Oh it can't hurt to be a little dark...

So I actually had a lot of fun writing that last poem, even if it was a little dark and a little depressing. At least it had emotion, you know? And I spent probably a good half-hour writing it. And, to top it all off, my friend loved it. So I decided to write another one and spent just as much time if not more writing it. I thought it turned out pretty well. I tried a different rhyming scheme, and, surprisingly, it worked. Enjoy this...I decided to to title it "No End to Time"
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So I was happy for a time,
Before the pain and warning signs.
Every day trying to find,
a way to travel back in time.

I need a way to stop the clock,
Reverse a tick, take back a tock.
I need some way to pick the lock,
Open the past so we can talk.

And all the times I keep trying,
To go back and stop your crying,
I keep losing, I keep sighing,
Every time I keep on dying.

I lost myself so long ago,
So long ago I just don’t know,
If I can stop the raging flow,
Stop the river before you go.

Mend this bleeding heart that’s broken,
Please take my thanks as your token,
Don’t forget the words we’ve spoken.
Either way, I’m left heartbroken.

I can’t go back and make it fit.
Stuck behind these walls, I sit,
Now I finally realize it,
There’s no end to this dark pit.
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Well...what'd you think? C'mon...good or bad, let me know!

If you're looking for a happy post...

...This isn't the place to find it. I've got a million and one thoughts on a million and one things...minus the million part. Anyway, while I'm in the mood, I figured to make good on a promise to someone to write a dark poem SERIOUSLY. Enjoy it, but maybe bring a flashlight.

"Left Alone in the Dark"

See a light,
it burns red with a glow.
It reflects in your eyes,
and you already know,
when the past is forgotten
it continues to grow
into something much darker,
even light cannot show.

I know of a song, it kills as it’s sung.
It tells you, “Remember, remember some more
whatever you loved,
what you once knew for sure.”
But you’ve forgotten, it’s over,
and you hate it for days.
The song doesn’t care,
It laughs while it plays.

The eyes that watch you,
they all shine green,
burning with envy,
poisoned with greed.
They take what they want,
they leave nothing for you.
And you cry out and scream,
but what good will it do?

Alone in the dark,
the last light burned out,
you’re left by yourself,
and now you find out,
you should have seen it,
there was never a doubt,
that’s what it’s always about.

That’s what it’s always about.

As Time Goes By

Let me tell you about the worst weekend of my life.

It started a week ago, really. When I realized I had a week to do a job that would normally take three times that long. I’ve been stressed out by it all week. It’s all I’ve done in my free time. And yet here I am, a little past 11:30 PM, with still an hour’s worth of work ahead of me if I’m going to get this done by tomorrow, which is the deadline. I’ve worked since this morning at it nonstop. I didn’t stop for lunch, didn’t stop for supper, and now, even after a hamburger, my stomach hurts extremely badly. Maybe I’m still hungry, maybe it’s just because I’m stressed. I don’t know.

It’s 11:35 PM. I’m so tired I won’t remember writing this tomorrow morning. But I have to do something to stay awake while I wait for the final few DVDs to burn. 11:36 PM.

One of my best friends, if not my best friend, instant messaged me today. She decided we aren’t going to talk on AIM anymore because of a thing with her boyfriend. I’m not mad at her. It’s not her fault. I understand why she’s doing it. But I was sad about it, still am sad about it, and probably won’t be really sad until tomorrow morning when I realize just how much I’m going to miss that. I was too tired to really comprehend what was going on. But, heh, I guess I do realize what’s going on since I have to brush away a tear that wants to form in my eye.

I don’t know why it’s there. It’s not like we won’t talk again. I see her at school, we talk at school. But what about after that? That’s what really makes me sad. She said it was inevitable that we’d stop talking one day, and this is one step closer. School ends in a couple of months. So I’ll ask again, what then?

I think you’ve been to graduation. You know what I’m talking about when I say “the line.” The line that you go through to say your good-lucks and good-byes to the graduates. That one. Where you get to say how much you’re going to miss them, how much they meant to you, how much you value their friendship.

