Spoken Word. Word.

"Even the relationships that are seemingly dead affect us still. So I'm learning and my heart is brimming. I'm taking my time."
-Calista Pratt


I'm taking my time, even though I don't want to. My heart is brimming like the coffee that brimmed over and splattered my hands today. Overflowing to a degree.


There are new relationships that are affecting me now. I think I know how this works between us, but as days pass and new situations arise, I find my emotional state frazzled and frayed at your face, and your words, and the color of you. I still get lost in your eyes - the reflecting gaze and mannerisms that catch me off guard. I see so much of myself in you and I don't know how to sit still when I feel the weight of our pairing.


Our relationship was dead for years, and yet here we are, celebrating a year of spoken word to one another.
We know more and less than we ever have before and some days, we do not know how to take it.
How do we shake the dead things off and collect the good memories like marbles for our marble jar?


Not a lot of people have marbles anymore.
Maybe we all lost them.






This coffee is dark.
Maybe I will stir in these thoughts for awhile, making note of
Psalm 131
"O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore."

To calm and quiet your soul like a child weaned from its mother. A child that is quiet and does not whine and beg and scream when things don't go their way while riding in the cart through the grocery store. A child that is quiet and patient, following mom while she gets things the family needs.

Scribblets

I had a dream last night that I can't really begin to understand. It had to do with wolves and lions. People were dying. This whole thing was not pleasant to say the least.

I do feel confused about a lot of things.

I'm confused about my job. I'm confused about getting another one. I'm confused about school. I'm confused about what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'm confused about what I want to do in the next few days. I'm just puzzled.

Is puzzled, confused?

No. Puzzled makes me think of putting pieces in place. Confused is like, there isn't even a color...its more like, figuring out the right shade for a painting or something. I miss painting.

And I need to do more of that, SOON.

I have songs I need to get recorded.

I have accompaniment I need to make for a class./

I have 2 projects in one class of the mixing music sort, and another large project (that might end up overlapping belongs to music tech class.) I really want to learn more about music tech.

AND. I want to declare a major but I'm not sure if PROMUSIC is what I want to do. Maybe something like Coloring. Oh, wait. I left that at the last few schools I transferred from. I enjoyed telling people that coloring was my major.

Scribblets.

Frequencies.

Disheveled is a term I would use. Unsettled is a word that comes to my mind. I am attached to this place, and cannot imagine another at this point in time. I cannot imagine another way and another day on another street in this city with another group of tenants. I can imagine it without both of my housemates but I cannot imagine it with another group. Perhaps I am just scared but I feel this place as right for now. Is one of my housemates right for right now? I don't know this answer, but I know I am at a loss for figuring it all out.

I am at a loss.

Loss Loss Loss.

I know all this...know this Loss feeling all too well.

I don't know how to cope with my feelings.

Sometimes I just want to shut myself in an upper room for days on end...to feel. To understand, yet...I never fully do, and probably never fully will.

Work.

Work til your bones are tired.

I do this.

Am I nervous? Do I feel like any of my feelings bring me to an anxious point?

Yes.

Frequently.

Memory Serves the Appetizer

And another day passes. The city lights pour out over the night, keeping the thought of fireflies awake in my mind as I miss the rural countryside of my youth. I feel the chill air, but it is not the same. I sense the night's passing, as I sense another day beginning in the morning's early hours, yet it is not the same. The city does not quite sleep, but falls in a drowsy state for a few hours, as there is no clear break from day to day. A dreamless sleep endures as the months blur together, and it is a state of mind, and a state I'm in that is not the state I long to be.

I crave a different place from the place I am in. I crave a separate taste then the one in my mouth, the taste of stale air and stale moments. Where is the new beginning? Where is the clear and crispness of a night to cut clean a prior day's work and toil? Where is a clear break to yesterday's madness, to tomorrow's hope and new awakening to open eyes...ready to begin again, begin again?

Where is there rest to be found? Is there a quiet moment by a pond in a quiet wake of trees? Is there a silent walk with the symphony of evening's animals...quiet chirping and rustling to the dark's song...the prelude, and postlude to the new day beginning and an old day ending?

Come forth to me, a new moment, and a new beginning where I believe in full, and I walk in full. Come forth to me, a new phrase to be uttered in joy at the sun's changing state. Come forth, new heart to embrace a new hour of my life unfolding like the folded napkin of a dinner with family...a new conversation of breath that I have not yet used before...

Will I come back to this moment?

Yes, I will. My memory has served me well so far, and serves me all too well now.

Memories fade. And I will fade, yet...I am determined. I am determined to walk and wake and breathe something new in a way I have not yet breathed and bared.

