"When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours?" - Franz Kafka

How can you politely tell a former high school teacher that you are just sad the author died but no, you haven't wanted to kill yourself recently

Tips would be greatly appreciated.

"How can we return?"

And then I search

"And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him." Hebrews 11:6

Truth of hell

Her: If the bible is truth in it's entirety, then I would be going to hell.
Me: The Bible is truth and we all deserve hell. That's what it says and that is the truth. "But God..." But God decided that He would sacrifice His treasure to cover our ugliness so that we might have a chance to be with Him in the house of God forever.

If I die young

Me: I feel nothing and I'm not sure if i want to feel anything. What does that make me?
Her: Either fearful or acceptance of the absurdity of fulfillment.
Me: I don't think it's absurd, i just don't want it. I don't want anything. But i know i need it. I just don't want it. I don't feel it
Her: What is the underlying reason why you don't want it? What is it that you're trying to avoid?
Me: I want to want it but i don't. I don't think I'm trying to avoid anything. I reach out sometimes, i know all the correct things, but there's just...nothing.
Her: I don't think that there is  a single word for it but i know what it means.  I don't know how you would call it but how I defined it was just being lost. Surrounded by nothing, and not being able to figure out what to do with it. And just feeling nothing to know where to go from there. Even though you kno w all the correct things you don't  know how to use it to help yourself or if you even want to cause you feel like you'll fuck it up. Kind of like being dead and not really caring cause you just don't know.  Maybe I'm wrong. But this was how it felt for me.

"Form of my intent"

Without mercy,
with only words,
only words can describe

Defiant to the end
I must say-
I must write-
emphasize the words-
the emotions of a soul at war
With the Savior placed before
Them

Why won't you die?
Ideas never die
Words, so spoken,
Never die.

(old writings i have found from my youth)

Way to Heaven (unfinished)

We're bent and broken
Needing grace more than we could admit
We're lost and evil
sometimes our evil wins

We're searching for an end to our grief
Who'd show grace to a monster like me?
Who'd show love to an undesirable like me?

My pieces don't fit right
I'm cracking all over
I'm foolishly trying to hold myself together,
When I'm crumbling to bits

I've lost my strength
I don't think I will ever see heaven
No, not a person as ugly as me
Vile, detestable thing that i am

Take these nails
Take them from me
Take my chains
Take them from me

Heal my pain
I can't make it without you
Make me whole
I am dying without you

I am bent and broken
I am lost and evil

In need of grace, grace God's grace
Grace to mend my broken parts
Grace to take my nails,
Grace to take my chains
Grace to make me free

I need to find a grace to pave the way to heaven
For someone as disgusting as me.

Silence

A world without God would be chaos screaming into nothingness. The screams would equate to silence because there is no one to hear them. All the pain and tragedy and violence would mean nothing and there would be no relief from it. God exists. Not because I say so but because He does and He would even if I didn't believe He did. But God exists to hear our screams into the chaos. He reaches down to deliver us.
Think on that the next time you are in pain, star child.

Not broken just bent until we learn again Update Two

The second day of car travel was mostly quiet save for some drama best left forgotten. It had cute moments of children's laughter and delicious pizza and finally getting to Kentucky. We even got a chance to drive around Southern Seminary and it was a pretty campus supposedly with a mummy and there is a pool that we will be checking out.
I do want to explore that campus more, it does look a little magical.
But right now all I want to do is just get today over. It's thing to actually be very busy with church at Sojourn, lunch at Flanagan's, feeding the homeless, and going to a VBS.
Dunno if i can hey into the spirit of things, I still wish I had stayed home.
Who knows what future winds may hold

Kentucky Trip update One

I hate waking up congested. My nose has been all bothered since I woke up the other day. Laying in this cold hotel room at nine in the morning seems to be making it worse, but I'm too cold to move as I wonder when this Kentucky trip will be over.

"It's about finding something chaotic enough to match the sting of your cravings."

