Songs to the Sung

Sing for me once and I may remember
How it was when I felt the cold December

Sing to me twice and I may remember
Who I was when I still believed in forever

Sing to me thrice and I may remember
When my thin line shed my last tear

Broken Toys

Broken Toys

A puzzle
With pieces not yet placed
Resting off to the side
Of an unfinished completion
Is not the same
As a puzzle missing pieces
A puzzle missing pieces
Is broken
Missing the one thing
That could fix it

My Strength

My Strength

I am not a test proctor
I am a teacher

I am not Google
I am a mentor

I am not a bystander
I am a coach

I am not the government's puppet
Because, truth is, I simply care too much

I care too much about the people
Who make my life worth living
Every single day I come into work

I care too much about their minds
To let them go to waste
With standardized data

I care too much about their hearts
To let them go a single day
Without feeling welcome in my classroom

I care too much about their futures
To let them believe that numbers decide if they're worthy
Of their own potential

I am not here to tell them that they can't
I am not here to tell them that I won't

I am here because of them
I am still here because of them
I have survived because of them
I have succeeded because of them

I am the better person I am today
          because of them

I check in each day with new hope
          because of them

I believe in what I do and who I am
          because of them

Because of them
I stand before you today
In pride
In joy
In hope

I stand and I say
Thank you
All of you
Thank you so much

Aberrant Literature Crowdfunding Campaign

Hello everyone!  I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you have been supportive readers of my poetry.  It means the world to me to see the view totals continue to rise and for them to do so on a regular basis is extra awesome!  So, yes, I indeed offer you all my sincerest gratitude.

Looking to the future of both this poetry blog and my writing career as a whole, I have high expectations.  Those expectations are waiting at the end of a long journey that continues with my first published short story, coming to you thanks to Aberrant Literature.  We are currently running a crowdfunding campaign to bring life to these goals we've all worked so hard to accomplish.

You can support us by following the link provided and making whatever donation you can: www.gofundme.com/aberrantlit 

We also appreciate you passing the link along to your friends who may be interested in showing their support as well.  You guys are the best!!!  Thank you so much!!!

Stars

Stars

I have never seen the stars
I have longingly gazed up
And found only afterthoughts

Unconscious balls of fire
Hurtling through an indifferent vacuum
They were born in that vacuum
They will die in that vacuum

Before they flicker out
They will inspire
Ideas of greatness
Promises of eternal love
Hope for something more
Curiosity for the uncertain

But I have never seen them
I have questioned them
Forgotten them
Assumed they were there

But with each passing moment
They move in only one direction
Away

Masks

Masks

Pick a mask
And glue it to your face
Let the synthetic adhesive sink in
Deep into the face long forgotten
The image long mistaken
The unfamiliar lie in the broken mirror
The broken truth in the cracks
Where once there was a face made broken
There is now a mask made whole
Whole and empty
Empty of potential
Full of the world's allowances
Wear the mask
With accompanying muzzle
And find your place in the crowd
Your place
Built for replacement
For a new, empty mask

Switch

Switch

Flip the switch
The bulb turns on
The room lights up

Flip the same switch
The same bulb turns off
The room's light empties

I am not a switch
I am not a bulb
I am not a room

It's simply not that simple

Dare to Dream of Something More

Dare to Dream of Something More

So long as I am the one
To hold you in my arms
I will kiss each tear
That rolls from your eyes
I will listen to every heartbeat
I will believe in every song

I will dream
                    of something better
                    of something brighter
                        something special
                        something more
                                          more of this
                                                        this life
                                                        this life with you

I will support you through every tear
Your eyes shed
                 shed when hurt
                                   hopeless
                                   helpless

I will cherish the moments
Your heart races
                  races with joy
                                   excitement
                                   passion

I will sing in awe
Of you and your compassion
                   your will
                   your love

Through the darkest of days
You make me believe

Through the most hopeless of moments
You make me believe
You make me believe
        make me believe
                        believe in me
                        believe in the beauty I see
                        believe in the happiness of we

