[innocent]

not to know the scrutiny of another's watchful eye

not to know you're being viewed, but to look outside and sigh

to be free to feel enraptured by the beauty that you see

and not to know it's staring back in smug complacency.

how wonderful to be so sweet that sweetness is your prize

to have a set of chubby cheeks and pools of joy for eyes.

but will it save you from the world? no, you're not made immune

just because your smile is warm and you sing a cheery tune.

not to care what others think, not to know the sting

of a thousand angry judging eyes must be a wonderful thing.

just to care for what you see and live for what you know

is freeing and lovely and happy and best - a child told me so.

ripples

why is it, that

when one thing leaves me, everything's gone?

there's never a give and a take... 

it makes me feel hopeless- can you even go on

when you've made every single mistake?

it's just like a ripple is placed in effect

like everything's waiting to break.

when the hammer is dropped, there's no way to deflect

all these feelings with all that's at stake.

left alone, left to ponder, left to just sit and think

to keep wondering what i did wrong.

holding onto my knees with fat tears on the brink

of my eyelids. you've broken my song.

and now, though i'm broken, im fumbling to find

where the deed was done, how i got here.

maybe i'm callous, maybe im blind. 

all i know is: i live my worst fear.

You Found Me. you saved me.

"Lost and Insecure, You found me.

You found me lying on the floor

surrounded."

--The Fray

I was lost and insecure.

i was lost in lies, and so insecure about my own motives and behavior...

But i've been found! 

I've been discovered in my weakness, and i've been told the truth.

the truth is that you're inherently beautiful: not because of something you are fixing to make yourself more perfect and not because of how you're going to clean up your act. you are a beautiful creature, and no one can take that away from you. 

to be found by someone who sees that beauty and reminds you of it, who celebrates it, is one of the most freeing and eye-opening things that can happen to you. 

i hope you find peace and faith, i hope you find security.

but more than anything you find,

I hope that You are Found.

always love

do i love to love or do i love to be alone?

'cuz honestly, a life with love is all i've ever known.

i sing that "i'm in love with love!" and i don't think that's wrong

but do my meaningful beliefs reach deeper than my song?

i want to learn to fall in love without a backward glance

to find the one i can tell how i feel, not let reason stand a chance

say yes to the feeling of impulse, and no to inhibition -

inspired to choose to love someone of my own free volition.

there is no stronger bond i know, no way to be more close

than holding the precious head in your hands of the very one you chose.

so yes, i think that i do love love, and that someday it will find me.

because i think us loving one another is the way it's meant to be.

glorious morning

i was born to love the morning

and the glorious rising sun,

and the birds who wake up chirping

how i love them, every one!

as i close my eyes and drink it in:

the light, the cool, the dew,

it all makes my heart start beating

like the mornings only do.

the amount i love each daybreak

almost makes me lose my head!

i was born to love the morning

...

it's too bad i love my bed.

will you be there?

originally uploaded by always ordinary.

7/11
danget! i missed slurpee day!
________________________________
can you hold me and protect me
from the cold, relentless chill?
do you care or are you teasing,
will you be there when you say you will?

when im tired and im hurting
and i'm cranky and befuddled
if i just need a chest to lay on
will yours be the one i cuddle?

through thick and thin and big and small
you're sticking with me, and i see
that i am comfortable with you,
and that you're truly loving me.

now you've proven yourself worthy
now you've given your fair share.
now i know you and i trust you,
and now i'm sure; you will be there.

on frustration and freedom

[sorry for the detour from poetry lately; i have really had some things on my heart to write out.]

Romans 8:20

"For the creation was subjected to frustration , not by its own choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious

 freedom 

of the children of God."

Lord, 

it is frustrating to have to keep changing! it is frustrating to be wrong time and time again! 

we have been all waiting together. If i am frustrated, i am not alone. You have frustrated me, You have subjected me to this life, this constantly shifting expectation, this directive to be ever content but never complacent, and if it stopped there,

 i could never forgive you.  

but You have a purpose in it all: Your dearest hope is that i would be free. and for that love, for that purpose, 

now i can never repay you. 

i was enslaved, and bound to decay - i had no hope, but you frustrated those plans and the direction i was headed, you changed things in order to liberate me from that bondage. 

so, i will endure the frustration. so, i will continue to try and change, no matter how i feel about it, because i know you have chosen what's best.

i want the glorious freedom. 

Something You Are

To be something you’re not-  well, let’s face it, we all do it.  Perhaps it’s compromising to your nature, perhaps you’re not staying “true to yourself”, but we all try on some different identities in order to prove a point, make a scene, be a star, and find out what we truly enjoy. 

But not to be something you are, now that...

that is another thing entirely. 

It is a difficult thing, to the point of near impossibility, to endeavor to change a fundamental point of your personality.  It is easy enough to exasperatedly fling at someone the phrase “oh, stop being such a flirt!” or, “do you always have to wait so long before you answer 

me?” but that is where the ease of the situation ends. 

It feels wrong, morally wrong, to try and change something about yourself that you just are; to try not to do something that you just do – not out of habit, and not as a learned phenomenon, but just because it is what you do.   

