HERE

This time I didn't run.
I did not retreat
Into the recesses within,
Away from others,
Avoiding the here & now.

Nor did I hop a plane
To partake in an adventure
That aides in my escape of reality.
A 'here' where I'd rather not be.

Instead I stayed.
I sat in the muck.
I looked at myself
And revealed that I would not
Offer a way out
Of seeing just what was existing there within myself.
I faced the demons of my past
And even those of my future.
I looked honestly at the girl staring back at me in the mirror
And told her
Enough was enough,
Gave her the lecture
Of life,
Of self,
Of spirit.
And then left it to her
To find her way.

That is how I came to be here.

Here-in this moment,
Fully present and available
To anyone who should seek me,
Including myself.

Here-in this space
That not long ago I called muck
And today believe is beautiful & rich.

Here-in me
Happy
Amazed at how far I've come,
Without, in fact,
Running anywhere.
Instead,
Staying to see it through
to the other side of 'Here'.

Tears

My tears are weighted
With held-in heartache
Because though I've always known the value in a 'good cry',
I've been crying for all the wrong things
All these years
And now my tears are heavy
With unsaid words,
Buried hurts,
Built up pressures,
And pushed aside needs.
And my lids have weakened
Under their weight
Unable to hold back the flood
that is
Tragically & beautifully
Me.

Torn

I know you hear
My pebbles pinging on your window
And I know too
That you won't answer.
Or possibly that my impatience
Will not allow you the time.
Either way
I find myself in that all-too-familiar place
The place where I'm wandering and lost
Needing your help
Yet not getting my answer
Because you've got your own life to live
And me,
Well, I hang up after two rings,
I only throw a handful of pebbles,
I whisper my questions to you in crowded places.

Sometimes I wonder
If you are amused
At how I mask my fears with stubbornness
Fears you know all too well
But also know that I must face them alone.
Perhaps I, too, know this
Because if I really wanted your answers,
I'd simply work on my patience.

Instead I
Walk away,
Slam the phone against the wall,
And resent your inept lipreading skills,
Blaming you
For leaving me
To face these demons alone.

Yes, I know I never gave you the chance to save me.
I'm torn.
I've always been the 'saver'; then again so have you.
I just don't know how to save myself...
Or let you save me.

Knotted Threads

Pull at the thread
That nagging little
String of a thought
That's been poking its way
Out of place.
Begin to unravel
Things held within
And watch the little thread
Grow longer
Revealing the unaddressed
The good & bad of your past
The ignored & pushed away
Feelings of your heart.
And while the knot you feel
Is as strong as the day that you placed it there,
The unknotted thread
Now flowing through your hands,
Is laying out a path
Easy to follow
And untangled from your past.

Worth My While

If only I knew then...

All those moments
When my heart ached for the unknown,
Worrying there may never
Be an answer to the
Questions of my soul;
Pushing my way through doors
That should've remained unopened,
Fighting battles
I'd lost before even beginning.
And all the while,
My heart,
The one to deal with the aftermath.
Time after time,
Finding her way
Back to her feet,
Stumbling and scarred,
But hopeful
Somehow
Against the odds.

And perhaps,
All this time
It was merely my head
So confused about what lay ahead.
Because while my heart
Would fall and break,
Ache and attempt to heal,
Somehow,
She knew there'd be You.
The answer I needed
To questions I'd never even think to ask.
You.
Making that journey,
Missteps and wounds included,
Worth my while.

Because without my bitter past,
This present could never taste so sweet.

You Make Me

The ease of my happiness
In these moments
Makes me feel whole
Makes me remember
Just the way
Home feels in your heart.

And the way you hold me together
Pulls in those bits of me
That get lost in my extra spaces
And makes me remember
Just who I am
And why it's who I want to be.

And the laughter
That pours from me
Seems to come straight
From my soul
And makes me remember
The smiles of my heart
That belong to
The real me.

And the calm I feel
In the quiet moments
Makes me forget
All of the
Sidelining worries
And frivolous fears
Of my heart.

Because you make me...
You just...
Simply...
MAKE me.

IN & OUT

Sometimes...
I just feel I need a minute
To breathe
IN. & OUT.
Because in all this
Commotion
Sometimes...
I don't even know if my lungs
Are filling themselves.
And if I'm not even sure
that I'm breathing,
Sometimes...
I wonder
How can I be sure of anything.
Consumed and enveloped
By all the OUTside
Affecting my INside
Creating INner turmoil
But allowing no time
To sort it all OUT.
Just compiling the chaos
WithIN
WithOUT my considerations.
Because
Sometimes...
All I am asked is to pour myself OUT
For the things that need
What I have withIN.
So
Sometimes...
I do.
Pouring OUT
my heart,
my soul,
my effort,
myself...
Sometimes...
Wondering just what's being put IN.
But withOUT the time to even
Check if my chest is rising and falling,
What's finding its way INto
My heart & soul
Will have to wait
For my considerations.
And
Sometimes...
I hope that all that I come to find INside
Doesn't leave me withOUT.
And I know
That I won't know
Until I have the time to put IN.
But
Sometimes...
I just find myself OUT of time
And OUT of breath.
So
Sometimes...
I just need to breathe
IN & OUT
IN & OUT...

It's Time

All of you
Play-it-safers
And
Creatures of the comfort
Of the familiar,
It's time.

