Stop. Breathe. Remember God's Simplicity...

  Eyes entranced on the horizon, I am reminded of the small, but significant, role I play amongst all God’s creation. I am one, on the beach, located in a state that is made up of fifty other states that make up one country, which is tied to many other countries, on top of a rock that rotates around the sun every 365 days, in a universe that is tied to one of many galaxies. I am one small human, sitting upon trillions of microscopic shavings of rock, shell, and life matter. Each particle of sand sifting through my toes and laced between each finger. I close my eyes and roll the sand between my index and thumb finger, trying to feel for what one grain of sand would feel like in my hand. No matter how small it felt, it continued to dwindle into particles of nothingness. The salted air beckons me to the ocean and I walk towards the water. With each sinking foot step, I feel new sand being introduced to the old. The dryness of it rubs against my skin. The sand begins to moisten, as col...

I see a black hole in my mind. I drop a stone and I don't hear it fall. It just an emptiness staring at me with not eyes, no mouth, and no soul. Even with a change of scenery, new dialogue with a family or friend, I hear the stone just clinking around, wanting rock bottom and I wish it would end.

Tell me you're not gone gone. Tell me that you've gone to visit family in Minnesota, Maine, Colorado. Tell me you're off to Branson, Missouri with Papa to watch country music concerts live. Tell me when I said goodbye to you at Patsy's back in January, that wasn't for good. I need you. I'm not grown up yet. I need your hugs. I need to hear you say, "Hi honey" when you enter the room. I need your laugh. I need your reassurance that I'm doing ok in the world. I need to hear you say, "I love you." Tell me that you can still do all these things. I think I understood how your lungs must have felt Seeing Papa without you by his side made it difficult to breathe Family with you felt wrong. Your celebration felt like a party without you invited. It rained on your memorial celebration. How can life be complete without your love and humor? You were Christmas personified. You were joy and love in the flesh. I know that if I had...

It tightens my throat, it turns my stomach inside out. I am short of breath. I tip toe through social situations, smiling heavily to take the focus off of my heavy chest, and the sweat building on my neck and forehead. I feel constant pressure.  Pressure to be perfect. Pressure to know all the answers, or what is best to remedy troubled relationships. No one acknowledging that I too am going through this life, unsure which route to take and using my best judgement to do what I believe is right in God's eyes. I wish people would understand that I too am terribly flawed. I'm a sinner. I do NOT know everything. I make mistakes. I take risks that sometimes don't work out. I am by no means perfect. I too didn't deserve Jesus' love. But yet I received it and therefore do deserve it. I do what I can to please my Lord, but constantly fall off the path. I just wish someone would come up to me and tell me they recognize I'm sinful...

My baby girl and my shy darling boy, You've done nothing to deserve this. you've done no wrong, it's God who has let you down. You are so precious and have done nothing but treat the world with kindness.  I wish I could absorb this torturous agony you have brewing in your heart. I wish I could curse God and make Him see the error of His ways. If I could, I would make it all go away and take the blame for you when God asked who the punishment should go to. I would give you your dad so you would never have to know what it is like without him. I would give you all the memories other little boys and girls get to have with their dads. Every time I talk to my own father or think about the memories i'm going to have with my dad that you won't, I feel guilty. I promise you both that no matter what you do in your life, even though i cannot provide your dad in the physical sense, I, your brothers and sisters, or Mom will be there for you always.  Your...

my dearest friend, how I've missed you. how i need you and forgotten you. I have so much to tell you. so much emotion and fear that i want to write to you, but when i throw it at you,it doesn't stick. I need you, to get my thoughts in order. I need you to understand where i'm going with my life. I write to you, and when you summarize it, my life makes sense. What happened to us? We used to talk weekly, sometimes more. but when my fingers touch a keyboard, or my pen goes to paper, all of a sudden my thoughts are like braille, and i'm hopelessly trapped.

In some ways, I miss the company given by apartment walls. I have grown up and moved out since a child, but when I visit my mom, I remember what I did not like about apartments and the one thing I do.  To those who have never been given the privilege to live in one, let me educate you in saying that each wall has a story: the wall in my kitchen tells me of a woman and her two children Dinner is in an hour, not a big snack! Mom! Tell Nicole to give me my necklace! She TOOK my necklace! she sometimes yells, and her sigh always precedes it as if helpless and exasperated I never hear a male voice One wall in the main bedroom plays television crime shows, all day, all night. CSI, NCIS, LAW & ORDER, JUDGE JUDY, JUDGE MATHIS emotionless, dull, aloof, solitude, sadness My sister's bedroom wall is quiet during the day, Role play and improvisation laughter and bed squeaks rehearsal at night curtain call around 2 The bathroom walls conduct symphoni...

When there is no inspiration, the mind is mellow and the body remains dormant. 1000 obstacles move rapidly together, but the body moves through quick sand and hardly keeps up with the lack of progress. of desire, of motivation. To do,or write, or believe something like the wonderfully impossible as possible. That a sparrow could sing with a chorus of stars, and the fish can dance to these rhythms through Poseidon's current. Anything to pluck the strings of creativity, to remain "in tune". Anything to break the forth wall of imagination.

My words are heavy when I produce them sinking to the ground before they are heard destroyed,demolished, every minuscule word as they clash with the cement, they're condemned  I began writing my words with pencil in order to add color to my dull speech so a bigger audience could be reached but this was also the wrong utensil I learned pencil adds areas in shades of grey and causing doubt to my level of intellect the root and cause, I cannot detect so there's no importances to what I say

When I'm old, I want laughing wrinkles to form like the rings inside tree trunks, collecting wisdom, and age over time, but telling a story of the series of heart aches, and trials and how they were washed away by joy, of being loved by a loving being, and the feeling of every problem being a mole hill. They will leave their mark on my skin, carved with the utmost care. I want the world to see that my sadness never became a part of me, but my smiles did.

