Contentedness

For a long time now, I've been trying to be content.
But I guess all that time I wasn't sure what that meant.
Like, being content meant that I had to be smiling all the time.
Like being content meant I had to say everything just right.
Like being content meant being happy, being numb, being saintly.
But that just isn't me.

I'm a saint, I mean, that's what Jesus said, I guess.
But I don't have a peaceful mind when I lay down my head.
My thoughts go a million miles an hour in any direction but rest.
And those never ceasing thoughts, well, they tug at my flesh.
They water all my worries until they start to sprout
They call every last one of my mistakes out like fouls
They flash images from my past to the inside of my eyelids,
 and if that won't work, they just switch tactics until they find one that sticks.

"Who's gonna love you when they know where you've been?"
and just like that, my eyes are open again.
I lay face-up and my heart pounds in my chest,
and I think "There's no way I could ever be content."
Because being content means to be alright, right?
And how can I ever be alright?
I just wanna dig a hole and shove all of me inside
cover it up and forget it.
forget it.
Just forget and be content.

Because being content means to forget right?
It's ignoring the fact that there was ever a fight.
That just seems insane to me!
How could I ever forget suffering?
Maybe that's not what I need,
Maybe its not about everything being right,
Maybe it's seeing there's a tree after the death of the seed.

For a long time now, I've been learning about being content.
Now I'm reaching a time when I'll learn what Jesus meant.
He said "it is finished" and put down his head,
and I think in that moment, he was content.
He swallowed every drop of suffering
but he did it for beautiful things only he knew,
He suffered for the sake of a glory that is all surpassing.
And he asks nothing more of me than to suffer through
and find contentedness in his beauty, and in the things he has for me to do.

Life Inside My Head #1

(Some of these are old reflections, but they mostly relate to what's going on with me now. This isn't a super spiritual post. it's more about my insecurities.)

• Sometimes I wonder why I write. 
• This thing has always been secondary to the other stuff I do, but I feel like it gives me the most catharsis from my problems.
• It's a prayer for me. I communicate with Jesus through this stuff, and I think the inspiration I get comes from the Spirit. I can't stop. It keeps me going.
• But at the same time (next)
• Sometimes I wonder if anyone other than God, my family and my church family cares about what I have to say.

• There is so much pent up in this head of mine, and writing is one of the best ways for me to get it out, but no one ever discusses things with me. I want to know I'm not the only one who thinks like I do, going into the artistry of it and the poetry of a day.
• I get the feeling people think I'm really really dim or inexperienced and whatever. I hate feeling like people think I'm stupid.
• I feel like others don't have any faith in me, other than the ones that have to because I am in some way an investment of theirs. Like they have a stake in my success, if I fail they fail.
• I have a couple people who pour into me that have no stake in my success, and that's so special to me, but more often than not, I'm just there to people.
• I'm not asking to have people just blindly appreciate my existence, I want to MEAN SOMETHING to someone. Not just romantically, but...
• Sometimes, I wonder if anyone will find me beautiful in anything but a platonic way.
• I hate the fact that this bugs me so much.
• Is there a tinge of Narcissism in this? probably.
• Yeah, I know the Christian answer to this. "God made you, and you are a precious creation of his." I KNOW. I realize this.
• is it wrong that sometimes this isn't enough?
• Does that mean I have less faith in God? No, it's just different.
• Statistically, I KNOW someone will, eventually. But for right now, at this minute, I need someone to say that I am not beyond hope.
• Right now, I'm trying not to focus on this as much. I realize my value is not found in romance.
• Sometimes I wonder if it's okay to think the way I do.
• Is it okay to be harsh and brutally honest?
• Would I still be so honest if I knew people would take offense?
• Sometimes I wonder why I'm so socially incapable
• I feel like I'm loud and annoying, but at the same time, quiet and I don't contribute anything worthwhile.
• I feel totally incapable of making friends apart from people who are brought into my life by others or by circumstances.
•  I WANT that. I want to feel like people want to be around me, not that they have to be.

Premonitions of Nostalgia.

Up before the sun again,
Damp and uncomfortable from the morning dew
with a busted knee and dirty feet.
Across the tent my dad sleeps,
but I decide to let him instead of begging for company.

It's only me, God and Leanor's poems
that and the nagging urge for reflection.
After all, I've been up since before 6
and all I'm left with are my thoughts.

Across the tent, Dad rolls over.
Just awake enough to free himself from the sleeping bag,
but not freed from the unending exhaustion.
I just go back to writing.

I have no regrets this weekend
I just wish I had done a little more,
Prayed a little longer, Worshipped a little harder,
laughed until I coughed up dust, spoke more boldly,
Cried more, honestly.

