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Mar
13th
Tue
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Taking Time to Remember My Brother, His Death, Acknowledge my Mind

Ultimately, I want this process of remembrance to end in the setting of a new course for my future. I want to create it, shape it, breathe my life into it. In this moment, I have a glimmer of hope and a shroud of sadness. The shroud gives me shadows of doubt that occlude hope’s glimmer. That’s when I feel like a victim of the world instead of a creator. Here’s what I’ve never said before.

I.

For twenty two years I was sad

I lost my first and only love

My childhood heart

It set me out to sea

Pre-school and I knew what I wanted

I could never have

Not until heaven

If I reach it

If it exists

II.

In this year, on the second day of January

My past collapsed

My role in our total love was equal

Having had it means I can make it again

A wild woman in the woods

Hands sunk into the soft heart of a long ago fallen tree

Its riches patiently seeping out into the world

Infused her hands with life-giving potential

A house, a home, a colony

Solid energy, decaying to transfer

The pretense of fire

Ten thousand feet above the surface

I saw heaven on earth

In my future, up to me

A wild woman out of the woods

Palm’s blessing from heaven

A messanger

Peace, sustenance, the possibility of love surrounds you

III.

And then she fell

She’s not an angel or a prophet

A child’s heart is not designed for adult love

It’s finally time to grow up, alone.

Surrounded by children’s hearts in the form of friends

I’m not that sure

And that’s responsibility

Tear down the tree and nail it

Together again

Pull out the fallen and set them on fire

New trees can’t grow without a burning desire

I have to give it up to get it again

An old growth with a sapling

And as it grows

It’s gone again

IV.

The shadow of a doubt can break me

My shell is thin

I smash it all the time

Because there’s no harm

Because I’m not here

I walk with an empty space

All around me, my heart inflates to fill it

And the people passing by

The people with a past absence

The needy take it, drape it, walk away

I’m the ghost

I’m his ghost

He’s gone all the way

I can’t conjure him

Not even close

I can’t hear him, not even in my head

V.

In the twenty second year I awoke

To see a string of sadness

I followed it through my years

And found its dark beginning

In the coffin of my brother

The one who’d drawn me from my cradle

Out of the house

Into the air

Into myself

Into attitude and memory

He had drawn me into consciousness.

We’d embarked on our greatest adventure

And then he turned to stone

Overnight

And I froze in time

They flew his blue body round the planet

Ten thousand feet above and over seas

Nothing to be seen

From a foreign land to the family plot

A West Texas gravel grave

His blue body buried in the arid desert

I stood on my toes to see him

Pale blue and perfectly still

His mouth turned down and his brow relaxed

Somber as an adult

He was never quiet, never serious

He was always the one to wake me up with a bounce and a hug and a plan

By the time I saw him lying in his coffin

He’d been gone forever already

We’d been gone forever already

We’d never been sad before

Since he’d been gone forever, he’d been sad

He’d been sad forever

The sorrow persisted

VI.

Days later

Alone now with my mom

Alone in our house without my dad

Maybe forever

But what did it matter?

I followed my blue brother’s lead 

Wake up

Don’t hug me

You’re 6, the plan is somber adulthood

For my mom, so sad and weary

I am husband, son, mother, daughter

I am everything she lost

I am loss

And then her father died

There was no consoling her

I am silent love and protection and everything is fine with me and I’ll help you

I’ll be your partner

I’ll be your only friend

And we’ll be alone in this house

I’ll do whatever you want

And I won’t want to do anything

I won’t cry unless there’s good reason

And there’s never a good reason

And I cry a lot

I’ll be brave

And I’m scared of everything

VII.

My shell is thin.

I smash it all the time.

But there’s no harm

Because I’m not here

I walk with an empty space

My heart inflates to fill it

And everybody infiltrates it

The people passing by

Can I give this to you?

Take it

You don’t know how good it is

I see you crying

You haven’t known it

Please take it

Tell me it is valuable and good

Now give it back

Give it back

Give it back

They haven’t had it because they never gave it

They never gave it

They will never give it back

It’s me

Not them

I feel like I disappear

Stolen

Robbed

And that I have to

Because that’s what growing up is

Growing up is throwing it away

Growing up is not-having, not-being

I need to grow up

My cherished love is childish

I smash it all the time

Because there’s no harm

I’m not here

I’m not even here

I’m a sad and still

Blue stone

We’re finished

VII.

The glimmer on the second

The shadow on the twenty fourth

Twenty two days between hope and doubt

After twenty two years

There’s a battle inside me

Between power and impotence

Between faith and fear

Claim and surrender

On the twenty fourth day, after the twenty fourth day, I surrendered

I  have to do something for which I have hesitations

To show someone my love, to comfort them

Fourteen days later, I surrendered

I said this person does not love me

Is that true?

It doesn’t matter

What it is I don’t like it

I don’t want it

It’s now now

So how do I do?

VIII.

Eleven days later, I’m here to take responsibility

After three days, I went into the past

Confronted the first disaster I created in the name of love

He’s still desperately in need

And refuses to give

Up his priorities of control and privacy

The first time I gave comfort to the loveless

The thin shell burst a year later, and I told my mom

She shared her story

A child meeting adult

Control, manipulation, privacy, lovelessness

She’s lost two sisters

One her twin still born

She lost her other half

The other still alive

Only half

So now we are sisters

And I am talking

And I am talking to my friends

I am known

And I am coming into existence

It turns out I like beauty, comfort, and company

That is a start

A glimmer

I’ll know my mind

Say hello to the shadows

Be still in their passing

Take a look through your glasses

And take action in my rose tint

All the love for myself and my family

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bitchville:

Green Pixie by WhoAm-Irony

bitchville:

Green Pixie by WhoAm-Irony

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Ice stalagmites in the basement of Greystone Park State Hospital.

Ice stalagmites in the basement of Greystone Park State Hospital.

(Source: bill--maplewood, via bibidebabideboo)

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thousands of flowers installed in an abandoned mental asylum

(Source: free-parking, via bibidebabideboo)

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interspeciesinternational:

uppera:

Gregory Maiofis
Adversity makes strange bedfellows. 
From series Proverbs. 2005–2010

I’d say, Empathy makes great bedfellows

interspeciesinternational:

uppera:


Gregory Maiofis

Adversity makes strange bedfellows.

From series Proverbs. 2005–2010

I’d say, Empathy makes great bedfellows

(Source: annapogossova, via bibidebabideboo)

Mar
8th
Tue
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After the Revolution, Gender Friction in Egypt

A march in Cairo marking International Women’s Day apparently turned ugly on Tuesday. Several hundred women and supporters of women’s rights reported harassment from counterprotesters who taunted and, in some cases, physically intimidated them.

Twitter reports flooded in from women who attended the march in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of antigovernment protests last month. Many said they fled after feeling menaced and unsafe.

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Dec
26th
Sun
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Dec
5th
Sun
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