We the lovers
We the loved

Truth's Final Ascension

Truth's Final Ascension

Stop this shedding of tears

And speak the truth

Stop this spreading of fears

And speak the truth

Stop this theft of hope

And speak the truth

Speak the truth

Into ears still listening

Into hearts still open

Sing the truth

Into songs still playing

Amidst the distracting noise

Forever I am hurting

Forever I am waiting

Forever I am sacrificing

For the truth

The truth

Is beyond control

As are all things absolute

Remove the masks

And bask before fading

In the light of this truth

Know in this truth

Secure in this truth

Bound not by this truth

But by your courage

But by your courage

Is the truth strength

But by your courage

Is the truth forsaken

Forsaken by those

That fear this truth

That this world

And its people

Are forever

Truly

Lovers

Lovers of this truth

Lovers of this love

Lovers of this dream

This dream prayed upon

By lies bent on controlling

You, me, and everything

We see and feel

Everything we know to be real

This dream

This fragile, yet powerful thing

Made strong by our sacrifice

Made immortal by the inevitable

In the end

Only the truth can come to pass

Even without eyes to witness

Even if the witness

Is forever of the past

The truth

Transcendent of time

Beyond our limits

Will forever be

Long after we cease

Be a part of its legacy

See the truth

Speak the truth

Be the love

Share the love

Be the truth

At armageddon's strike

An attack against our conviction

Do not fall

Stand upon the truth

Stand for the truth

And when the end obtains its self-proclomation

Alone, love will stand

Made whole by the legacy of truth 

Wisdom Revolution: Trying Something New

Wisdom Revolution: Trying Something New
A Re-creation* of "Writing in the Dark" by Denise Levertov

A universal truth
Shouted with urgency
To the tumbling toddler
Is not heard

The same universal truth
Shouted with the same urgency
Leaves the child confused

Then, with the consciousness,
The inevitable, stark awakening
Of adulthood's challenges
The light in the dark is rediscovered



*Re-creation as described in Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom: Being the Book and Being the Change by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm and Bruce Novak, "[Participants] are first read a short poem; then, as it is read again, they circle the words that resonated with them; finally, they write their own poems, in 2 1/2 minutes, the time [Gabriele] Rico has found optimal for creativity" (Page 60).  It should be noted that in between circling words that resonate and writing one's own poem, there is a clustering stage in which participants use free association to write down words they connect the words they circled in the poem.  This clustering technique was also developed by Gabriele Rico.

Humanity's Loss of Humanity

Humanity's Loss of Humanity

The bottom line
The bottom dollar
And beneath that the hard-working
Never-quitting
Forsaken squalor
They pull at their sabotaged bootstraps
Pulling for falsified possibilities
Buried beneath
By the cold calculations
That equal humanity's loss of humanity

To See and Be Unseen

To See and Be Unseen

My look unknown
My gaze unseen
I've never looked through her
Because I can't
I can't see passed my future
I can't see beyond my heart
My love
My world
I cannot lift my eyelids
Without the strength she gives me
I cannot dance
Without her song
I cannot hope
With her gone
Absent from her mind
I know it may never be
That I find a place in her heart
This truth
Puts the sadness in one eye
And hope in the other
When they close
The battle between them
Is made known only to me
As it should be
My challenge faced alone
My struggles battled alone
My fate challenged alone
I open my eyes
And face the next day
With hope and sadness
Keeping me continued

Cascading Tapestry of Mindless Thought

Cascading Tapestry of Mindless Thought

I once had a thought
A thought that refused to leave
A thought that refused to be
Another stitch in the tapestry
The intricacy
The delicacy
Of my complicated mind
It was the thought
That gave way to the river
At times too fierce
That gave way to the stream
At times too calm
It was my first defeat
My first triumph
My first thought

Between the Lines

Between the Lines

In between the lines not yet written
Are the secrets not yet stolen
By the light of truth
And decay of time

History: The Living Legacies

History: The Living Legacies

Once alive, living
Once passed, remembered
And once those who remembered have passed
Once here, but now forgotten
This is the legacy of most
And this is not a curse
No ripple makes it from the center
To the end
Most don't even start in the center
Multiple ripples made all at once
A collection of legacies
Become our collective history
Both in and out of the written pages

Earth

Earth

Ambition misguided
Fear of failure
Desire to protect
However possible

A heart made stoic
By concern contained
A heart made silent
By a mission to learn

