writing – Accepting This

A Clanging Cymbal

I have learned that
being where you are
is often better than longing for the past
or dreaming about the future
The habit of thinking that you are always in the wrong place
will keep you from existing in the present
you will float six inches above the ground
never feeling the grass bend beneath your feet
or the sand in between your toes
or the tide rolling around your ankles

So, taste the food in your mouth before going for the next bite
when you look at the stars, let your eyes linger even if it is cold outside
Listen to the voices of those speaking to you with out preparing what you will say next
Pick one thing, not everything
Choose knowledge over ignorance,
compassion over convenience
Drink your coffee while it is still hot
Examine your motives and practice honesty even when it is partnered with discomfort
Identify rush and hurry as the enemies of quality and patience
When you are tempted to numb, feel instead
Ignoring pain, begets pain

Forgive and forgive and forgive again

Speak kindly to yourself and you will judge others less
Assume that all humans are made up of complex histories
diverse experiences, circumstances, thoughts, sufferings
not one identical to the other

Go outside
outside of your home, outside of your perspective, outside of yourself
Retire your expectations
Dismiss your pride
And begin to balance the notion that tomorrow is a new day,
but also tomorrow may never come
A juxtaposition of hope and impermanence
contentment and yearning
order and chaos
And in all of this you will need an anchor,
and that anchor is love.

Wading

Listen to this while reading

My words are like honey,
they stick to my teeth, to my fingertips
They sink to the bottom of a glass,
get gulped up in the quickness of drinking
the speed of everything

I don’t want to wait to do something better,
don’t want to hang in time and comfort like
I am unaware of reality

I’m getting to know winter in a new kind of way,
not so sorrowful anymore, not so heavy
My depression has become nostalgic in a way,
hints of it rise up when something reminds me of it
I told him the other day that I feel guilty for being content,
and then I remember when contentment was my most frequent emotion to envy

Constantly peeling off my human tendencies, my tendency to feel unworthy
to feel anxious, to feel unwanted, to be self-destructive, to be abrasive
My tendency to slink into fear, to become irritable, to distrust and to complain

I’ve made a sincere attempt to maintain happiness, but I can promise you any bit of joy I know is divine intervention

I’m developing a theory surrounding hardship,
one that is often spoken of but hardly acknowledged
Something like each moment of pain makes you more relatable, if you let it
each broken up circumstance makes you more glad in the whole parts
but only if you hand them all over, the pains and the breaks, and the inexplicable times

I wish that we would speak of our imperfections more often,
but not in the effort to receive pity
not in that self-deprecating kind of way,
no… maybe we could just speak of the ways we are lacking
to realize that we truly are
and to be open to the possibility that we will never be perfected
despite our trials and triumphs
And in this imperfection I rest,
because there You are in my weakness

I want to no longer want
I want my desires to vanish and reappear as selflessness
For my longings to dissolve and to be aware of
real, true needs
To be aware of each person as a soul, a body and a mind
to allow my convictions to settle like dust on my organs
brushing against me so I do not forget

Do not forget that these days are fading
that these times are fleeting
that these thoughts are washing and wading back
into an ocean of your being

Not a Draft

My own body had to stop me,
time has been moving too quickly
hours feel like minutes, and before I know it they are gone
You are gone now
And it’s odd now

Stepping through reality like a daydream,
there’s too much to be done to just stay here
Guilt keeps coming upon me,
wrapping its uncomfortable presence around me
like a blanket but I’m already too warm

Guilt for not being there, for every moment spent away
when you are mourning I want to lay with you
Hold your hand, hold your heart, hold your head up

I’ve kept myself from writing, because these words should be of you
They should be about loss, about your body when it was here and
lifeless and I saw it and it broke me up
they should be about legacy, and a life lived well
and these words are just letters strung together
they cannot weigh as heavy as my heart, they cannot
contain the tone of your trumpet playing off
of a scratchy cassette in the light of stained glass windows,
lingering throughout that cold church on a hill top in maryland

Now, I’ve come back to these words with more to say
How do I convey the speed of these days, all melting into each other
lines bent like heated clay, I think I am content
but then again, I am sinking beneath the face of
commitment and I’ve got to come up for some air

If it weren’t for you, O God
I would be nothing
Not in the sense that I am now something, or that I am a success at all,
I’m a mess of a human, but if it weren’t for you my soul would be
like a bag of wet sand, gritty and slumped into a
stagnant shape sopping with sorrow and anxiety, but God you have saved me
from myself

I reach out for something to hold on to,
loneliness has always encamped herself around me
forever in my line of sight,
I feel her when driving on the highway
and before falling asleep at night
I feel her when I talk to someone, and I really like
what they have to say, but I know their words will come
to an end, and silence will occupy what once was their space

My grandfather loved me, I saw it in his eyes
his love alone rests on the outer edges of my aching heart
when I awake in the morning,
the leftover feeling of his absence cracks into
a thin film of sentiment and manipulates my
day into a constant glance towards heaven

It’s true, this place isn’t my home
It’s not yours either
so even if I’m always overwhelmed, I know it cannot be forever.

Is this enough for me? Can I at least let go of these stanzas above?
they still do not yet feel quite good enough
I’ll have to allow myself to take more days
and I haven’t forgotten about you, and I won’t forget about you
and I haven’t said enough, but I’ve already said too much