Perhaps it would behoove us to learn to overcome this discomfort: just buckle down, bite the bullet, and not do whatever it is we do.  Perhaps we should learn to change, but also change to learn 

(Run Kid Run – Wake up, Get up). 

But I do not think it is possible; no, a person who can simply find change without a valiant struggle is too perfect for humanity. We are all grunting and straining together in the classic challenge of existence: to be better, happier, people becoming more whole and more ideal all the time.  

How can you change who you are? 

Really… should you change who you are? 

How much of you was made with a purpose and how much of you became a part of you sometime after that purposeful creation? 

All I know is that it feels wrong, and so very hard, to change myself --  because, in the end,

I don’t want to lose myself in the changing.

take me someplace beautiful.

originally uploaded by PatrickSmithPhotography.

take me someplace with mist and mountains
take me somewhere clear.
transport me someplace i can sit and think
take me where i can hear.

out of the sickness, out of the smog
out of the smoky air
away from the chattering people and cars
take me where life seems fair.

take me someplace with shiny oceans
take me where i fit in.
take me someplace not flat and boring
where colors seep into the wind.

take me someplace beautiful
a place i'll appreciate being.
take me someplace beautiful.
where the air is not binding, but freeing.

Otherworldly

originally uploaded by etravus -since Feb. 2006.

There's something otherworldly about the moon some nights.
well, now that i say it, i guess there's always something otherworldly about the moon.
some nights, though, it comes to remind me. tonight the moon was just so round it was bulging, so close it was tangible, so big i hardly recognized it. it was a soft pastel yellow against a blue sky that was fading to purple. it just made me stop and look. it hovered right above the trees, just hung there, so big and plump and soft.
the moon is not menacing. the moon is not bright. the moon is just helpful; helpful and beautiful. not always visible, not always noticed. different, and distant, and a striking reminder that we're actually going about our business on a piece of mud that is crashing and spinning through units of universe.
we are hurtling, careening through existence and we aren't even capable of noticing it.
...sound familiar?

would we feel peace if the earth just stopped?

there is something very enlightening about the moon. it reminds me that we are still moving.

shhh

originally uploaded by risquillo.

don't speak, don't try
don't break the silence of the sky
there is a certain peacefulness i find in it tonight.
but don't leave, don't go
still stay with me, i know you know
that though i stand here quiet i don't want to be alone.
can you feel, can you see
the beauty as you stand with me?
there's loveliness in reveling in all that's been made free.
raise your head, close your eyes
the beauty is for him who tries
to take it in with all his senses, he who tries to find.
be a seeker, and be still
you'll feel it too, i know you will
the depth and precious prettiness of earth - you'll feel the thrill.

a word of futility

don't worry, don't cry, you'll have some more chances,

you'll do more, you'll be more, you'll have more, you'll find more.

let it go, friend, move on. go unearth greener pastures.

it's only all you've ever worked for.

your life's not over, you've had ONE loss.

stop acting like you're perpetually haunted.

don't sweat it, don't grieve it! come on - give it up!

it's only what you've always wanted.

it's hard, we've all been there, without doubt we relate,

we all know why you've got your anguish unfurled.

buck up, friend, and grin - you can't moan forever!

it's only the weight of the world.

you're feeling this hurt but you'll move on in no time,

because it's the strong stuff that you're made of.

so you can do it, let's erase those old memories...

it's only all you've ever loved.

proud.

originally uploaded by poveralice.

standing tall now, so headstrong.
i don't know why you keep saying i'm wrong.
i wont let you tell me i'm broken.
i simply refuse to see
everything i have worked to be
as a problem.
i'm proud of who i am, i'm proud of how i care. i'm proud of who i'm becoming and what i have accomplished.
i like me and i'm finally comfortable in my own skin - how is that not an accomplishment?
i hope to be flexible enough to know when complacency is not an option, but can't i be allowed to rest?
can't i be allowed
to be proud?

1,2,3,4

 originally uploaded by Julie Foolie.

is it meant for one - the most specialest person
or to give to everyone?
there's so many meanings and strange kinds of love,
and i've only just begun.

there's the kind that keeps you up at night
and the kind that helps you sleep
the kind that helps all who are standing around you
and that weeps when others weep.

it has to be given and taken, both -
shown in action and said in word,
it's clear that love is a two-way street,
and a double-edged sword.

it's a mystery, this love, a baffling game
but it's true at the end of the day
that everyone needs it somehow or another,
we must've been made that way.

now, the way i see it, the only way
the bring some kind of semblance of peace;
the only way to see heaven on earth
is to reach out to the least of these.

there's pain and there's evil and hurt and there's death
in glazed eyes you can just about see through.
so make it priority, if it's just once today,
to say or show someone "i love you."

blessed

How nice! my supper's paid for

and Joy! now i am full.

i won't go Hungry anymore

Paid up and settled is the score,

the bill is Void and null.

but Backwards is the way i feel

should i have Paid for that?

i cannot be your Pity case

no, i must look You in the face

my pride has been laid Flat.

a Gift is what you gave me?

a gift, you say, for Me?

it Fills my body and my heart

to know that When i fall apart

someone is there to See.

so, Joy, my meal is paid for!

and thank you, for i'm Filled.

my life is Blessed because you came,

the Days go by, not all the same

but each one shows me one More way

your LOVE has paid the bill.