Breaking from battle to battle
Through the barriers within
Racing against the lesson
The lesson left unlearned

The earth breaks down upon
The untold truth
Chipping away at layers of deceit
Through chasms of poison

The earth breaks away
Losing more of himself
As he gains more of himself
His battle revealing

The earth breaks to nothing
But a lingering will
Existing in anguish
The pain of guilt never ending

Water

Water

A love too true
To lose to darkness
A song too strong
To drown in silence

A heart made strong
But in need of answers
A friend forever
Against the encroaching darkness

Flowing from home to home
For others still fighting
Against the unrelenting
Against the unforgiving

The water flows swift
But too often a tide behind
Stopping to help in the struggles of others
Putting aside personal anxieties

The water flows under
Raising up those that would otherwise sink
Into depths from which
There is no return

The water flows away
Sacrificing her place in the light
Away from her hope
Until she hears his name

Wind

Wind

An innocent heart left fractured
By another's ambition
An innocent heart made whole
By another's destiny

A heart made whole
But left seeking
Forgotten truth
In a broken chain of memories

Flying from step to step
Along the perilous path of fate
Unseen strings
Malevolent puppeteer

The wind blows lost
All the way back home
Brushed aside upon arrival
Falling into darkness discovered

The wind blows with fury
In the face of fate
Against a destiny chosen for him
Reclaiming the inevitable

The wind dies down
Tired from his turmoil
Tired beyond awakening
Awaiting another's destiny

Trapped

Words scraping the inside of the skull
A message massaging the heart into a relaxed rhythm
A need to speak speeding it back up again

As these words flow
From pen to paper

Heart to surface

Ink to reason

He must write

He must

Individuality's Window Never Closes

Visual proclivities
Obscuring my reality
Obstructing what is real
What is true
What I feel

What is pretty
Is pretty feeling
But why not appreciate
The temporary
Don't think of it
As what will never be forever
But instead as what was only once
And will never be again

You're one in a million
A billion
A trillion
For however long that lasts on the outside
It will be forever true on the inside

This one's for you
The one who stays true
To who
Who you are through
And through

Xzistense Resolved

Xzistense Resolved

What better me
To be
Than the memory

Thoughts of the past
Made greater by nostalgia

Thoughts of what was
Made greater by the lack of failure
Inevitable failure
Of who I was sure to be

What I could be
Will always be
Better than what I ever am

I could be a memory
Greater than this travesty
Of mistakes
And lessons learned...

Too late

Therefore lessons learned
Without value

So I exit
Uneducated
Unresolved
Unfulfilled
And without doubt
That this is the better
The better me
The me of only

Strictly

Memory

Serenity Lost

Serenity Lost

I am without
The strength of a husband
Within me
Are heartbeats too few
To spare

I am without
The strength of a father
Within me
Is care compressed in time,
Limits, and conditions

I am without
The strength of a brother
Within me
Is a vacuum void of light
Capable of guiding

I am without
The strength of a son
Within me is gratitude overdone
And therefore disingenuous
Towards those most deserving of only what's real

I am without
The strength of a friend
Within me
Are needs too many
And gifts too few

I am without
The strength of a teacher
Within me
Are no lessons left
No lectures, speeches, nor anecdotes

I am without strength
And likely always was
After all, what kind of strength
Taps out at twenty-eight?

Living With Anxiety

Living With Anxiety

With every step
My heart strains
As if that last stair
Could be the last stair

I stagger into bed
My head falling upon pillows
Cushions meant for comfort
Cause the damn to collapse

My defenses are down
And the demons creep in
Demons born of my weaknesses

The weakness of fear
All-consuming doubt

The weakness of anger
Mostly turned inward

The weakness of obscurity
Never standing with a sense of clarity

The weakness of weakness
Unable to stand strong
No matter who
Tries so hard
Cares so much
To pull me to my feet

No matter how much others believe
No matter how many others there are

I stagger up stairs
With a heart as weak
As the rest of me

And once that small wall of strength
Melts away without a fight
That stair
Will be the last stair