I've gotten too good at holding back tears
Tears for friends I'll never see again,
              Friends I'll miss until next August rolls around,
              Friends I've just met.
Tears for the busted knee,
Tears it's not more busted so I'd have a battle scar to tell my stories about and look at to remember.
Tears I didn't seek God more,
Tears that my heart still needs perfecting, and I can't crack the layers of rock
that make me so very good at holding back tears.
                                                                                        I guess those are regrets.
Well, now, tears I can't be painfully honest about myself
without covering it up with some quip to keep myself from feeling vulnerable.

Oh God, I'm so afraid of myself.
Of the person I am beneath the layers of the person I want to be.
God, Let's bury that person.
Let's keep the positive and throw out the negative.
Teach me to be brutally honest, teach me love.

The sun peeks over the mountain. 7:30 AM.
I wipe away a tear and my dad drowsily asks me to get the car so we can leave.
There it is. The final note of finality.
It's really done.
So I get up, find the keys, and leave the tent.
As I begin to walk through the mountain road to the car, I wipe away a tear.
A tear of resolution and a premonition of Nostalgia.

Letter From The Angry Ex-Girlfriend.

I'm sick of being eloquent! I just want to throw a fit, okay?!
You left me out to dry and acted like I didn't mind the silence,
 who do you think you are?!
You cookie cutter guy with your magazines stashed where you wouldn't I won't find them, say they don't matter, just say it again!
Look me in the eye when you say you didn't realize what was going down!
I asked you to be strong for me, but that didn't seem to work for you
I'm just a mouth to kiss and a sack of skin to touch and pretend is worth listening to.
HELLO, YOU, YES YOU! I AM TALKING TO YOU AND YOU NEVER PAID ATTENTION.
 those times we were out too late?
 I regret to mention,
just a product of my stored up tension,
 reaction to men's stinging condescention and reaction to the cold, dark censure of my life's rigidity,
I gave up much too much of me.
Its you I see, all bold and brass,
trading me for work, like I'm not worth the cash
 you'd lose
 to buy your tech and booze
 and the cigarettes that kill you from inside,
 despite the fact you said you'd  put them aside.
All of these?
LIES.
I'm so sick of these LIES.
I will never lie
beside you for the rest of my life,
spending each day just being emptied inside
of all the life I once had and the hope I held on to,
I wish I'd never found you.

I'm so glad to be rid of you
and the sting of the sin you'd use to get your way
But now the sun is coming up, my friends are getting up to start their day
So I might as well join them, now that this poems done.
Hope you get to read this, hope you get to see that I'm not yours anymore
"We" were only a revolving door that you exit through,
and I enter, new and refreshed, because I've been blessed with forgiveness
Now I'll extend it to you, because this was just a letter from the angry ex-girlfriend,
 but that's not who I am anymore.
Whether good things or bad, all things come to an end,
and this message I send, this is it.
Let's board up the revolving door and just wave
and then never look back as we go our separate ways.

The Anatomy of Broken Things

Blood in my veins and tears in my eyes, 

I guess I'm still living, if sense still applies.

Hair covers my head, and skin covers sinew,

But my hands won't stop shaking and I can't stop you

You'll leave regardless...

Regardless of me and my repenting demeanor,

Regardless of times when our hearts were much keener.

The exquisite snap of a word said in haste

like the crack of a slap from my hand on your face.

Gone are the days when my words were like kisses,

now they're as sharp as a knife in your fist is.

Suddenly, careless words fall into a line

That you'll stay to your side of and I'll keep to mine.

Ascend

I will never cease to follow.
While my own world crumbles at the sides, and the road falls away behind me, I will run toward you and not look back.
There is a world of Horrors at my heels, but your hand pulls me along and out of their grasp, but not so far that I'll forget that you save me.

I will put my trust in you,
Your power is enough to cause the rocks and mountains to sing,  and you're worthy of every note and more...
The songs that flow from our pens and the pages we fill with words are so limited in relation to how beautiful you really are.

My father, I will trust you.
Though the world  around me screams for my attention, I will place you before me forever.
Make me pure, my God, and cleanse my heart and my motives.
Renew my mind and clean my lips.
Show me your beauty, and my eyes will glow like fire.
The intensity of your presence will kill the death in me.

Give me a new name, and I'll let go of me.

The Fall

"Wretched Thing..." I say to her
She can't be me, but my hands on my face mirror hers.
My face in the mirror is unrecognizable, my lips dripping with blood and cuts, mud smeared into the open scratches on my face.
I throw water in my eyes, and push my face under the tap to wash away that reflection
I scrub at my skin, thinking the more soap I use, the warmer the water, the more forcefully I wash, the easier it will be to forget the things I've done.

I never meant to fight.

I never meant to fall.
I didn't start out trying to become this thing that I am.

But this mind of mine, the tongue in my head...
it breaks bones and shatters skulls.
It sends me to my grave.

My actions and my every word reek of death.
I cry and scream of beauty,
but the words become just swears and sin as soon as they've been said
There is no breath or heart to beat inside my empty chest.
I press my face to the reflection and as I do she says
"How can you say you're living when your heart's weighed down with lead?"