I don’t get to do that. Oh, sure, I get to go through the line, but I have to act like I don’t really know her, like we don’t talk, like we haven’t talked for months. It’s a lie, yeah, but it’s a lie that she lets her boyfriend believe. Is it right? I don’t know. I just want to say goodbye in a way that shows we were more than casual acquaintances…that we knew each other, that we talked, that we listened, that we learned…and that I found a friend that made me feel like I was worth more than just being a thing to vent at or yell at or go to for a quick answer to homework problem.

It’s 11:45 PM. Sometimes I feel so stupid for talking like that and I don’t know why. I don’t want to dwell on the past or get lost in the future. I can’t change what’s already happened, but I don’t have to get in bed with it either, if you know what I mean. The past doesn’t control me. So when it comes down to it, for me, it’s never about what “should have been” or “was supposed to be” because if it didn’t happen, it obviously wasn’t “supposed to be” anyway. I just want a chance for the present to be right.

11:49 PM. My stomach feels like someone shot me in the gut with bullets that know how to swim around inside you. I’m so tired that I don’t even care.

When I wake up tomorrow, it has to be early. I have to get ready for church. No time to rest. When I get home, I have to work on the school work I’ve neglected for the past week so I could get this project done. There’s ninety chapters in the Bible I should read, but won’t. There’s four passages I should memorize, but will commit only partially to memory. Enough to pass, and for now that’s enough in itself.

I’m not asking for much here, at 11:55 PM. I just want a world where I can sleep for now, and maybe not have to act like I don’t know my friend. My stomach is still on fire and I’m starting to wonder if something is wrong with me. I just want to fall asleep and live in a dream for a while, maybe buy a house there, live there for a few years, make a decent living doing nothing.

See, in a dream, it all works how you want it to. I heard a song once. It said “I’ve been sleeping in for days/’Cause when I am awake/I will have to face my life.” That’s true.

It’s 12:00 AM. Happy Sunday, everyone.

I don’t really like being stuck in this perpetual haze caused by stress and exhaustion. I have to look for the right thing to say to my friend as she tells me we’re not talking outside of school anymore. I have to have patience and control not to snap at another friend with seemingly endless problems of her own. I don’t think she really wants a solution to them anyway. Just somewhere to vent about them, get a response from me, and then use it to say how much worse the problem is than I realize and that I nothing I suggest could be of any use anyway.

12:06 AM. I have three more DVDs to burn. I can’t believe I can still put sentences together. So tired, but probably won’t be able to fall asleep if my stomach still feels like this. Working, writing keeps my mind off of it. Everyone else is asleep. I sit here typing and waiting for another disc to be done.

The clock says 12:17 AM in the corner of my computer screen. The last disc is minutes away from being done. If I’m lucky, I’ll be asleep by one o’clock. Then again, this hasn’t been a very lucky day for me.

I might wake up tomorrow and wonder why I wrote while I waited, and maybe I’ll understand then. At least I’ll know that hands and fingers can type words even when you consciously tell yourself to open your eyes after each blink.

It’s 12:20 AM and the last disc is finally done. Good morning, everyone. Make it a better one than I do.

Eyes

Have you ever been haunted by a song? Or changed? Or anything? No, of course you haven’t. You’re not weird like me. But if you were, maybe you could relate. I guess I’ll have to explain it to you.

I never realized how many people there are around me. I mean, I have, but I never really “got” it. Think about your life for a second. You think it’s complicated, right? I think mine is. Sometimes, it’s too complicated. Okay, good, now that you’re thinking about that, think about this: How much of that “web of life” is made of other people? Quite a bit, I’m guessing. Everything you do in your life, it’s linked by people. Everyone you know is, obviously, a person. You have strong relationships, weak ones, good ones, bad ones, new ones, old ones, cherished ones, hated ones, hopeful ones, ones that will never be, ones you wish could be, ones that you’re just learning about, ones just being created…the list goes on. That’s your web. Like I said, it’s complicated, right?

Consider this: every one of those people has a web just as complicated as yours. And they know people who know people. There are circumstances in their life that you are a part of, and there are ones you are not, just as they aren’t a part of every aspect of your life. There’re things you keep hidden from them, things they keep hidden from you, things others keep hidden from both of you, and things left unspoken. Those complicated webs just got ten times more complex.