And being weak
Or being strong
Won't matter anymore

And losing the fight to my weaknesses
Won't matter anymore

It just won't matter
Anymore

According to Time

According to Time

The pendulum swings
According to time

The bells in my head ring
According to time

The cage builds up around me
According to time

The lock clicks shut
According to time

Hanging from the inside walls of the cage
Is a schedule
A false sense of control
A checklist meant to make me believe
I will outlast the cage

According to time
I could never outlast the cage

Inspired Uninspiring

Inspired Uninspiring

If I had to
I'd always be true
But you haven't made it to me yet

So instead I try
Do my best not to lie
But here I am again, fooling myself

Truth is
There is
No guarantee
That out there
Your walking down a road
That will lead you to me

Truth is
There is
A real chance
That our two paths
Will not cross
Or, worse yet, they already have
And will not again

How did we miss it?
If it already happened
If we already met one another
How did it not happen
Between us?

This skip in my rhythm
The missing beat
I know it's you

But it's my heart
My rhythm to change
I think...

I don't know
Truth is
There is
A very good chance
I just really don't know

How am I supposed to be inspired
By wisdom I can't comprehend?
How am I supposed to write from the heart
When I don't know how it works?

Just about every time
I write about this
I feel as if I'm paraphrasing
Putting my rhythmic spin
On wisdom that has never been mine

I listen, research, and synthesize
I cite my sources, show them appreciation,
And I keep myself open to further lessons

I am the one who catalogs
What he doesn't know

I am the one who observes
What he doesn't have

I am the one that stands a leader
Better suited to be a follower

I am the one who will keep writing
In regards to what he doesn't understand

Journey

Journey

You said you found me
You lied

You said you saw me
You lied

You said you'd bring me back
You lied

The truth is
Your eyes are closed
To what I am
And can become

And no,
No you did not see
What you wanted to see
Some warped version of me
To fit your reality

You saw nothing
With your closed eyes
Your mechanical heart
And your need for my conformity

I need not your welcome
To this world
Because it does not belong
To the blind

It also does not belong
To the widest of open eyes

It belongs to no one
And it always has
And will forever

Reality is ours within which
To exist
Not to recreate
Not to splinter
But to choose

We are not the pathmakers
We are the pathfinders

Green

Green

Empty tears flow
From eyes without strength

A cycle repeats
And with each passing
Takes another piece

Logic would claim
That only so many pieces
Can be taken
Before there are no more

Logic is right
Logic is wrong

There is a finite supply
Of pieces of strength
Of will
Of fight

Fight against
Fight for
The fight

The fight to take back
What was only ever meant
To be yours

Thought's Beginning

Thought's Beginning

Switching on the brain
Sending the current
Through one's current
State of mind

Inviting inside
The external stimuli
Bending it to the whim
Found within

Taking control
Does not have to be
An illusion

In fact, this illusion
Is born of the fear
The fear the darkness has
Of your light

Your light born of concerted consciousness

Feeling Guilty for Feeling

Feeling Guilty for Feeling

I'm saying sorry
For the disrupted
For the disturbed
For the dystopic
Feelings flowing freely

Freely through my mind
Freely through my heart
Freely through my body
Freely through me
Every free inch of me

This feeling
Free to come and go
As if I choose
To let it in
And to let it leave

And that's where the guilt sets in
This feeling that you've chosen the poison
This feeling that you've made yourself the victim
This feeling that you don't deserve to feel this

Attention seeker!
Fraudulent faker!
Insensitive insincerity!
Disgustingly disingenuous!

Write your empty words
Sing your lies
And turn your fake frown
Upside down

Again, and again,
And again,
And again!
I'm sorry

I'm sorry for the feeling
I'm sorry for losing another battle to it
I'm sorry that it isn't getting better
That I'm not getting better

I'm sorry

Found in the Light of Courage

Found in the Light of Courage

There is nothing special
Without belief

Belief in what could be
Faith in what is
Courage to take what is
And reach out for what could be

Keep your faith
In your courage
As your outstretched hand
Vanishes in the darkness of the unknown

Believe in a strength
You have not yet tapped into
The new strength you'll need
To grab hold and pull yourself up
And through the darkness

Step into the unknown
And be the light that illuminates the darkness
Gaze out at what you've discovered
Gaze in to appreciate what you've become