Time to let go,
To loosen your grasp
On the life that was never meant for you,
The life that your heart never
Drifted to in its musings.

Time to start seeing the world in technicolor
And dive into those colors,
To paint your world brightly,
Mixing new hues, uniquely you,
Creating a masterpiece
The world has never seen.

Time to let your curiosity,
Who's been flashing his crooked little smile,
Get the best of you
And question those things
You didn't expect to want to know.

Time to listen to the voice within,
That sings of the beauty of your passion
And silence those without,
Who harshly scream of what you ought-to-do.

Time to stop buying into
The 'supposed-to's' and
The Fall-Back-On-Plans
Because soon,
You'll find it's years later
And have nowhere to fall from.

**A piece created by pulling bits from poems past and present**

OhSoManyThings

My heart is longing
for OhSoManyThings
And while that's nothing new,
Someone's made up my mind
That OhSoManyThings
Isn't too much.
So I'm letting my heart find her way
Soaring through the
Whipping winds
That confuse and confine
To find the smooth breezes
That comfort and calm
Her worries about the
OhSoManyThings
She desires.

Casting Call

I'm making a movie of my life
But I'm unsure of where to cast you.
The soundtrack is in place
Yet I'm still figuring which role you'll play.
The hero?
The villain?
The silly sidekick?
A lesson to be learned?
Or possibly just an extra in the background?

Images of love and memories
Flicker in the filmstrip
Playing in the screening room in my mind,
With you waiting and watching,
And I doing the same,
Wondering when you'll
Jump onto the spinning wheel
And ride the twists and turns
And appear on the wall, a part of my movie
With music that tells our story,
Beautifully tragic
But full of promise
Of a spectacular twist ending.

Age of Innocence

A time so simple
Yet unrealized until harder times.
A place where one can only reach
Through the notes of a song
That wraps your heart in sweetness
But breaks it all the same
Because it taunts of a time
When smiles were free
And decisions second nature.
When worries were few
And consequences something you could not forsee.
So as your mind brings you back
And breaks your heart
By suffocating it in the lack of simplicity
That your life has become,
Smile as it cracks
And be happy that in this moment
Both Pleasure and Pain
Come from a moment that few know or understand.
And once again they are free
And felt with more emotion
Than those times
You had to PAY to feel.

**A piece written in college while listening to 'Tiny Dancer'**

Piecing Together My Present

I'm piecing together
Scraps of paper
Scribbled with words
From my past,
Trying to create a present
Even though what I'm longing for
Is a future.
And these pages
Of words
Transform themselves
As though my former self,
Who was just letting
Letters leak from her pen,
Knew I'd need these words today.
Eerily pertinent to my present,
It makes me think that
There's a me
Who's placing these words here
For a girl I don't yet know,
Advice for a future someone
Who's searching to
Piece together a present.
It's as though my story's
Already written within
But my past me just won't quiet enough
To let the present me
Paint the picture of my future
In beautiful meter and rhythm.
So I'm clipping
Words and phrases
From my past
To create a poetic present
But also smiling at my
Present fragments,
Knowing they'll piece together
Quite nicely...
Someday.

Words

So here I am
Just surviving on words,
Trying to fill my lungs
And feed my hunger
With letters arbitrarily
Thrown together.
And I can't be certain
About their substance
Or confident
About their truths.
But I breathe them in
And chew them over
Hoping they'll somehow become
More than just
Letters wrapped around my tongue
Or lingering in my ears,
More than just
Symbols streaming from my pen
Or dripping from your lips.
Because many days have I found myself
Spitting out phrases that don't suit my taste,
Exhaling written pages that strangle and suffocate,
Because my comfort in words
Leads me to blindly believe
In all that they have to say.
And though they've failed me time and again,
Both in their absence
And in their lack of content,
I cannot help
But let them fill me up
And breathe new life into me,
Thinking maybe this time
They'll lead to thriving
And 'just surviving'
On words
Will be the story of my past.

Overtaken

I find myself
Tripping on phrases
Because you've overtaken
Those tiny spaces
In between my rational thoughts.
Sliding through
The pathways of my mind
Coating all of my
Reason and Logic
In the Sweet Elixir
Your words leave behind.

And I'm glossed over
By your enticing and
SmoothlySweetSyrup
Dripping its way down,
Oozing and seeping
Its way through my being.
My joints oiled well
But only in the manner
YOU desire.

Only to find myself
Melting
Into a puddle,
A pool,
A
smooth,silky,swirling,swooning,saturated,sidetracked
state of
simple....

Surrender.

So my tongue gets twisted
To where it no longer
Tells of
Perfectly Planned Prospects and Proposals
But instead
Spontaneously Sings of the
Sweet Secrets
Spinning and
Spiraling
Through those tiny spaces.
All because I find you've overtaken

all. of. me.

My Destiny

It's dreams of you
That keep me whole
And help me see this through.
You belong to me
And me alone.
Those secret wishes no one else can see.
I hold you deep down in my soul
Even though I'm still waiting for you
To fill me up,
Wondering what you'll make me.
Because I've been wandering for so long
With nothing but
Thoughts of you
To keep me moving.
Be my voice
And speak those words I don't yet know.
Be my feet
And take me to the places I need to go.
Because I'm running to find you
To find those answers about me.