Riding Home

We rode through the desert
hands clutching the reins
trying to force to horses
to go where we wanted

Our hearts beat rapidly in our chests
from constant fear of the
invisible enemy following close behind
chasing us to take our lives

Every ten seconds looking back
trying to catch a glimpse
but failing every single time
the fear building in our chests

In between backwards glances
we scan the horizon
trying to catch a glimpse of life ahead
in this never-ending desert

In stolen glances we ask each other
will we live or will we die
will we make it home
or will we die before we reach there

Then in the distance we see a light...

Mime Connection

There is a broken connection
between my door and yours
it's like we are speaking
in unknown codes or languages

we keep talking but all
there is is noise
nothing either of us says
makes any sense

there is no way to
learn each others language
because there are no
books or teachers

all we can do is mime

A Storyteller's Tales

I met a storyteller last night
she told me her stories come from
the worst part of her memory
from a childhood she is trying
to re-imagine and replace
she tells stories of how
she imagines her past could have been

she tells me other's childhood memories
sound like fairy tales
compared to the horror story
she grew through

...Jesus is kinda smelly if you really imagine Him accurately...

When I read these words my soul smiled with the beauty and honesty of them. What are your thoughts?

"A certain sense of satisfaction froths up inside of me. Why are people so willing to cast their fishing nets on the same side of the boat, over and over again, the side where a man points and days, "Hey, fish over here!" Meanwhile, Jesus's fish bubble in writhing profusion on the other side, but, well, Jesus is kinda smelly if you really imagine Him accurately, and He's poor, a failure in our definition of the word, and He's just not enough anymore. It doesn't make sense to really follow Him in this day and age. We couldn't feed our children and give them the latest sneakers so they wouldn't be made fun of at school.We'd let people walk all over us if all we did was turn the other cheek. So instead of taking Him seriously we fight for the Ten Commandments even if we can't recite them ourselves. They're our good luck charm even though we are adulterers, liars, and have thick calluses on our hearts; our way to fool God, to show Him we haven't become the people of Malachi or Amos."

         -Lisa Samson (excerpt from Embrace Me)

Inkwell Eyes

I remember the exact moment I met her
her small hand held tight by her uptight mother
her dark eyes looked like inkwells
filled with the sorrow that will write her story
her short wavy hair hugging her face close
doing what her mother wouldn't

I don't remember what her mother looked like
all I remember is in those eyes
she held a sadness no 5 year old should know

we were both at the grocery store
she was being dragged around by her mother
she seemed to be more of an accessory than a joy
and it showed in the way her mother ignored her
jabbering away on her cell phone, like a jittery bird

her loose clothes draped on her hanger shoulders
covering the fragile skin pulled tight across her ribs
and the bruises that paint her porcelain skin

her posture screamed to me
"look at me. save me"

I dream of her often
wishing I could have taken her under my wings
the fragile child she was...

Follow the Leader

Sometimes I like to imagine that I am playing follow the leader with God. I imagine that I am young again, willing to follow and imitate whatever He is doing.

I remember the laughter and frustrations that came along with following the leader. I never knew what was going to happen next and if I would look foolish or not. I remember how equally awkward being the leader was for me. I was a painfully shy kid, that didn't want to be anywhere near the center of attention. I always felt that I was going to do something that would make me look stupid. I also hit an early grown spurt that made me at least 3 inches taller and more clumsy than the rest of the kids. I tried in vain to not stand out, I just wanted to blend in.

I still have frustrations when it comes to following God now. I like to know what is going to happen in my future, but as much as I would love that I know that only God knows what is happening for sure in the future, in my future. Following the leader is still full of frustration and laughter, but I feel less awkward because I know that I won't ever have to be the leader and looking silly is no problem when God is looking after me.

Spinning Away Love

the mat on your porch says welcome
your face tells me do not enter

I don't know why I feel
like I should be the one to apologize
when neither one of us is really to blame

people drift apart, change, morph
they also lie to each other
afraid to say whats really on their minds

we each felt the other
couldn't handle the truth
of the different ways our worlds were spinning

our axes started tilting opposite directions months ago
and now I finally have to courage to spin away from you...