I will embrace that which I have not embraced before, and I will let my mind wrap around things that fear has crippled me from, prior to these moments in an upper room of the house.

Will I forget?

Will I remember?

Will anything be worth remembering?

I hope. And I hope so.

Hope will not be in vain. This...this is one thing I will be sure of.

A Night turned into Morning.

Quit doubting. Trust in me.

He says these things yet I'm tempted to doubt, as if he hasn't been faithful each and every time. He has been faithful, and in my moments, and in my acting out in doubt, I have only wasted time, and wasted what he has been calling and wanting me to be doing.

Which, I believe, is just constantly trusting Him.

He calls us to trust. Why don't we?

Why are we so scared to lay it down, and walk in trust, and hope in Him, rather than ourselves? Each time I've actually trusted...not for something that I want, but just knowing he knows best, and walking according to how he's calling me to live...

Each time, he's been faithful because he can only be faithful. He is that which he says he is...the Great I AM. What does that even mean?

I don't know.

But someone told me, I AM...and then fill in anything I've ever needed....fill in anything good...real good. Like real love...

I dunno.

He just IS truth, and light, and love, and hope, and the things we want deep down. We want to be happy, and we want to be whole, and outside of Him, I don't really think we can be any of those things. The brokenness as the fall of Man has stayed with us and can only be bridged by Christ.

Jesus Christ is the only answer I've ever really found and believed.

Everything else has tried to convince me otherwise, and has tried to convince me of other things, yet nothing has proved to be faithful. Nothing has been so full of hope, and love. I long to know this love that Christ gives freely. I long to know this forgiveness he has offered to me even though I'm unworthy and unfaithful, just by my very human nature alone. He is the great I AM and has and will be everything I will ever need.

Yet the paradox is that I don't want to trust in Him, but I want to trust in me, yet I know myself enough to know I fail. Why do I prefer to trust in a flawed and broken system instead of looking into heart of Christ and know I can be healed, and I can live as His instead of mine?

Put Simply

I'm so funny to me. I would rather say no than yes. The time constraint is my biggest failure. I fall between two sections of my brain, both comprehending time, and not sensing time completely. I lose the essence of whatever a schedule is supposed to be, and struggle and strain to remain on time, in time, and intact.

I bend and break as my mind has little to no time to process my reality through my unconscious subconscious self. I cannot seem to filter and sift through all these words floating in my mind to understand and know what I am feeling.

Processing is lacking as I go about my daily business. Sometimes it is the biggest struggle to just DO that which needs to be DONE.

I need alone time, yet I need time with people, BUT, I need to be making enough money, AND, I need to be getting the grades.

I struggle and I pine to remain in this current time, slipping into other realities of thought.

Too creative for my own good, I am lost in my creativity, and create nothing at the same time, the drive of creation leaving because I cannot sit and take TIME to create.

I am frustrated beyond means, and make myself sick in an attempt to reign my mind to do the things I know I need to do...BUT, after wearing myself out in the reigning process, I lose grip of the reigns and I lose control of everything I am. I cannot find anything to sustain and root me where I am at, and I am at a severe loss for this.

I am losing this battle with myself, and all these time constraints are taking from me.

What do I do, and where do I walk.

What do I say, and how do I begin to just do what needs to be done. To get through it, so I can have time for what I really WANT to be doing?

I'm in a rushed state continually, and I am not handling anything well.

What is my problem.

Me.

FriDays Aren't YOurs at All.

A cold and rainy morning. Coffee's hot, and I'm ready to get ready. Not really. I don't really want to leave my room today, but who said I had a choice. There is always a choice.

Yes, I'm being dramatic, but there is truly always a choice.

I need to buy one of my vocal books for class, and every time I get on Amazon, I'm drawn to the new Marvel Graphic Novel, X-Men Legacy - Salvage. I can't help but want to just 'add' to my cart or something. Then I'm drawn to look at a bunch of posters and I can never decide what is the best deal, so I end up not really buying anything, and STILL not purchasing my book I need for class.

Funny not funny.

Too many songs to know in a short time puts my brain on haywire. AND, I got up early enough, I could be working on knowing such things and practicing right now, BUT, there are extra people in my house right now, and I 'can't' wake them up. I don't like walking on eggshells in my own place. But whatever, I'm over it, and I have my feet on mute as I creep around the house with my coffee and breakfast food.

I want to have more time to do my fine art loves, such as painting, sculpting, drawing...but I don't. So, I'll quit wishing at every turn.

I have so many ideas, and so many new songs floating through my mind, but I can't find a good happy block of time to get it all in and mix properly...whatever proper mixing is. I just have this huge open ended project, and I'm trying to get it finished, but the more I try to finish it, the more unfinished it becomes...new ideas cluttering the vision of the end product.

