lonely togetherness

We entered in the new world, together
We ached for the land subdued
You swaggered to its coasts while I dug the soil
It was within our grasp
But distant
And words themselves were unattached, as ships
Without a captain on an unmapped region
Tossed and pulled by an earthly force
To attach our souls.
We held our bodies together, but our minds apart
Sending pieces of our hearts
On the ships across the reckless storm.
Upon receiving news of one, the other's
Yearning is temporarily soothed.
The solitude is gentle but mournful.

I birthed inspiration
last night. The contractions were less severe than usual,
Though it took a little while
The world formed a membrane around my imagination
and my joy was beginning
to suffocate.
I was tempted to plunge into the fog
where there is refuge from reality. Returning
to slumber, to the womb.

I lie awake, and unsullied

Willing to succumb to my mother's heartbeat
Reverberating throughout the cavern of ambition, where corpses of
Ill-timed dauntless pioneers have long since dehydrated

And the newest ones
swell their elastic skins in anticipation
Of liberation

Open and breathe, there is no darkness
Where we are going
In the flow, blowing through the cobwebs
And dust

The man of earth

We chimed the stars with our talk of destiny
Staring into its reflection on the twilight sea
Letting the roots unfurl into our flesh
And the branches intertwine.
You pinched its fruit for ripeness,
And the ripest ones descended from above your reach.

You traveled so far a distance, a sage
Communing with the leaves

Flower beds and snowy peaks cradled a lonely search
For the depths of richness, transcending the eye

Hungrier, still but you searched granite faces
Across mountain ridges
For a sign of divine compassion upon an earthly man.
The surface has yet to be pierced.

Cling

The hardened heart shatters my tongue
I taste the distance with my feet when I
Cling to the Love that binds for eternity

Spirit life

That flesh were mist, I could vanish when you exhale.
Open hearts lay bleeding on the surgeon's table
As He cuts away the garment of flesh.
That hope is reality, I walk on the waves when He calls.
Shadows respond to death, but my spirit responds to Life.
This Life has a name.

burdened

I woke up crying this morning because I was hurting from being in studio all week and weekend, sick and burdened. During our final reviews, the professors were critiquing our diagrams and axonometrics. After two and a half hours of painstakingly poring over each individual's work, as I was feverishly praying to Jesus to calm the storm in my head, they give us a break. I rush back to the studio to finish off the rest of what I needed and pinned it up. My work looks sickly and underfed, like myself. It's time for me to present, so I take a deep breath and exhale a stream of consciousness that seems to disturb the female professor, who frowns at me like I am a weed in a bed of beautiful budding sprouts. The class is a set of chess pieces. They are gentle with their criticisms, although I can feel their disappointment and I meekly nod at their suggestions. Of course, yes, I can do better, I will work harder. I can do that.

There is something serene to the surrender of my ambition to excel in this class. I used to be able to harness this energy, but I have grown beyond the point of grasping these fine hairs of theoretical education. The people in the class are brilliant and focused, but I cannot match their energy. I surrender to God, who is powerful above all authorities and thrones, and He is meek and humble. I find rest.

Z comes by, to give me acupuncture and we have a light conversation about people, thoughts about each other, some words of comfort. I am distraught, but I do not reveal it to him because he does not react well to anything that will upset his balance. I wonder if that will do well for our future. Perhaps I must struggle with this alone. Perhaps this is good for me. I am still learning a lot about myself. I cannot let fearful attraction be the center of my relationship with him.

A good friend comes over for a little while, and he is searching for something as well. It comes out reflectively through tranquil illustrations and observations. He describes a snapshot: A boy with a red helmet stand before his reflection in the pool. He holds an old yellow tether ball, and the pool reflects the blue sky. I want to know about this boy's life, but my friend does not want to put all of his cards on the table. We play with my prism glasses for a while, trailing our rainbow shattered fingers over the light. He ponders on how every experience with a friend may be the last one. I can see how much he has grown.

My inspiration washed over me like a sudden rising of tide, but I lost my grip and let it pass.
Lately, my thoughts have all been tied to the ocean. I wish I could open my heart to him, but I still haven't cracked the code myself.

I'm wasting time on the computer, blogging about my day. I have lots of projects due tomorrow, yet I am not alarmed by the amount of work due and am waiting to become desperate. It is the remnants of my self-destructive patterns, which are slowly washing away with the tide.

The Ocean

He tells me to enjoy life, it's like ice cream that must be consumed before it melts.
The dog barks, and splashes water from his bowl all over the sidewalk, the same place
where we played a silent game. Eye Heart You.

He can wink with his eyes closed.
Some people have a neurotic psyche, and you don't want to stare them in the eyes for too long.
Berkeley bums have hungry eyes, searching for the deeper nourishment seated within the hearts of tender humans. Sometimes I am running low myself, and I hoard my grain. I find out it is safe to share.

My knees have been less pained because he tells me to adjust my walking. I love my feet now, because he kisses them. I love myself now, because he kisses me. I want to teach him how to swim properly, even though he surfs. I want the ocean to remind him of me.

Accepted by God

Telling myself I won't go back,
I won't go back.
It's so beautiful, the mirage.
It's so devastating, the brimstone.
If I lose my saltiness, will the Lord turn me into salt?