Bleeding Out

we breathed each other in
like the first soft breeze of spring
and expelled each other
like the waves crashing on an ocean shore
neither of us aware or caring for
the tiny fissures developing in our hearts
leaking our lives out with every beat
so here we are
with blood pooling in our chests
trying desperately to push each other
from our thoughts and memories
but I fear we will bleed out
before we are ever purged

Between 22nd and Home

I think I lost myself
somewhere between your front steps
and 22nd street
miles from my home
and blocks from you

Maybe I lost myself because
I had put so much of myself in to you

Now I'm just a wandering shell
trying to remember who I am
I feel like I have amnesia
a chunk of my life stolen from memory
all because you said you couldn't love me

Or maybe it was that you wouldn't

So I left the memory of you
on the corner of 22nd and Holland
under the old oak tree
with the names of lovers
scarred in its trunk

Christians Are Partying Harder and Having Better Sex Than You | Make it Mad

Please read this. I don't beg that often, but I think that everyone should read it. Christians and non-Christians alike.

Christians Are Partying Harder and Having Better Sex Than You | Make it Mad

Call for Discernment Conference (spoken word piece)

Call for Discernment Conference from Humble Beast Records on Vimeo.

Death: His Sting and Defeat (by David Bowden for Church Online)

The Reality of the Resurrection by Odd Thomas (spoken word video)

The Reality of the Resurrection from Humble Beast Records on Vimeo.
A Spoken Word piece written by Odd Thomas for Trinity Church of Portland.

www.trinityportland.com
www.humblebeast.com

Hank the Hummingbird

This is something I started at church last week and finished this week. Yay! Enjoy.

A Man Who Transforms You Into Poetry by Nizar Kabbani

When you find a man

Who transforms
Every part of you
Into poetry,
Who makes each one of your hairs
Into a poem,
When you find a man,
Capable,
As I am
Of bathing and adorning you
With poetry,
I will beg you
To follow him without hesitation,
It is not important
That you belong to me or him
But that you belong to poetry.

If I could...I would

if I could simply hold your smile
like a jewel between my ribs
snuggled up next to my heart I would

if I could hold the memory
of the grasp of your hand
deep in my soul I would

if I could memorize the sound of your voice
and let it vibrate through my head
like the bass line in my favorite song I would

if I could keep the feel of your arms
wrapped around me like a cocoon
branded on my heart I would

if I could keep the vision of you
in that first moment of meeting
at the front of my mind I would

if I could only meet you now
I wouldn't have to say if
I simply would

This is how I have been feeling lately....

The Hug Poem by Bradley Hathaway
I read about how you touched them and they were healed
Or even if someone just touched your cloak they were forever changed
You let a broken women bathe your feet in her tears
And you washed your best friend’s feet
I am just wondering though did you just ever hug people

I mean I know that it is a silly question and all I am sure you would have why wouldn’t you
But its one of those things that was never mentioned that got me thinking about it

And how whenever there was a touch from you sins were forgiven and sickness fell
I think I’m caught up in my sins last time I checked all my body parts were properly working, nothing special here
I am just a kid with a heavy heart these passing sunrises and sunsets

I don’t think our encounter would have ended up in the gospels or anything
Because all I really need is a hug 
That is ok for me to imagine right
That’s not going to be conflicting with any sort of theology is it
Ok good, then hug me

But not one of these side ways one arm around the neck type hugs
Or the ghetto right hand clasp fists elbows to chest pit pat on the back back
Or you put your right arm over my right arm and I put my left arm over your left arm and we make this weird sort of diagonal thing
Nah none of those

BEAR HUG ME MAN
Take your old school carpenter arms and throw them over my upper body leaving my arms dangling underneath yours somewhere and I can barely move them because your squeezing so hard
But don’t pick me up and make my back pop because I hate it when people do that

And hold me, hold me here in your arms until I start to cry because 
I WANT TO CRY
But I just can’t seem to do it on my own 
I have been teary eyed once recently but not even enough for a drip down my cheek
Theres just hurt in my soul that needs to be purged so hold me in this hold pose until the pain is flowing from my eyes and nose 

Caroline Casey: Looking past limits | Video on TED.com

This is an amazing talk. I hope you take the time to listen.

<3 B

Caroline Casey: Looking past limits | Video on TED.com

The Beginnings Of...

you can see each rib
like the keys on a piano
the skin is stretched taught
making these keys look too fragile to touch

you can wrap your fingers
gingerly around each fragile wrist
trying not to break them
like snapping a green twig

her sunken cheeks are
hollows where her dreams
try to stay afloat in the ocean
of the tears that pour from here eyes

her heart beats like a butterfly
fluttering to keep her alive
she holds her pain in
gripping it so tightly
her soul aches and starts to numb

she still remembers the words
that started her self-destruction

"You would be prettier with a few less pounds."