I cut my finger on one of our happy/sharp knives yesterday while cutting up my green peppers for lunch. Bad idea. The cut is deep, and it bled everywhere, but I shall survive.

I had funny dreams last night. I feel them floating in the back of my mind, yet I cannot recall what they were about. It is like they are right there, but they aren't. It is normal for me not to remember these things.

Play Crack the Sky.

I like riding the subway/T better than the bus/T.

I just need some jam time.

I got a gig for next week. Creepy Folk Music. Do I know any? I don't really know. I'll try, but so far all I have is sad folk music. Not ok. Any suggestions, shout them out.

Thoughts on Cliff Jumping

Recently I had the opportunity to go cliff jumping in New Jersey.

A group of friends and myself hiked about 45 minutes to this small lake. On the start of this hike, the sky ripped open and poured out large raindrops the size of oversized gum balls. This is a dangerous thing, I must confess - Hiking in the Rain. The ground was mostly rock, and we were hiking somewhat upwards in these rocky hills.

The pinnacle of rain came when we got to the top of this large rock at one of the highest points when we were hiking. As we climbed to the top of this rock, our arms couldn't stay at our sides, the rain washing away parts of my heart that needed cleansed and refreshing. It was a physical rain that felt like it hit more than the skin of my hands and face. This rain entered into my mind and brought me to the next chapter of something new that I know God is doing.

We arrived at a small lake and jumped in, swimming to the other side. Pulling ourselves out of the water we proceeded to scale this 35 foot cliff. This is all scary in a swimsuit. I assume it is just as nerve racking when in much more than a swimsuit, but the cliff scraped up the hands and legs a bit.

I reached the top where we were supposed to jump off into the water, and my heart rose to my throat and fear snaked through my entire body. More than anything I did not want to jump. I convinced my friends that I did not want to die that day, and climbed back down, a few more scrapes from the rocks from the ascent. I watched all four of my friends jump, one after another after they each conquered their fears. I watched as they let go of everything and released themselves to the flow of gravity.

To sit by and watch is what I did.

Until.

The coaxing of my friends brought me to be determined to do what I was afraid to do. I climbed to the top once again.

I looked to leap.

Several times I almost jumped, then stepped back, swallowing my anxiety.

I can do this, I can't do this, I can do this, I can't do this, I can I can I can...

In one moment I propelled myself into the air and felt gravity go to work. I thought in that short fall that I should sprout wings and fly.

The water came around and pulled me from any thought of flight, and I pushed myself up towards the surface. I had jumped into a pool of coffee and come up fully caffeinated with adrenaline.

I had to begin to swim or else I would go to the bottom.

There was relief washing over me as I treaded those waters.

Taking a leap of faith. Swallowing fear to really jump into it, not knowing what the landing will really bring. Not knowing that once I do land in the waters, I will have to learn to swim and work and tread the water. Taking one propelling leap changes everything. Or you can climb back down the cliff and go back through the waters which you came and stay the same.

Unspoken Outspoken

There are many conflicting emotions.

Beneath my surface skin,

Beneath the tissue paper of an outer layer,

Rushing, raging, ravenous emotions try their best to pull me under.

To pull me by their weight,

To scream for my full attention at every word.

Every word, and the space in between screams for utterance,

Screams to be known in full,

and the weight, the tearing of it all.

My eyes betray me, lost beneath the waves,

Lost beneath the seas,

Unresting thoughts. Pulled.

Pushed down, sinking in the sand of fearing,

Never hearing, not steering the boat clearly,

Clearly not seeing,

Clearly not being what I need to be.

The weight is thrust upon me

My voice is lost in the voices that surround me,

I cannot hear the voice I long to hear - clearly -

Am I not listening, or not hearing,

Are you not speaking, or am I ignoring you?

Trying to hear the sound of your voice

And I am left with the ringing in my head,

All the thoughts unspoken

Always unspoken.

I am outspoken enough as it is.

Stop Sign.

I am overwhelmed in a way that I cannot begin to concentrate.  The colors, the sounds, the movements, the rabbit trail of thoughts are all pulling me away from doing much of anything.

My thoughts are occupied on everything but really thinking.

The sensation of it all is funny to me, and I want to laugh, but I am too distracted to be amused.  I find myself becoming more and more annoyed.  I cannot seem to tame this beast of my mind.

I try to paint, I try to write, I try to make dinner, I try to make coffee, yet I am dauddling.  I am lost in paintings I have never painted within my mind, the weight of so many ideas taking its toll on my ability to manage time.