I’d been thinking about this for weeks. There are all these problems that people have that you’ll never know about. There’re a thousand reasons why a person is who he or she is. There’s no way you’ll ever know them all. Every action you make, every action they make, it’s made for a reason. Some people think that the future is predestined and set in stone. I disagree. The future is the choices we make every single moment, every second, every fraction of a second. There is nothing that we do that doesn’t affect our future. I’m not the kind of person who believes God has been limited by one future. If God is as powerful as we claim, should he not see all possible outcomes of all possible choices at all possible times? Just because the choices we make determine the future does not mean that God is blind to the future. If all outcomes are known to Him, he is never caught off guard.

But that’s getting away from my point, although it relates. My point is that there are all these people around us going a thousand different directions every day, including us. We don’t share a reality…instead, each one of our realities is intertwined without us even realizing it. We may never know what is really going on in a person’s life. All we see is what they do, what they say, what we think they are. Most of the time, we don’t even care about all the things that drive them to be who they are. Everyone has a weight slung around their neck. Sometimes we see it, sometimes we don’t. We’re blinded by ourselves and our narrow realities.

So, as I said, I had been thinking about this for a while, wondering what is behind every glance, every smile, every frown, every laugh, every expression that you can’t tell if it’s real or not. And then I heard this song that was exactly what I’d been thinking and it perfectly captured all those thoughts. It’s called “Give Me Your Eyes” by Brandon Heath. The first verse goes like this:

Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touched down on the cold black top
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breathe in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos
All those people going somewhere,
Why have I never cared?

Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s like someone hit a pause button and suddenly I’m aware of all the layers to everything happening around me. Why haven’t I ever cared about all these things around me?

Then I heard the next lines of the song:

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I’ve been missing
Give me your love for humanity.

Can you imagine what it would be like to see through other people? Not like (ew) X-Ray vision, but to see all their struggles and problems and insecurities and needs. It would be too much to take in. It’d be like squeezing a lifetime’s worth of a friendship into a fraction of a second. It would overload you. You couldn’t take it all in. It’d be like standing in front of a dam just as it burst and a wall of water washed you away. I don’t know why, but I find that incredibly humbling. I finally realize, no matter how well you really know a person, you don’t know them.

I was talking to a friend. I’m not even sure what I was doing. I know what—at some level—I should do, but I don’t want to and can’t. I was seeing it from my view, not hers. Although, I think, in all honesty, she knows what I should do. But apparently she doesn’t want to either. I was afraid of messing up a relationship, of my web getting tangled in someone else’s. I was prepared to…sacrifice a friendship to keep from ruining a relationship.

But my friend told me something that gave me “eyes” for a second. After I told her I would give up a friendship for her relationship she told me, “Well, if one were ruined, I’d prefer it if you left me the other.” Wow. That was all I could say. That made so much sense. And, yeah, I don’t completely get it. No one does or ever will.

But I think, maybe, just maybe, we see shadows of what God sees through his eyes. I have a new…genuine caring for, well, everyone. Every moment I think I know who they are and what they are, I’m reminded that I really don’t. That’s a very humbling thought. There’s real hurt out there, and most of that hurt will go unrecognized by everyone but the person it’s happening to...and to God’s eyes.

If you want to hear the song, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTsYAZvHsEQ

Things on the Mind

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. And it’s given me a lot of things to say with no one to say them to, and a sense of not being sure how to say them anyway. A long time ago (I think two years still counts as a long time ago), a friend told me they liked me a certain way…you know, more than a friend. But see, here’s the thing: I didn’t really know them all that well at the time. We’d just started to hang out, just started to get to know each other. I’d been down that road a thousand times and 999 of those times, the person is friendly for a few weeks, maybe months, in some exceptional cases, even longer, but eventually, they just sort of disappear out of my life. And honestly, that’s how I thought this would be. Figures that this would turn out to be one out of a thousand cases that didn’t work that way.

But that’s getting a bit ahead of myself. Whoever is reading this, if anyone is reading this, I don’t know how long it will be. But I’ve needed to get it out somewhere for a while now. You can think it’s stupid; I do most of the time, but it still is there, no matter how I feel about it.