Tug-A-War

She looked at me with 

the look of a prisoner

and blurted

"I am on the edge of a dream

pulled between two worlds

one of my own making

and another spiraling out of my control

Which do I hold onto?"

Electric

I placed my palm against yours.
hands hugging.
I felt your heart beat
matching the beat of mine
I felt the electricity spread
from my soul to yours

And I knew...

A Glow

I still remember the day that you vanished
from my sight, my life
We shared ourselves
it made me glow inside
But I wasn't enough,
you got what you wanted
Now I glow with the memory of you
and dream of finding another
who will make me glow brighter than you ever did

Paint the World

I want to do great things
to paint the world
with color, joy, and pain

I want to be love and
to fall in love

to take a wand and paint
the sky with bright joyous colors
and dark blue undertones

to mark a page with words
expressing my thoughts
my pain, my life, my love

I want to leave a mark on the world
to make a difference
in a strangers life

I want you all to know
you have left your mark on my heart
and for that I am so very glad

On our wedding day....

"I want mine to to be the only hand you hold
from this day on
I want your eyes to be the only ones to
stare into mine
I want my heart to only beat in rhythm
with yours"

"May the love we share
make the fights shorter
the joy greater
and the beauty of each new day brighter."

"I hope that your lovely face is
the last thing I see and that
your voice that last thing I hear
before I take my last breathe and sleep.
I will love you forever and always."

Haunting

the hot dry wind
caressed my face
as the cyclone in the distance
drew closer to where I stood
I have been wandering
this desert for months
I have seen my life
pass before my eyes
over and over again
I keep analyzing my past mistakes
skipping over the good
because the bad choices
outshine the good ones
the scars of actions and
words of myself and others
haunt me in this wasteland
the joy of happy memories
are standing patiently
at the corner of my mind

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Dark and Light

the darkness settles
upon my shoulders
like a familiar winter coat
hugging me like a memory
worn just right from
being pulled out
and on too often
but there is very little warmth
left in this embrace
there is a cold settling
deep in my bones
I want to fight it
but I have no strength
left of my own
I need your hands
to lift me, hold me close
let the warm brightness
of your love radiate through me

Liquid Fire

I see the slight quiver of your hand
and the longing deep in your eyes
but you don't want me
you want the liquid fire that
burns through your veins
you reach for me
and tell me you love me
but I know all you want
is for me to be your provider
your dealer, your doctor
but I can't fix what you need to be mended
this fire that is consuming you
is greater than my hands can contain
my shoulders aren't wide enough
or strong enough to carry you
all I know to do is stand and watch
you burn alive
I can't stop it, I don't know what to do
so I watch you disappear before me
your outer shell being sucked in
by the hunger deep inside your veins
until all thats left of you is
a skeleton with flesh wrapped
tightly around each line and angle
and it breaks my heart
every time I see your quivering limbs
reaching out for rescue

so I hold your hand
until the last ember is snuffed out

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Empty

I feel like an empty bottle
Nothing but space
Where my message should be

Lord, come fill me

Something to brighten your day...

.... by ~brandonxtoxic on deviantART

Generations

Generations by ~brandonxtoxic on deviantART

this is when you
step up 
step in 
grab my face 
and kiss me

Clean Slate

The rain trickled down my cheek
Following the tracks that many tears have traveled
The raindrops wash away the remnants
Leaving behind a clean slate for another day
When the rain is replaced my emotions
That can no longer be contained

[OSS 4.2] Andrew Belle - The Ladder

This is my new music crush. Just so the world knows! :P

Love's Not

Love's Not by Manchild of Mars Ill

Love. What is it? A solid or a liquid?
The question resonates from inner space to outer limits
Outer space to inner city dwellers timid, not committed
Love just isn't built on child support and weekend visits
You kill it like strychnine when you treat it like a cancer
You don't feel it so you spend time seek pleasure, not the answer
In clubs peeping dancers in a jacked-up type of manner
Stuffing g-strings with dollars that should buy your baby's Pampers
Love's not waking up with different women every morning
Love's not beating her down at nine months, with child forming
Love's not leaving your wife and your seed with no warning
Love's not, and when it's raining its pouring
Scoring no points you smoke joints, and toke your life away
You might have another year or two but you really die today
Display respect for yourself, or you can’t love nobody else
The hand you're dealt requires action, not just something you felt

I know what love is and it just don't stop
but I can explain it better when I say what love's not.
Yeah I know what love is, and it just don't stop
But I explain it better when I can say what love's not.