Some die looking for a hand to hold.
I can't sleep. It's 3am and the words above keep playing in my mind. Along with the words 'don't dwell on it'.
One has to do with my worlds in my head and the other has to do with my real life.
Tonight Lori mentioned that we are looking for a savior, a hero to cheer for...and in my head i just imagined a starving, broken body laying in the dusty streets of a devastated city with his withered hand out stretched...as though looking for a hand to hold. And I know I want the characters I build worlds with to be the ones who are not willing to let this one's hope die. The would take his hand, get him to his feet, and fight the oppressors.
Some die looking for a hand to hold. This world is so fallen. People turn to sex, drugs, alcohol, material things...anything to feel good...but we were made with eternity in our hearts. We were made with a hope that all the drugs and sex in the world could never fill. Our hands are outstretched...we are the withered soul, starving and weary. We are laying in the dust reaching for some kind of hope.
But when He is before us, do we take hold of Him and let Him be our hope or do we push His hand away and say oh no, no not you I'm looking for another. But there is no other. There is only one savior. If there were many, none of us would be so fallen and broken.
Don't dwell on it. Don't dwell on it.
I won't...I won't.

:)

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

-thedayisadream.tumblr.com

05/25/2013

Instead of poetry,
I make lists
My eyes look around,
always searching
Always unfocused

Instead of handwriting,
I type
My mind moves too fast
And my pen moves too slow

Instead of words coming easy,
I force them out
Consonant by vowel by phrase
It's too hard,
I'm too hard,
I lack the grace.

Yuck on Yum

I have been trying to better my self. If not in my physical surroundings, than in how I interact the world and what I do and how I behave.
It started out just looking people in the eye when they are talking to me. It shows confidence and that you are paying attention. There really isn't any good reason not to, just laziness and lack of good communication skills. It is actually harder than it seems and I have to constantly remind myself to do it. It unsettles some people and in others they too start maintaining eye contact when you talk to them. Now I find myself searching people's faces as they talk while doing an activity and I don't know...just recognize the life in them that needs to be seen and affirmed through proper communication. It's still a work in progress, but I'll get to the point where it's a natural thing to do eventually.
I have tried to tell people exactly how I feel and what I want and take others at their word. No mind games. No over analyzing. Pure communication. Bad communication ruins relationships and there is really no need for it. It is a poison and the faster you better your communication, the less anger and frustration you will have because of it.
I also have cut out insults that have to do with sexual promiscuity. I realize how often I use insults like 'whore' and 'slut' when I can't think of any other insult in my anger and get frustrated. First of all, no one should be called a whore. Not your wife, not your family members, not anyone. Who are you to make them feel bad abut who they have sexual contact with? Who am I? I've seen it hurt Ashley when all of her husband's friends called her a whore and it wore on her. She had a low self esteem and felt bad about hey marriage and the whore name calling was taken to heart. No one deserves that. And you should defend your wife or significant other if anyone calls them a slut. They should be important to you. You should cherish them and not let anyone call them names and make them feel bad abut themselves. And if a guy or girl has sex often, what is wrong with that? Especially if they aren't a Christian or have any religious qualms that are against it? Who are we to Harte on others for being more free with their sexuality? Is it because we have some superiority complex over people and think since we have intercourse less we are better? It's ridiculous and I refuse to use and weird that insult anyone for their sexual habits.
I just have to think of new insults when I'm angry.
Now, I have come to my newest endeavor. I watched a YouTube video on Zefrank1's channel and it's called 'Don't Yuck on my Yum'. It's just a cute little way of saying don't make people feel bad about liking the things they like just because you think it's stupid or that you like something better. God we have to stop thinking our opinions are gospel. I like One Direction, you like metal music. I like obscure Indie and folk bands and you listen to whatever plays on the radio. It's fine. We have different tastes. We like different things. We are different people. Me trashing what you like only makes you angry, feel bad about yourself, and in the end just spreads negativity. And all because we have a difference of opinion. I want to start letting people like what they like and be who they are with out putting in my superiority or my negativity.
Be who you are and say what you feel.
I'm not going to stop sharing my opinion, I'm just going to be less critical of others and let them like what they like. I will still not like Downton Abbey, but I'm not gonna belittle you and make you feel bad for liking such boring television. We like different things and love each other all the same.
My list of bettering myself will get longer as I find things I need to work on in my personality. The less unnecessary anger and fighting, the better I am. And the better the people around me are.

Oh the things going stir crazy can do to you.