But I'd rather be a fig tree,
Whom the Lord walked under one day,
Nourished by my fruit.

I can already hear the words you will use,
Ignorant, Fixated, Brainwashed.
But do you question why my heart turns away from
A seemingly good thing?
I have tasted better.

I hear His voice, and it is Life.
Truth, Flowing, and Free.

Shadow of God

There I go again, stumbling over myself
Retracing the steps of my childhood,
Fixed upon a mirror.
Captivated by Vanity's lies,
I forget the unseen reality in which I have been born.

Are you in love with my shadow?
Why do you beckon, when you want so much
To discard your own?

But I will never forget the day
My shadow met you, and we danced for a little while
In the reflection of a promise
Until my spirit realized that without God,
Nothing is perfect.

Free will

Your inspiration comes from the mountains and the moon
The ocean carries your desire, you ride her passion
Carving her body with your strength
All your life's momentum, released in a crashing moment
To discover your own depth.

How you carved through life, caught the waves from my heart
And translated it into another challenge.
You spoke to the waves, though they did not reply...
You did not wait for it. You could not obey.

How I wanted to speak!
But I've come to understand that I have no command
Over my own heart,
As of all realities. My waves gently lap your legs
As your face sets with the sun, hardened with determination
The water undulates from the rhythm of divinity
As you skillfully ride on your balance, exhilarated

I am engulfed by my own desire to have you
But you are but a man.

I have already been tamed once,
by one whose voice the wind and waves obey.
Under his command, I am in eternity
And one with the sky...
There is no other.

I beg the Master to change the seasons,
To unite us, to consume a man, defy your will
He tells me that He has given every man the universe
To discover Him, and the right to deny.
Now I am silenced once again, compelled to wait
As love does
For you, for you, for you
to discover the Author of the mountains, moon, and ocean.

The Lord is gracious and merciful;
Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.
The Lord is good to all,
And His mercies are over all His works.

Psalms 145:8-9

Free

You make walking feel like flying
And waking like breathing
Trying like hoping,
Giving up like breaking free

Quiet despair

the vacuum in my room is unbearable
pregnant with aborted ambitions and all sorts of
empty reasons
the music kicks in, I am sinking

Even the sunlight through the leaves
are blinking,
Away the tears that never stood a chance
to illustrate the heartache

Of a tragedy that never ends
and the hope that always dies
Instead of me.

the Earth has many words

Smoke signals rises from your nostrils
when my eyes are hummingbirds
Flitting from the blossoms of your words
Do I dare say that you
Make me feel?

It makes me want to dance
To the earth's seismic activity
And stretch out into the galaxy

But when I look down,
I see my feet are bound
Like our words, like my heartbeat
I want you to compare my hair with
The night sky
The chilliest kiss of the season is here.

No use crying

I heard a screeching
when you coughed under your breath
you are distracted

your eyes are darting
My mind has split into two
To read your movements

To follow my thoughts
Spilling from my mouth like milk
That won't stop flowing

I am forever
Cleaning up after myself
The milk that I've split

f(Happiness) = Int(Acceleration of existence + (Rate of acceptance)^2)dv

I always thought happiness was not where I am, like a picture someone drew but I was not in it.

Song #2

I don't want to wake up because
I find myself being raped by reality
So I close my eyes and it all becomes
Simply another game to me

Like you, no one ever held my hand
And made me their own

Mr. Elvis Presley comes back from the dead
to play the redundant legend
While Thom Yorke wails tamely about
the angst of living alone

A rockstar's life is designed to be lonely
A rockstar lives only to roam

The pavement my feet can never avoid
Confines me from escaping into the soil
The costume I wear is always evolving,
Reminds me the shame of being unknown

So Jesus darling won't you be the one
To lead me on home.

Death of a seed

There were pieces of me all over the floor where I shattered. There are some of those who helped me pick some up, some who carefully stepped aside to avoid the mess, some who stepped on them on their way out, and others who stood there and rationalized how I could have prevented the fall. I lay there, picking up one splinter at a time, burning with anger and shame as those empty words bubbled over them. My mother and father, this teacher and that friend, this pastor, that other. I saw their outer shells, hollow with treachery and feeble love. I wallowed in bitterness.

Then God came and picked me up, and He told me that everyone will be held accountable for their own lives. He told me to look at Him and forget myself. As I moved towards him, the splinters were absorbed into the earth and a new figure sprouted from within, the very embodiment of true love.

He kissed me three times.

With each kiss, my skin broke open and my mind chimed three times,

'How happy are the seeds that sprout into root!
How happy the root that burgeon into stem!
How happy the stalk that bursts into blossom!'

The light figure walked to those others, the frail bodies standing over where the pieces had been, and He touched them so slightly. They broke open, like an egg, spilling out the sadness and pain that were bubbling into the empty words they had given me. Immediately I bent down to wash it away as if I saw my reflection in it. I stood up; my own heart welled up in compassion for them like fruit in the season of ripening. I forgot my bitterness, and I loved them.

--------------------
My father once told me, "Your happiness in life depends upon whether you see everyone around you as a devil or an angel."

I replied, "No, my happiness depends on whether I can see everyone around me as human or not."