Anyway, like I said, this new friend liked me…a lot more than I thought she could, or would, or would ever want to. I was having a hard time to believe it, because see, I hadn’t done anything for her or done anything that would make me stand out from anyone else. I was just…really…myself around her, and for once, that was good enough for someone. It was a good feeling, a really good feeling. She wanted a relationship, and for a number of reasons I wasn’t sure of and am still not sure of, I said no.

I didn’t give her the explanation she deserved because, well, I didn’t even know why I said no. Maybe I was listening to people around me too much.

You know, come to think of it, that was a fun time. It really was. There was a lot less fighting between some people then. Funny. The one person who told me to go for it is now the one person who doesn’t want anything to do with my friend.

Sorry. I was saying that I was listening to people. People told me it wasn’t a good idea. And…well…yeah, how was I supposed to know? I was just starting to know the person, right? I can’t say that I really “knew” her. So, like I said already, I said no and gave a half-hearted (if that) explanation as to why I didn’t want a relationship.

Stupid. I knew why. I wasn’t good enough. That’s how I felt. I wasn’t good enough to be there for her. I wasn’t…outgoing enough to do all the things that a partner is supposed to do, or what I thought a partner was supposed to do. I couldn’t see myself as being enough for her. It wasn’t what people were saying or anything she said. It was me. It was me not doubting myself and thinking that she could do so much better than a guy like me. I just didn’t want to be boring, which is exactly what I thought I’d be. But how do you explain these things to someone? How can you say “Don’t think about me, you’ll just be disappointed” without sounding like a self-pitying jerk?

But, and this is the crazy thing, after all that, after side-stepping and not giving her a full explanation why I said no (and I wouldn’t tell her, incidentally, until two years later), after flip flopping back and forth on things—she still wanted to be friends. I really couldn’t believe it. I thought she would be mad. She should have been. But she wasn’t. And we stayed friends, and I’m so glad we did.

So we kept in touch, talked, got to know each other better, and all that wonderful stuff. The next year, she got a boyfriend. I felt good about it. It meant that she wasn’t upset about me being such a jerk toward her. She was happy and we were still friends.

Then things started to change. I guess I should mention that I was friends with her boyfriend. Or thought I was. It turns out he doesn’t like me. At all. When I’ve seen him lately, he hasn’t even responded to a “Hi there.” But let’s not get ahead of ourselves again. What was happening was, the guy, her boyfriend, he didn’t like that she was friends with me. She never really told me how much he didn’t like it until a few days ago. She should have stopped talking to me. But she didn’t. She said I meant to much as a friend to her. And, once again, I was a little amazed that anyone would want to be my friend that much.

Another year passed, and that brings us to now. Her boyfriend is graduated, they still love each other, but she still talks to me, even though she’s not supposed to. And this year…this year…she’s my best friend. I don’t know what I do without her. School would be a lot more boring and a lot lonelier, I suppose. I never really had someone who really “got” me like she does. It’s pretty awesome. Sounds great right?

Well…here we go again. Her boyfriend, the graduated one, he still thinks she isn’t talking to me at all. She knows she’s not supposed to. But she does. I just don’t get it. We tried to stop talking once…and that lasted a week. I never really got how big of a deal it was that she wasn’t supposed to talk to me until a few days ago.

It turns out, if you boyfriend did know she was talking to me, he’d break up with her. Break up with her. Can you believe that? I don’t want to put that weight on her. I told her that. But she wants to be my friend anyway. I told her not to worry about. She still wants to be my friend. It’s…just incredible.

Why would she do that for me? I don’t want to hurt her. But…it doesn’t seem to matter to her. What if someone would tell her boyfriend that we talk and hang out at school? I don’t want to think about it.

And now…now I don’t know what to do. I should tell her that I can’t keep talking to her…that I shouldn’t make her be, basically, lying to her boyfriend. That’s wrong. Extremely wrong. But could I do that? And more importantly, do I want to do that?

No. No I don’t.

Always do something when you say you're going to...