My computer was glitching. Again. It's fifteen and a half inch screen flitted on and off as I repressed the urge to punch it violently. It was an issue with the backlight that i have been managing since it began to not work who knows how long ago. As I pressed hard on the power button, silencing its pain, I looked around the room wondering what i would do now.
I had options. I could go visit Lori or I could have went with Huong to get my hair cut...but I didn't. Now my one source of diversion in my stasis, my computer, was out for the count today.
I didn't want to watch tv. I didn't want to stare at my phone. No one was chatting with me.
My brain felt like it was going to burst.
Then my brain planted some stupid idea in my head...and of course I went along with it.
I checked the locks on the front door and I changed my clothes.
I scouted pinterest and began exercising.
The temperature in the apartment was easily eighty degrees so I sweat fairly soon, but that was okay. I made a list of the exercises I did while my head kept thinking 'retrain your brain'. I think that saying came from a commercial that repeats it over and over again and obviously it made a subconscious impact.
I ended up doing like five different exercises and then for some god-awful reason I looked over at the empty can of soda I had earlier and thought 'nope'.
I began to grab various drinks in the kitchen and made my very own, very unscientific juice drink.
Let's just say it's mostly water and tea. My one thought was: no sugar!
It didn't come out that bad and mostly tastes like weak tea.

So yeah I'm going to be drinking this down no problem.

My body feels normal and I'm no longer stir crazed.

I just want to sip my drink and write. Like I am in the mood to write. It's a good feeling.

So hopefully I keep this exercising up and get it more complex. It wakes up my brain in the best of ways.

I guess I sorta want to 'retrain my brain' by giving energy to it through exercising my body.

If i get physical results so be it, but I'm more focused on my mind.

It's almost 3 am and I'm drinking stale water that tastes faintly of orange juice from a Big Gulp cup and reading Shakespeare Sonnets aloud to myself

"Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes."

Sonnet 40

Gah

How do i stop myself from writing such similar characters?

"Beatrice"

It started out as a simple story idea,

How did it end up like this?
How did it end up like this?

On marriage and serious relationships

"uh who WOULDN'T want to marry a mediocre man at a young age?
BEEN THERE
DONE THAT
WOULD NOT RECOMMEND!"

We must be killers.

People's lives are so messy. 

We all have the choice to let people into our lives. In letting them inside, we allow ourselves to be damaged and to cause damage in return. Do we ever really realize this?

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine about the life of a person we know a little being so messy. Pregnant by a new boyfriend after losing her child in a freak accident last year. The father of the child she was with until the death. They were married actually and some time after having the child she became a lesbian and he didn't get to see his child. Then they were back together and the accident occurred. The little girl was only one or so. They are still married as far as I know.

That is a messy life.

So are many lives, probably every life of everyone walking the earth is messy. 

Why do we do this? Why are we such messy, flawed creations?

Falling in love and uniting for what should be forever until we become selfish and destroy what was built. It was created to last an eternity but eternity isn't as long as it used to be. Children get displaced, feelings get hurt, families get ruined, and we still charge on as though nothing's wrong.

We know that everything is wrong.

Everything is wrong.

My life is messy, though I keep it to myself and do my best not to mess up anyone else's life. I can't handle another person getting involved in my life. Because I will end up hurting them or wanting to hurt them or being hurt by them and I have decided I don't want to be the cause of pain like that again. It stays with you. The string of lives your life intertwines with stay with you, forever binding you to that person you hurt, no matter how much time and string has passed since then. It weighs me down, and I don't want to be weighed down by something I didn't have to allow in my life to begin with.

People, to an extent, are choices. To let them into your life or to keep them out. Yes, we as a human race desire to be connected with one another but that only extends so far. There are disposable people that we could have cut the ties with before they became to densely knotted but we didn't.

That's not saying that eventually I will settle down in a life intertwined with someone that I chose to spend forever with. I'm saying it will be a long damn time until I even think that is an option and the person has to do a whole lot of convincing. I just don't think anyone will find it worth it to put in the time to do the convincing and I'm not sure if I want them to right now.

I want nothing that can weigh me down with choices I'm not ready to face yet. God's honest truth.

My messy life only affects me and that's how I want it. I don't want to show my selfish colors to some poor soul and hurt them like I know I will. Being alone is comforting, I never feel lonely. I never desire too strongly for the physical company of being with others. 

There are the few sometimes...but they are few and leave as quickly as they hit.

Why are lives so messy? Why do we hurt people? Why do we allow ourselves to immerse ourselves in someone else's life just to hurt them? Do we ignore the pit that forms in our stomach at the mention of that person's name? The hurts we commit can never fully be buried under the weight of time. They follow us like terrible shadows. We are cowards if we run from them. We are lonely people in denial if we avoid making the relationships to begin with. We are sluts and fools if we have too many relationships with too many hurts that we keep going back to. 

There is always something wrong. Does it always have to be like this? 

No one leads a life that is without messy chunks lasting months, years, decades...but we have a choice to hurt other people and bring them down with us. 

