Tapestry

Remember the first time you heard…

Life hangs by a thread

What if I told you life is just a strand

Question this in your head

The old woman knitting all day

Contemplating life in her chair

Whatever she knits is a metaphor

For her life, she knows, she was there

The spider that creates

A beautiful complicated web

It teaches us who it is and was

It is a teacher, listen to what it says

Our lives are a tapestry

Each soul a bit of yarn

We converge and tie knots in each other

But not to cause each other harm

Our colors and patterns

Paint a picture for all to see

When we converge on each other

Look how beautiful we all can be

Heart break

Did you ever ask yourself why do I love

After my heart has been broken so many times?

After boundaries have been set

And neither person is willing to cross over the line

When you look at the pieces

And there are so many lying on the floor

It seems like a better idea

To leave, where is the god damn door

Then someone comes into your life

She makes you ask yourself the question

Where did I go wrong last time?

I must have failed at the broken heart rebuilding lesson

Then comes the gratitude

The thank you to all of the people who broke you apart

Without all of the pain they caused

You could have never learned how to rebuild your heart

So if your afraid of your heart breaking

And you want to be done with the fear forever…

Is your fear about your heart breaking,

Or are you afraid to put it back together?

If there was a way

If there was a way…

I would do it

To talk to you and tell you

All the things that have happened

All of the good things

And all of the really bad things

I want to share my thoughts

And my questions

My disappointments

And my lessons

If there was a way…

I would do it

I see my friends around me growing

And becoming better than before

Finding love, and experiencing loss

Having babies and so much more

Renewing relationships,

Changing their life,

Becoming strong and overcoming

So much internal strife

If there was a way…

I would do it

If I could take all of the good in me

And give it to all the people I love

If I could just be done with all this

And join the spirits up above

If I could find you somewhere

Wherever it is you went

I just want you, and no one else

God I wish I knew this before you left

Maybe things would be different

Maybe you would still be here

Maybe I would have gone

And you could have stayed here

That’s a lot of maybes

And there really isn’t a way

…But if there was a way I could

Hug you and tell you I love you

If there was a way…

I would

Overt your eyes, that’s what the voice in my head says

Then I can’t help it, they meet yours and I know.

You are breathtaking beauty, deep intelligence, emotionally present.

Your spirit calls to mine for some reason

My heart isn’t some battlefield, or a junkyard

It is full of emotion and love

I have been stuck in this place where everything is locked behind

Iron gates and cement and rebar

My eyes call to you, and your eyes answer

All they say is let me out

I am so sick of this place

I want to get to know you

And touch you and be free

It is a hard thing to take responsibility for locking yourself in

It’s not the others fault, you did this

Your eyes call to me

They say come out and play

Be free.

That is what you are to me.

Freedom

As I looked at my hands

I felt the bumps on my head

I recognized my comfort ability

With the deeply uncomfortable

As I have walked through life

I have felt pains that seem to have come

From the unknown

I ask myself questions

Why does this hurt so bad

And how did I get here

As I drove home today

I saw her, an apparition

She was the same

As if she didn’t die

I wanted to chase her

Or call her, am I crazy?

How much comfort is there really

When I do something that hurts?

At least I know exactly

Where the pain came from.

When everything was perfect

And you felt no fear

Do you remember hearing the silence

When the darkness came near

It devoured the light

It dulled out the sound

It felt like nothing else

When it came around

Can you find your way

With no light at the end

Can you be ok in silence

With no one to call friend

When your feelings overcome you

And the fear becomes intense

What do you do then

When nothing makes any sense

There is a light inside you

It has always been your guardian

When all else fails…

You might learn to listen to your heart again

Weaponized Hope

I was struggling with shit

So I walked through the door of the last house on the block.

They said dude your a drunk

…All the drinking Man, you gotta stop

So I stopped all the alcohol and weed

Just to become a pussy fiend

Always looking for a female

So I can trade my soul for a vagina full of dopamine

She said it’s ok to be vulnerable

I will be your ride or die

We whispered all of our secrets to each other

We admitted all our lies

But we both got what we wanted

It should be no surprise

We will do anything for that feeling… that dope

So here it is, the statement that applies

I want to know what drives you,

What keeps you afloat

So I can stab you with a dagger

Of weaponized hope

You want a relationship with your daughter

I can make that happen

I’m friends with her on social media

…And now your trapped in

What everybody wants right now

Is just to feel good

All you gotta do is sell em the idea

That if they wanted to do anything,

they could

Here’s a memory to shed some light

If you still think hope as a weapon is good

When my old friend sees a missionary, a southern twang says…

look at that Ram Christ

Or people from any religion who come to your home to invasively proselyte

the worst way to sell religion is by

jamming Jesus down your windpipe

They will use what drives you

What keeps you afloat

So they can stab you where it matters

With weaponized hope

Hope is not an ice pick

To jam in someone’s eye

You can’t pull it out once you stab them

Because they’ll bleed out and die

It’s not some thing to post on Facebook

Like look everyone I’m such a nice guy

It’s not some group or religion

That you have to join or rely

It’s not found in a woman’s vagina

This makes me really sad… I know

It’s not some story with a moral Someone tells you, Hope isn’t even in this poem

If I really want Hope, I can’t weaponize it

I gotta Give it away forever and expect to never get it back

I can’t tell you what I did for it,

or I’m just an egotistical shit sack

I have to be kind and forgive people

And Help those who can’t swim stay afloat

I Own this shit and I’m done stabbing the people I love

With my bullshit weaponized hope

Starlight

Children beaming brightly with energy solar

produce smiles in the wise with age

The sun a star forever burning

heavenly bodies surrounding its infernal rage

A satellite, the moon doesn’t produce,

even when it shines at night

As we age we wax poetic

the moon reflects what the sun emits…

starlight

I contemplate the comedy of aging

As humans around me dye their hair

And endlessly try to appear

Less experienced and youthfully fair

Oh how we waste the thing most precious

Chasing memories of how we once were

Forgetting to be present

As we linger in the past, finger tip media making reality just a colorful blur

Our age is the most precious of gifts

To linger here in the lesson a little longer than some

As we write and listen to the poetry written…

Our reflection shines bright like the sun

Starlight

Star bright

First star I see tonight

I wish I may

I wish I might

Have this wish I wish tonight

For the pirate

When you and I lock eyes,

There is so much that I can see

The turbulent ocean of emotion you sail

And all the treasures you’ve buried

We have met each other on your sails

As you have traveled the stormy sea

All those you have loved and lost

Are mates who are with you constantly

Until you pass this way again

I always await your return

With eyes out on the horizon

Every days sun falling into the sea to burn

I am a solitary desert island

Far beyond your maps reach

I will be here forever waiting for you

To come and relax on the sands of my beach