Thank You Little One

Thank You Little One

When up with her hand
She reaches

When out with her voice
She calls

When from her eyes
Her tears fall

There I must be
There, in her heart,
I must keep

Keep patient
Keep calm
Keep strong

For her

For my little girl

Cleave

Cleave

My pen bounces off the page
Why?
Why must it bounce
When I wish to cleave
Into the flesh of the page
So that its blood may flow
Mixing with the streams
From my own veins
So that I might know
Why these words
Inhabit my mind

Reflection Redux

Reflection Redux

Upon the step
In my internal threshold
Stood an opportunity
Made of risk and uncertainty

An insurmountable oddity
That meant the difference
Between excellence
And complacency

At first
He is alien
Indescribable, really,
In his lack of uniformity

Then I realize
His hand is outstretched
From the other side of the mirror

My instinct is to shatter the glass
And make a new reflection
But with a deep breath
And clarifying moment of contemplation
I see that my path
Starts with a step
Through a mirror left intact

Tick-Tock

Tick-Tock

What does it mean
When the storm won't secede
From your mind, the thunderstorm
A noise so loud, and yet the norm

What does it mean
For the switch of scene
To be serene

The buzz of the busy bees
In the disconnected hive mind,
Connected only to a singular eternity

Eternity
Singularity
Inevitability

The only unending truth
In all of reality
Is that there is no eternity
If time should choose

To stop.

Important Questions

Important Questions

Who am I
To tell you who I am
When I can barely begin to understand
To comprehend
To put into words
The thoughts that drive me
To be

Who am I
But a sleepless mind
A tiring heart
An analyzed inkblot
Seeping through the page

Who am I
If not what I am
--But maybe...
Maybe it's "what"
Not "who"

Maybe "what" is by far
The more important question

The answer to which
Would be the foundation
Upon who I am
Could stand

The truth to the question
Lies not in the answer
But in who must find it

I am no one's inkblot
To be analyzed
No one's puzzle
To be solved

I am not to be figured out
By others
I am to be built and refined
By me

So, what am I?
I am my own journey.

Who am I?
I am my own traveler.

Crashing Waves, Receding Waves, Crashing Waves

Crashing Waves, Receding Waves, Crashing Waves

It comes back
It always comes back
The strife
The struggle
The heartbreaking reality
That all happiness is temporary

All sadness
All grief
All of everything
That pumps through the heart
Eventually ends with the last rhythm's beat

We have those
Who love us
Truly love us
And they say
We'll make it
And when we do
We'll come back stronger
Come back better
Come back greater than before

We'll come back!
Come back!
Come back!

But what we hide so well,
What our desperation
Enables us to pass off
As will power unflinching,
Is our greatest secret

We are
In fact
Broken

Pieces left behind
In torment's ocean
Pieces we can't get back

The pieces that do come back
Sometimes don't fit
But our desperation stabs them in
To this new base
This new shape
Hardly recognized as more
Than a bloody mess in the mirror

The frustration wells up
At the pointlessness upon the surface
At the feeling of being unjustified in sadness
At the feeling that we are too weak
To keep this wave
From being the last one

The one that drags this weakling
Or falsified will power
Down into the depths

The darkest depths
The deepest depths
Depths eternal

I am not the only one
Who can only swim for so long

I wish this shared struggle
Were indeed shared
But the truth is it isn't.
The truth is that while we are not alone
In this struggle
We must each swim alone

Swim alone
Sink alone
Drown alone

In an ocean filled
With weak and weakened swimmers

So smile and brace
For the next wave

Stand for yourself
Be grateful for the loved ones who stand with
Even though you must leave them at the shoreline

You must swim alone
But for what it's worth
You--we--have people

People hoping with all they have to hope with

That we'll come back

And are ready to bloody their hands

As we pick up what's left of us

Piled up on the shoreline

Broken piles

Drowning in desperation
Spawned by fear, despite acceptance

Despite accepting
That the end is the most inevitable
Of all inevitabilities

We are still afraid
Afraid that we will be no stronger
In the next life
Then we were in this one

And that while the end is inevitable
Its absolution is not

The end is accepted for what it is
And feared for the exact same reason

Its potential is greater
That that of our lives...