I choose love without weight. 
And since that is impossible so far to achieve in past attempts, I choose not to love at all.

The only weightless love, is the heaviest love I know.

And that Love falls beyond eternity. 

You helped me tonight.

A drop of blood would grant me eternal life and victory and without it I am dead. Just one drop to last forever.

Sadness is a Blessing

Disillusionment.

Do we see God through the way we see ourselves? And in that do we make ourselves God over Him? Does our faith crumble under the reality of how great God is?

21

2 eye lids painted gold
10 around an hibachi table
3 sores on my feet
And countless, countless thoughts of sleep
And zero, zero thoughts of peace
5 messages on my phone
4 from Twitter
1 from Lori
7 minutes til midnight
7 play the trivia game
2 sit on their phones
1 dog distracts the others
2 drinks i consume
1 shot i spit out
And countless, countless times i wonder about him
And zero, zero times do i do a thing about it
20 monsters i have faced thus far
4 years in i was disowned
12 hours ago my father was too busy
3 years of smothering fears
21 dollars in my pocket
And countless, countless times i have failed
And one, just one day i take at a time

"For dreams result from much work and a fool’s voice from many words."

It's been a while since I have written anything self-reflexive. There has been no poetry from my pen, no deep thoughts, no anything that has to do with me. There is a reason for it, a self-preservation based reason that I still would like to cling to even now as I seek to just lay it out there. But I can't continue on this way. I have to admit, believe, and commit. Not unto salvation where I first heard this ABC spiel, but to my life. One that I have not lived consciously in a very long time. 

 Admittedly, to confess all that I did transgress in the last year would take me a long time, then, near the end, I'd lie and just finish it abruptly wanting to get away from the ugliness. I admit to not knowing a single thing about my future or how I can get out of this hole I am in at this very moment. I dug it myself using my own bloodied hands against the gravel that wished to hold me up. I broke through the first layer and went further and further down until I sit here in the exact spot on the other side of the earth. In the same house. In the same position. With the same people. I am a lot less angry now, learning to only feel anything over fictional characters and worlds, or the injustice received by those I care about. I can't care about myself. I put myself in this place of no movement and unless I pull myself out, I will stay here. A nonperson. A no one. A burden. Nothing.

I try to soothe myself with promises that I have every intention of keeping, but fail to. I remind myself of my dreams and the lofty goals I have in store for me, but then as I try to achieve them I fail. I admit that my writing has suffered the minute I shrugged off self and threw it in the corner of the closet in my mind and decided it was too painful to grow on my insides. I admit to failing and lying and just letting anything and everything get in the way of myself achieving one single thing.

Belief in the Lord above has been strangled. I lost the joy of my salvation yes, but I have lost much much more than something like that. I have lost...the conviction of my beliefs, my morals, and of the God I desperately wish I knew. It started with anger that I let seep in over the pains of my loved ones against those who claimed to know you. Then I looked in the mirror and saw that I was exactly like they were-just as judgmental and cruel and false in the things I say I believe and the Love I daily forgot to be. That broke my faith and I looked at the world lost. Who was the God I believed in now? How do I approach Him? How do I perform His service? In my lost state, doubt crept in along with it's buddy anger. A new anger, directed right at God from myself in my state. It coursed through me, animating my limbs in something horrible. I am so sorry God. And now, where I am, I am looking up at Him trying to find a place solid enough on this shifting sand so that I can jump, grab a branch that won't break under the weight of my sin against God, and use it to pull myself up. I am calling to Him with no voice, if I lost in through my anger or in my fear of finding Him, I am not sure. If you asked me the questions of God, I'd give you the correct answers without any faith behind those statements. I have lost my belief. I believe though I have lost my belief. Do you know what I mean by that?

I commit to finding God and myself again. I commit to achieving my dreams through ACTIONS and not foolishly through words as I sit on my ass pretending life away. I will drown if I continue to do that. If I give up. Give me Your hands, give me Your feet, give me Your courage, Lord let me run to you forsaking all else. Forsaking my fears and the reality that I am a no person. For indeed I am no one with out you.

Midnight tonight, starts a new year of my life. And by You, I will find You and be the person of my dreams. I will piece together my heart in Your name, for the sake of my heart and my dreams, and for all the stories I have in me and will have that deserve to be written. Oh Lord, have mercy on this poor soul lost in the hole on the other side of a dark and dangerous universe. 

Let this escapist find her way home.