Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
He took my hands in his and seared his eyes with the pain of a man who was all too familiar with the scars of goodbye. Forevers compromised by human existence. Where souls are contained in bodies and bodies must go, always go.
Here we are
sitting on the cusp of greatness
STAND UP! I say
stand up and show the world
just how tall you stand
they can beat your knees
bruise them black and blue
whip your back raw
as red welts rise up like mountains
conquering your fear of height
FIGHT
flight
is possible
when you’ve met death
winked at it before
jumping out of the plane
you’re fumbling with the parachute
maybe seconds away
from shadows consuming
everything you are
and ever will be
but the wind
consumes you instead
the sun streaming
down your face
the brightest
most alive
you have ever been
in that moment
as you fall from
the universe
free
free enough to die
it does not matter
whether your parachute
will or will not
open
you are alive now
and that is
all
that
matters.
The withering heights
seeped into the horizon
chastening my sorrows
leveraging them
into denounced blessings
capturing the moonlight
in still shadows
I lost my possessions
gained the soil instead
spilling raindrops
over the page
as the ink tainted
my fingertips
Here’s to the wanderers
the rebels
the dreamcatchers
their message paints
orange dew blossoms
on the deadening
grey canvas
that is sometimes
and often called
life
He fainted
into the piano
as I fainted
into him
This one is for you
and all the ones that will come after
you’re the only one I can
put a face to
so bear with me
as I bare everything I ever was
and everything I always will be
Things change
love grows into fall
leaves fall
my soul falls
Eternity is only
a season long
“I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.”
— Anaïs Nin
“COME TO THE EDGE!”
“No, we cannot…we are afraid.”
“COME TO THE EDGE!”
“No, we cannot…we will fall.”
“COME TO THE EDGE!”
And they came and he pushed them,
and they flew!
Writing from an unrestrained place is sometimes a very difficult thing to do. I have expectations for myself and I’m not above dogma. And so most of the time I’ll write a couple of lines only to immediately cross them out in frustration. I can tell when it’s not pure. When I’m just throwing around words for word’s sake. What a waste of paper and ink that is. What a waste of a brilliant mind, a brilliant heart, a brilliant soul. We’ve all got it in us. Just need to fight it out.