There are about five books sitting near me, and they are all begging my attention, yet I am too distracted to read for very long today.  I am pulled between all these ways I need to make money to support living, yet, I'm merely pulled and not perplexed enough to be making any money.

Maybe I need more annoying music playing.

Maybe I need silence.

Then I focus on the sounds of one small fly living to pester me as I try to find solitude.

Not that I'm trying to find solitude...

I'm gonna stop while I'm ahead, though I'm not ahead of anything.

Scissors

Holy Bad Haircut Batman.

Foreigner

The words were foreign.  You were the foreigner here.

You were the forgotten here, in my garden of heart.

Well kept with weeds, or the prize winning horticulture display,

You would not know.

You were the foreigner and the one unknown to this land.

This soil is not where you began.

What brings you to this side of the world?

What brings you to travel to this darkness?

What brings you?

Do you dare travel these lands alone?

I hope you have good hiking shoes.  It is a confusing terrain.

Half Asleep, Wind Chimes

It was a different time.  Things were different then.  Why do you insist upon reliving the past?

Where is your present?

Nowhere to be found.

Where is your future?

Buried in the ground if you keep looking behind you for what lies ahead.

History may repeat itself,

But you are not dead, yet.

Where have you been?

The heavens cry out with such overwhelming silence, you swear you heard the answer somewhere inside that textbook you read while you were half asleep.  If only you had half as good a memory as you used to before when things were different then.

Retaining the information was like the pack rat, never throwing away.

Now, there is the empty attic, the empty garage.

There is a shell that used to be a home.

There is a bridge that used to bridge something.

Now there is nothing left over.

No change for a dollar.

No change to the bland look in your eye.

Bland as the Wonder Bread, pure, white.

Your pupils are stained with time.

Your spectacles ruin the once beautiful view of your eyes.

You used to be so nice.

Now a porcupine's outer layer seems like a comfort.

You are the one who makes us wait for you to come out of the shell.

The sharp remarks, the sharks retorts,

Eat that dinner, bloody and raw.

The wind chimes mock your facade.

Begin again?

Think it will be easy to pull yourself from the Hell you have made?  Think again.  You are the over exaggerating, all annoying sort.  You would let the lies drip from your tongue like the poison your blood must be made of.

Drip.

Drop.

Trip.

Yes, you forget to tie your shoes frequently.  Someday your nose will break without the fair warning to be more careful.  Careless, and shoelaceless, you are the bleeding from your own misdeed.  Your slight lack leaves the slack on your feet able to trip you up to put you down and out for the count.

No one needs to beat you down.

You will take yourself out of the race.

Who needs the competition anyway?

Different stories have different outcomes.

Endings had a beginning, once upon a time.

Red Roses

I used to be a poet once.

Not anymore.

The strings that used to tie my thoughts, cut short.

Cut short like my hair.

Anger flows out towards the hairdresser who heeds not the warnings.

Anger trickles like floodwaters upon those who forgot to read directions.

Your lack of direction leaves you without a map.

Not that you could read it anyway.

You lack the ability to read, though, pretending has always suited you.

Queen of Hearts.

Lay down your heart.

Who has been painting my roses red?

Without Strings.

New sounds surround me.  I just want time to fade into the lack of noise, and into the purification of the sounds floating like leaves in reverse.

Add the letters.

Create your own story.

Fly higher than you once thought you could.

Push yourself farther than you've ever pushed before.

Blood, sweat, bone, you're crunching now.

Floating higher,

Pushing harder.

Being what you've always meant to be,

Or being someone you never thought you'd be.

Changing, cascading through the landscape,

Changing with the pined ruts of the fields,

Changing with the push and pull of the soil,

Growing tired,

Growing tilled.

Changing face,

Cascading.

Never thought.

Soaring higher, floating into the distance,

Becoming the silhouettes,

Puppets on the sunset,

Without strings.

Soar without wings.

What were you thinking?

No thought, just action.

Melting

And the earth spins around while the people fall down.  I've been online looking for jobs most of today, as well as filling out applications I got at several places a few days ago.  Grand.  So much fun.

I watched a funny movie last night and it was so wonderful, but it wasn't wonderful.

So which was it?  I couldn't tell you.  I enjoyed it probably because I was so tired.

My brain is burning today because I have too many things cluttering up my mind.  I keep thinking of Boston, and wondering if its where I want to be.  I know its possible, and I know its plausible, but I don't know if its feasible.  It is just super hard because who really knows what they want to be doing with their life?  I want some community going on.

Some day I want to go overseas to like, Slovenia, or Bosnia, and go all over England, Scotland, and go back to Italy.  I want to know more about my heritage, and now that I have the ability to know, I just want to know more...then maybe a little bit more.