Ugh...okay, this was totally something a friend asked me to do while we were joking around doing the dumb stuff we call conversation. But, all joking aside, I...I really don't know what I'd do without that friend. So they told me to write a poem (the emo thing to do, you see), just for laughs? Just for kicks? I don't know, but writing does usually help me feel better about whatever. So technically, this is for the friend, but, er, untechnically, it's for me too.

ANSWERS

An answer is like a weight falling from the sky.
It never looks where it’s going,
Doesn’t matter where it’s been,
It’s your weight now, and that’s what counts.
Slowed by two failing arms,
Hindered but not stopped.
It presses, harder, harder.
Your heels dig deep into the earth,
An inch down, now two.
You grind your teeth,
You grimace with determination,
Each heartbeat is a canon,
Fleeting cries of lost victory.
Breathing becomes a chore.
The air is sand and dirt and gravel.
Your eyes are darkening,
Light is choked by poisonous night.
Your footing is lost and at last the weight falls,
And in a passing thought,
You wonder why it takes so long.
Until you see a hand by yours,
An arm reaching alongside you,
And the face of friend,
Holding your weight,
And telling you to breathe.

I am by no means a poet. Short stories, essays, obnoxiously long rants generally about nothing important...I can do that. But poems have never been my strength. So, perhaps you got a chuckle out of it, and if you did, good for you. You're a healthier person for it. Now get out of here.

Autumn in the Park

In my quest to get more serious about my writing, I've been trying to write more short stories that are diverse and outside of my typical work (mystery this/comedy that/etc). And, more to the point, I need to write something other than the big long thing I've been working on since last year. So this is another story I wrote, inspired by fall, October, and J. Michael Straczynski, oddly enough. Anyway, I hope you enjoy "Autumn in the Park."

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The fall leaves blew in circles across the gray sidewalk. The grass was littered with them, its pale green color obscured by their oranges and browns. It was October, and the little children knew that it was time to make heaping piles of leaves for play. Their cheeks were rosy and their noses were runny, but they didn’t care. They loved the leaves, and that was all that mattered.

The walk curved to the left ever so slightly, following the black road. Naked trees reached out their arms, creating spiny arches over the road. All was dead, and all was beautiful. That was what was so mesmerizing about autumn. It made death beautiful.

She loved fall. Oh, yes, she did. I remember once she told me that if it was fall all year round that she would not miss the other seasons. She enjoyed them well enough, but fall was so different, so versatile. Some days were memories of summer and others hopes of winter, and some were simply fall, no other way to describe them.

I reasoned that now would be the best time to try to talk to her. Maybe the season would calm her, make her more receptive. If only she would listen, I could explain so much.

I looked about the park. Save for the children and their mothers, it was deserted. Most people favored a cup of tea and a warm room this time of year, but Mary had taught me to love the season.

I loved Mary, and Mary loved the fall. It was quite that simple.

The green bench was peeling and chipped like it had been the day we met. Whether yesterday, a thousand years ago, or longer, it made no difference. The memory was there, clear and unmarred. It had been a day just like this one.

We were strangers sitting on a bench. I was reading a newspaper, and she was anxiously holding a purse. I was on leave from the service. I was young and the world was such a large place. There was still some mystery left out there, wherever “there” was. The whole planet was an unexplored territory, and I was its conqueror. I liked to believe that I was invincible. Maybe I was. I’d never get the chance to really find out. The war ended a week before I resumed my tour of duty. But on that day, the prospect of battle was still a burning notion in my mind. The paper was all talk of killing and gunfire and in my naivety, I was thrilled by it.

Young fool, I thought, seeing myself now, a lifetime ago, sitting on that bench. You wouldn’t have even noticed her if she hadn’t said—

“War is ugly.”

I looked up from my paper, shook it to straighten it, and then folded it down. She was beautiful. That was my first thought. She was bundled in a pink jacket, furred with gray, and a matching pink hat set squarely atop her head. I believed for a moment that a host of heaven had taken the seat beside me. But, as I said, I was young and arrogant and therefore chose to ignore that. I snidely replied, “And how would you know, lady?”

“I can read just as well as you, sir,” she politely answered. “I’m sensible enough to know when something is good and when something isn’t.”