I feel that we are no better than Judas. How often do we practice betrayal? We sell out Jesus for petty treasures For friends, with school, over-consumption of alcohol, lies,ridicules,gossip, adultery, through the movies we watch and music we listen to. No matter how compassionate, and understanding He is, We betray him, And above all else, seal it with a kiss.

Two for one special. Oh how special am I? I feel heartless, full of emotion but no where to put it. How did this happen? This has never happened to me before! Oh God, You are so comical. Hilarious!! Give me a moment to stir up laughter. Sorry I didn't laugh sooner, I've just been drop kicked to Tim-Buck-Two and pimp slapped with a two-by-four. But hey, this is life, yes? You told me what I needed to hear, and I heard what I wanted to hear. My fault, I get it. So now what? After all is said and done, I'm still cornered with limited options. I'm scared. I'm nervous. Who do I go to for advice? Because I am thought of as being strong, and the strong are never weak, and the weak can never help the strong, so who do I turn to? ... .. . I am pathetic.

Salinas, sister of Escondido and Elsinore. I am with you always. No matter where my nomadic feet wander off to, you draw me in, and I feel that comfort I have not felt since I was a child. You are my home. My center of gravity. The street fair musician's drum beats rhythmically with my heartbeat. I breath in tune with the childrens' laughter. It's remarkable how happy a community is without money or earthly treasures holding them down. My ears bleed at the sound of your name stripped of genuine welcome and battered by drivers and pass-byers. The bubblegum scars and aged beauty does not fool me. You're beautiful to anyone who stops to learn. You may not be perfect, but you show true contentment. Show me the sweet majesty of imperfection, Salinas, and I'll inhale deeply.

Childish pastimes were always this in my eyes, the lies he and she buys came to no surprise, and I never sympathized with their ties to immature ogreism because at one point they all do and one day if they're lucky they see and agree there is an irony, life is not care-free, but a symphony of let-downs and devastation handed down from one shmuck to another via debris we call words  I may have a chip on my shoulder, but know that I knew at 5 or 6 years old that life was no cartoon comic strip, to carry a stiff upper lip and prepare for it one hardship at a time and if you let one iota of optimism slip, your heart gets ripped out of your chest with no courtesy warning, that's life. Get a grip. I wish I knew what it felt like to wake without apprehension, to not pay attention, or have retention of the consequences my actions and to live in this alternative dimension and I wish this conversation was not condescension , but I can't ...

Courageous. No one could take that title away from her. She's afraid, but that does not dissuade her. She has the profound gift of in-depth vision. She knows this world is much bigger than she is, shadowing over her like a wave superiority, but instead of fighting it,she accepts it and leaves the world in a state of perplexity. This makes her stronger. Battle won.

When I'm sad, can't make me glad, Not when all I've had is gone, you'll just make me mad. Nothing can alleviate the porous pain I have. Don't punish the young that resides in my eyes with belittling words from the tongue swung like dung, SMACK, to the wall. self-value is low, although, the slow blow, should be seen from a mile away like a crow's eye view   With that known, I retreat alone, secure on my personal throne, feelings unshown, and the heart on my sleeve,OH so carefully sewn I abhor, ripped off my clothing, no longer a part of me, suited to battle this turmoil war, I still can't ignore, still unsure, I let out a roar, to release the sore,  from the crevices of  my disappointment. Take rest and know, that he is not yours. Someone else's someone. I have not been crossed. I have not lost. Eyes glossed, this future future embossed, there is a cost to loving, and being loved, and living.

How quickly we're entitled. Justice will prevail. Osama must die, and don't you dare cry; the bastard did not deserve jail. How quickly we're entitled. Jesus showed us love somehow we can  hate, and don't have to relate or know what sin is made of. How quickly we're entitled. In no way are we the same. With a bullet to the head, Osama is dead, and we can walk without shame.

1. The only person that can ever truly make you happy is yourself. Stop depending on everyone else. 2. People lie, stuff happens. Don’t take it too personally. 3. Want people to think you’re amazing? Start believing you are, and then they will too. 4. Smiling is the ultimate anti-depressant. Smile and laugh out loud, it doesn’t look stupid, I promise. 5. The world is never just black and white, right or wrong, one way or another. Try and see things from as many points of view as possible. 6.  "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter, don't mind." - Dr. Seuss 7. Have empathy. 8. Gossip, problems of the past, events you cannot control, negative thoughts and negative people; time spent on these is time poorly wasted. 9. When you're jealous or find yourself filled with hatred for someone/something, stop. The only person its hurting is you. 10. Although the newest, most expensive material items may make you fe...

My heart is light. My soul is bright. And who can EVER says this? Life kicks me down. When I'm on the ground, It's nothing I will ever miss. Anger inside, born with too much pride, but I know my Lord exists. Therefore I'm content. Therefore I relent. soothed by Lord's blissful kiss.

You try to avoid it when you are young, but the older you get you see it's inevitable I see her in my smile, the way I fold my right hand and place it on my knee while driving, she's in my writing, my laughter, she's molded my hips, given my cheeks color, every horror movie reminds me of her (oh, not for the reasons you are thinking!) my sensitivity was because of her, my humor is a result of her. You try to avoid it when you are young, but the older you get, you see it's not so bad.