I would continue,

But my muscles grow weak,
My mind grows weary,
And the tide is coming in.

Something Precious

Something Precious

The fact that there are endings
Makes the space between them
And the beginnings
All the more precious

No matter how long it takes
For the river
To erode the stone

No matter how long it takes
To find the answer
To the most important questions

And even though
You're the stone in the river

And it is time
That will forever flow long after
You are less than pebble dust

Burst forth from your shell
Unleashing your special gift
To inhabit the river,
Changing its course

It's the change that matches time
In its eternity

The Other Side of the Coin

The Other Side of the Coin

You can never learn
Something you already know

You can never reach up to a plateau
Upon which you already stand

The past is never a place
To which you can return

The past is pictures
Posts
Updates
And forgotten relationships
Preserved on networks
Of artificial memory

You are more than that
More than could ever be uploaded
Onto the most advanced technology

It's in that complication
That you find your present
And your potential

You'll do so much more than short circuit.
You'll break, tear, and crumble
And stumble
Up, out of the rubble

Sometimes you won't be stronger
Not at first
And not for a while
Maybe not for a very
Very
Very
Long time

So long sometimes
It may appear
To be your new permanence

But just as much as you are more
More than what brings you down
More than your failures
More than your past
Your are more than your present

You cannot be more
If you end it
Before you get there

Potential does not exist
Within the empty space
Of blank pages
Found at the end
Of a could-have-been epic

So, turn the page
Even though it means
You'll have to
Flip the coin...

One Side of the Coin

One Side of the Coin

Why is trying
The best I can do?

When does all that trying
Amount to something?

Pull them boot straps!
Get back up!
Try! Try again!
No excuses!

When do I get
To reach
For a dream
So much bigger than me
And do more than hope?

Hope and try

When do things get better?
No!
When do I get better?

When does the practice
Make perfect?

When does it at least
Make better?

Mediocre at best
Time
And time again

How many seconds more
Must add up to
"It could be worse"

How many minutes more
Must I waste asking
"Why isn't it better?"

There's no more time
Nothing left
To do a better job

Do it!
Do it now!

Flip the coin...

Benjamin: Two Hundred Tries Later

Benjamin: Two Hundred Tries Later

This is me
In my happy loneliness
Miles traversed
Surrounded
Supported
Forgiven
Forgotten
Remembered for what I've done
And perhaps, maybe,
Just maybe,
Who I am.
Remembered,
But on my own.

Alone at the finish line

And why?

Because adults get married
While children play pretend
Holding the hand of an imaginary friend
Staring across at all that time
On the other side of the finish line

So, who am I?
To stand here alone
As I cross the threshold?
I am the last kid on the playground
The last one to put away the finger paint
The last one to wake up from nap time,
Because dreams will always be better than reality
At least the naive dreams of a child

At least

I am me
And a child
Is who I choose to be

Stepping up to,
But refusing to cross
The finish line

So when the rest step across
And head home
To the next chapter

I'll sit here
Keeping their place
Along the other side of the line
For whenever they come to visit

Poetry In Class

Poetry In Class

Why should I open my mouth
And from its gaping awkwardness
Expect poetry to come out?

Why should I hope
That I spent enough time,
Put in enough effort?

What is the measure of my words?
What is the reason to my rhythm?

Why am I standing here
When my head is spinning
In a race with my speeding heart?

Why did I think
This was a good idea
To dig into my chest and offer up my heart?

What is the worth of my vulnerability?
What is the cost of my insecurities?

So many questions
But here I am
Refusing to be stopped
Just because the dot at the end
Grew a fancy curved hairdo

I'm scared
But that's when I'm courageous

I'm nervous
But that's when I'm courageous

I'm uncertain
But that's when I'm courageous

My courage is a fire
Fueled by this significant realization:

This is
First and foremost
My voice

And my voice
Will first and foremost be
Measured by me

Thank you for listening,
But I've come to the end
The end of this challenge
And the beginning of the next

So I measure myself
And I find myself

Victorious

So, why write this poem?
Why speak these words?
Why do so aloud
If I'm so afraid?

Because there is no victory
In bowing away from fear

And without victory
I cannot inspire.