Maybe its a process of figuring more of who I am, or at least, what I came from.

I like the ideas of it, though I've only half the puzzle pieces.  Is my life a game?  Sometimes.

I'm tired of the games.

But sometimes I'm so caught up in the guessing of it, I forget to just live it.

I long for community, so I suppose it is something I'm always looking for.  I long for creativity, and will always need a way to be creative wherever I'm at.

Decisions, decisions.  Bah.

Let my brain melt out of my ear while I sleep.

Staircase

You're a shell of yourself.  I'm choking on my words.  I scribble out the words in my car before they leave me completely.  This is no safe task, I assure you, I'm aware, but they are all too accurate to let slip into the nothingness.  Words fade.  I'm the type of girl who needs to hear your name twice to know it.  Napkins to be scribbled upon.  Rarely have I tried to grab those fading thoughts, as it is almost a crime to forget.  So I'm using my muscles to understand, shaking dust off my brain to hear what is really rolling around in my brain, the loose marbles of passing thought, clattering around until they fall out the back of this rolling table top.

Walking down the possibilities.  Blisters will encroach upon your feet, surely.  Truly, clearly will things be laid out before you.  This clarity is really a fleeting dream.  Reality sets in, cold, and hard, and a fog bank, and hard to see other sides of things.  One set of eyes is what we have to see our reality, yet, we forget our other senses begging for a chance to hear the grand notes whisk the mind away from a piano's soothing melodies.  We forget that our mouths can taste things, and that our hands can touch things, knowing the surface of what is around us.  We neglect our nose, smelling the sensations, connecting us solidly to memories, like the smell of your mother's perfume, or the scent of the air before and after it rains.  To miss the smell of summer skin, sunscreen, and late night campfires.  Reality in muddled senses.  We forget to walk with our feet, and we crawl our way through without experiencing what we've been given, what we are, our uniqueness, and our common threads that tie us together.

Forgetting to walk seems to be a trend.  Walk me down the possibilities.

You're a shell of yourself.

I'm choking on my words.

I'm choking on my tears.

I'm choking on my fears.

You're a shell of yourself.

Where have you been?

Blame

I would like to point out that bubble tea is amazing.  I would like to point out that I love egg rolls from the egg roll cafe, especially the crab ragoon, and the spinach and feta.  Eat your heart out.

I feel oppressed by nothing more than my own thoughts, more often than not the past few weeks.  They come in and push down and crunch too many things inside of my head and I have trouble keeping focus.  I have trouble finding where to go next, or what to do next.  I have trouble walking around and thinking clearly.  I am clearly not clear.  I am lost within a mind that is filled with doors that lead me to places I don't always want to go.  The doors open merely by word association most days.  I am lost in word association within most conversations.  I am taunted by past events, past days.  I am laughed at by my own mocking self within the mirror.

I'm trying to figure out what to do after I know whether I am into Berklee or not.  Go back to Ohio, go to Michigan, stay in Massachusetts, move into the city...so many different areas alone taking attention.

I'm bored and boring without a job, even though I'm overwhelmed with my own thoughts.  You think too much, Emily.

Emily turn your brain off.

That will be the title of a book.  Who would read it?  The dust would read my book on the shelves.

When things fall apart, they have the potential to become something else.  They do become something else entirely.  Something broken that becomes another shape and form that can potentially be a beautiful thing.

Do I go or do I stay.  Reason for coming at all: learning to forgive someone I did not completely recognize that I needed to forgive.  Forgive.  Now to choose it daily.  How do we do that?  How do you do that?  Do people deserve your forgiveness, whatever the crime?  No one deserves forgiveness.  I suppose that is the point, even though we want to forgive and don't want to forgive equally.  The choice is plain, to live with pent up hostility, pent up anger, or to live without those things, to move on, to breathe again.

Maybe we just forget how to breathe.  I forget more than I'd like.  I forget a lot of things.

Like doing my laundry, or picking up the rooms, or cleaning dishes.  I am at fault as much as I want to blame.

I forget that big nugget.

The Specifics

The vein, the vine, the root

The lightning in hot pursuit.

Burning, the flame, the lantern

Straining, the light, the pattern.

The earth, its quakes, its moans

The ice, its breaks, its groans

In birth pains, or death bearing,

The pattern on the sleeve worth wearing.

Flood of the necessary

The root more important than mentioned.

The pattern worth repeating,

Throughout the pattern of existence.

Worth wearing through the fabric of all time,

Woven into the depths of our being,

Our essence, our seeing,

Specifically, there was no mistake.