“Well, look now, I’ve been there, you see?” I pointed to a picture of the European landscape that the paper had placed on its front page. “I’ve been in battle and it makes a man feel alive.”

“From what I’ve heard, it can also make one very dead,” she said. A hint of a smile curved her lips. She beautiful and full of sass and I was arguing with her.

“Aw, you women are all the same. Scared of death and everything with it,” I said, waving a hand to dismiss her remarks.

“I said war is ugly, not death,” she went on, ignoring my insult. “Fall is my favorite season, yet it’s the season of death. Leaves die and fall to the ground. Flowers shrivel and hide. And still it’s breathtaking. Death can be a beautiful thing, though death on a battlefield isn’t what I have in mind.”

Setting her purse aside, she reached down and picked up a leaf. She held it in cupped hands and looked it over with squinted eyes. A sudden gust of wind snatched it from her hands and carried it off into the park.

“I never really looked at it that way,” I said to her, less arrogant and more intrigued. “Death always seemed so final to me, so grim.”

“Yes, but springtime comes after fall, or before, depending how you look at it. It’s a cycle. Life, death, life, death. There is no ‘final’.” She folded her hands on her lap and looked out in the direction the wind had carried the leaf.

I felt awkward, sitting there in silence. I searched for something to say, but nothing seemed as profound as her words. I was speechless, a rare condition for me in those days, I assure you. Instead, I simply stared into the same distance that she did, wondering what she was looking for.

“Say,” I said at length, “you look like you could use a cup of coffee. I’ll buy it for you. I could use a cup myself.”

She was hesitant. She was that kind of woman. She thought for herself and wouldn’t be swept off her feet by some trigger-happy kid looking to start a fight with some Nazis. I reached over and lightly touched her elbow. “C’mon,” I said, “We can look at the leaves on the way there.”

Cautiously, she stood up and we walked down the same sidewalk that I treaded now. The fall breeze came in a quick burst and the memory was whisked away like the leaves. The bench was empty again, and I walked alone.

I buried my face in my upturned collar, trying to block the wind and forget the past. I passed no one on my way. Every sound was drowned out by the persistent roar of the wind. I was left to my thoughts, and it was best that way. I became so absorbed in them that I nearly passed my destination.

I looked up and Mary was in front of me, here at the end of the park where one lonely bench remained. Like that day so long ago, I sat down and pulled a newspaper from my coat pocket. I turned the pages, seeing words but reading none of them.

After a few moments passed I said, “Hello, Mary.”

She didn’t reply.

“I know you probably don’t want to do this, after what I did. But I thought, maybe, that today, on our anniversary, you would listen.” I creased my newspaper and put it back in my pocket. I folded my hands in front of me and looked at her.

“It’s fall, you know. Your favorite season. I—does it make you happier? I’m not trying to say what I did was right. I know I was wrong.”

She didn’t acknowledge me.

I went on, “I had to leave. You understand that, don’t you? We needed to be apart…I needed to be alone. You’d think that after two people had spent as much time together as we have, they’d know each other inside and out. I guess it just goes to show that everyone has things they keep hidden.

“Do you even remember what we were arguing about? No, I don’t either. It was dumb, I’m sure. These kinds of things always are.”

She still wouldn’t look at me, and I felt a tear running down my cheek. I wiped it away hurriedly. I didn’t want her to see me like that. I needed to show her that I was still the strong one and that I could still be there for her.

“I just wanted time alone, I said. That’s all. And when I came back, we would talk things through. Things would be better then. So I came here to talk and to say I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you.” I paused. “Maybe my biggest mistake was ever knowing you.”

The wind wrapped its icy fingers around us. It was so cold. Today, fall chose to give us hope of winter.

“I just wanted to talk,” I said again. New tears formed and spilled down my cheeks. They caused my skin to chap and each one stung like salt in an open wound. “I hope you can forgive me some day, Mary.”

I stood up and turned to leave, convinced finally that she did not want to hear my voice, even in the fall, even on our anniversary. I blinked to fight back more tears. I looked back one last time.

Her tombstone was surrounded by leaves. She loved the leaves, too.

“I love you, Mary,” I said one last time. I was alone, and I found now that it was never what I had really wanted.