A house divided against itself is prone to utter desolation
So for this generation on the brink of extermination
I pour out a libation, a lyrical libation
In observation of the annihilation of the moral foundation
The desperation of the situation was clearly foretold
That in these last days the love of many would grow stone cold
And if hell is without love
Then all hell has broke loose in this culture
Feel the negativity circling overhead like a vulture?
The inverted priority of the majority, squander the sacred
To give what's profane seniority
And incredibly we fail to see collectively
The reasons why things fall apart like leprosy
Passion is the fashion taboos are taboo
Do you see through this voodoo
Cause it stinks like doodoo
Yo it's sad but too true how many don't have a clue
To the fact we'll be judged for all we think say and do
From east to west coast and all areas in between
Real love is like a ghost -- talked about but rarely seen
Except on TV screens where they flash these caricatures
That on the down low are meant to influence our characters
But love is not love if it's manufactured for the moment
That makes it more than the physical between a man and a woman
Wisdom is justified by her children in the end
And real love is being willing to lay down your life for a friend


Love's not caught in mug shots or seen in drug spots
Love's not sex or who you do next Love's not
Road rage, porno pages in the eyes of a racist
Loves not whoring and love's not abortion
Of course then love doesn’t bomb clinics to make it finish
Love's not hate and love's not a cynic
Love's not seen on Jerry Springer or expressed by middle finger
And love is rarely captured in the words of any singer
Love's not domestic violence saying shut up or be silent
And love's not represented in the way of the police sirens
Abandoned children in abandon buildings
Random killings, love's not slow to help you, love is ready and willing
Love is patient and kind, love is sight for the blind
Love was borne before the morning, love's transforming your mind
Love is body and blood, bread and wine, remember the time
Love is God divine, crucified for mankind

Wrapped Tightly

you've got me wrapped around your finger
like a rope or a length of string
a reminder to help you never forget

sometimes I feel forgotten
I feel like a flower choked by weeds
I wish I could untangle myself from you
and be free of your control

everyday I feel stretched farther, pulled tighter
your hands have a grip on me
when all I want is to be free

Falling, falling

I imagine the falling of my heart
into your outstretched hand
and I can't control it
the thump of my heart
is contingent on your presence
 I don't like this

Home

You caressed my cheek
and I felt it
the unfolding in my chest
my love pouring out like sand in an hourglass
I knew in that moment
that you had become my world
without me even knowing it

And I leaned into your hand
to show you my love
and felt a tear escape through the corner of my eye
and a thought ran through my mind

This is what home feels like.

Magazinetastic

He smiled

She said, “Your personality looked better in the magazine”

Confused, he stuttered, then fell silent

She said, “I thought ‘we could be good together’

Then you opened your mouth

And dead words fell out

I think the hairsprays doing some damage”

Short Conversations

And then she told him
I cannot simple exist for you
I was made for more than you

Then she turned and walked away

Through the mist of the sprinkler in the front yard
Down the sidewalk
And rode away on her tricycle
Off into the sunset...

37 Days, 14 hours, And 2 Minutes

Please tell me what you think about this poem. Critique me. I want to make it better! 

37 Days, 14 hours, And 2 Minutes
-B

I still remember the first time our lips met

We were innocent then

We didn’t know about politics and pain

We didn’t know the pressures of society

Or the expectations that would soon weight us down

We were children playing house

I was the wife

You were the husband

It all seemed so easy, carefree

Then we grew up

You have a job that lets you travel the world

The job that I dreamed of having

I have a job that ties me to this town

The town we grew up in

The town we learned about life in

The place I have learned to simply exhist in

Today marks:

37 days

14 hours and

2 minutes since I last saw you

I lost track of the last time I talked to you

Probably some time in high school

When you realized I was weighing you down

You found new friends

And you found new vices

I still dream of the night that we spent

Watching the meteor shower

That night in June before high school

Somehow our hands entertwined

And everything felt right

Your palm hugging mine in an intimate embrace

I wish I could tell you

How I feel, how I have always felt

I watch those sappy romantic movies

And wish we were the characters

I feel silly marking the days

But it helps me get by

Helps me get through each day

Knowing that one day you might come back

And see me and love me again

Unrequieted love until then…

Take It Back

I asked you once if you believed I could fly

You told me I could do anything

Now I know you can do anything too

'Cause I am sitting here in the picture window

Watching you cram your suitcases in a taxi 

With a piece of my heart packed in with your toothpaste

If I could do this all over again I would ask you kindly

If you could leave my heart intact

'Cause right now I would give anything to take my love back