I Love...

I write things when I'm depressed. It should come as no surprise that I am writing a lot these days, as I am unemployed, single, and so consumed with post-graduation slump that I can't even remember what day of the week it is. Is it Tuesday? It doesn't really matter. My point is that I hope someday that my depression will not be the reason I pick up a pencil and paper, or sit down at a computer. I want, someday, as an expression of worship, to be able to write from my joy. I want to be able to describe joy to people, so that they can know it more fully. I'm not there yet. Far too often joy blindsides me, and I am taken off guard, much to my delight, and forced to float along with it, obeying its every whim until it plops me down on the side of life's river, so that I may wait for another stream of depression to sweep me up again. Those are the stronger currents in my life these days, and the ones that last the longest. I still hold fast to the hope that someday this will not be true. In the meantime, I have to hold on to what I know, and make the best of what I have. But for the future, these are the things that give me joy, the things that I want to be able to write about someday:

1. Ice cream on a hot day.

2. One on one conversations with the people who have seen me cry.

3. Laughing so hard that it hurts.

4. Little kids who say "hi" to everyone in the grocery store.

5. Baptisms.

6. Finding Jesus in places I didn't think he belonged.

7. 12 bar blues Jammin' with Will and/or Paul.

8. Getting advice from really old men.

9.  Phone calls from my sisters [too rare:( ]

10. Grooms who tear up at their weddings.

11. Monterey, CA.

12. Long Beach, CA.

13. Hugging strangers who need a hug.

14. Campfires+acoustic guitars.

15. Discovering hidden talents.

16. Meeting people whose jobs reflect their passions.

17. New relationships.

18. Reunions.

19. Serving food to the homeless.

20. LAUP 2007 (and anything associated with LAUP 2007)

21. Grass + bare feet.

22. Bosses that are well liked.

23. That part of the day after the sun goes down, but before it gets completely dark.

24. New music.

25. Fresh art.

26. Looking through sketchbooks.

27. Being known AND loved @ the same time (also too rare)

28. Wrestling matches with Timmy.

29. Foreign countries.

30. conversations with no pauses.

31. The beach.

32. Random Photography - based games.

33. Walking around with a friend just to kill time.

34. White kids and Black kids who are best friends.

35. ipod + 2 people + sharing earbuds.

36. Late night study sessions.

37.  Knowing just what to say at the right moment.

38. Reciprocation.

39. Education.

40. Familial obligation.

41. Group prayer (especially when we all hold hands).

42. Church picnics.

43. Psalms

44. Proverbs.

45. Ecclesiastes.

46. Song of Solomon.

47. Amos.

48. Hosea.

49. Q and Mercy from Skid row.

50. Old Weezer songs.

51. A sink with no dishes.

52. A fresh set of guitar strings.

53. New socks.

54. getting a haircut.

55. A balanced checkbook.

56. Handwritten notes.

57. Battleship tournaments.

58. Card games.

59. grateful people.

60. Bible study.

I think it might be working already. I won't rush it though. Someday. Someday it will be.

Looking For a Job After Graduation, Stuck in Traffic

(So you guys don't think that all I think about are girls : ) )

The lights turned green before I was ready

No need for speed

No destination known

No space for right or left-hand turns

Or lane changes.

Life is a highway

And traffic has just started flowing

Here I am moving too slowly

While everyone else knows where they are going.

Stop and go, but mostly stop.

I've been interrupting the traffic ebb and flow

like rocks interrupting the ocean on the shore

Lost in thought

I missed my exit

And had to turn into a lane I'd never been in before.

Where I find myself moving far too slowly

And everyone else knows exactly where they are going.

This traffic flow can't be interrupted

For those who've lost their way.

And the air is full

No room for frustrated tears

As the sound of screeching brakes and honking horns

push through all the open spaces left

screaming at the top of their lungs "too slowly!

You're in the way of where I am going."

Not road-ready

After five minutes, road weary.

Exhausted of trying to explain

That I need to be somewhere

But don't know how to get there.

Better off in a gutter

Than speeding off to God-knows-where

In the wrong lane

Sending off emergency flares.

And why did I think I was moving too slowly

With no particular place to be going?

A Visitor From the East

I hope you drown on the West coast horizon.

I hope the ocean finally takes you.

I hope that when you come around in the morning

One of us isn’t here to see your

Blinding bright sunlight screaming through

the barricade of my tightly squeezed eyelids.

I hope one of us wonders why

My eyes are no longer open to

The brilliance of you and

Wondering why you haven’t

settled next to me.

I hope the moon is in the sky

The entire day and you and I don’t

Ever cross our paths again.

You burn me. Prolonged exposure.

Too bright, too high in the sky

Combined with too low, too small, not good enough.

So pass me by, you giant orb of ever-expanding gas

And wonder as you fly over me

Why I’m no longer hovering around

Mistaking orbit for relationship

Like Pluto before we found out

He didn’t belong.

I’ll find another gravitational pull

To get sucked into.

Another universe to sign my name to.

Pass over me, alone in the sky

All along wondering why I haven’t tried to hold your hand.

I've been burned before for trying to take lesser stars

from their place above me.

The scars on my hand prove that you were just another one.

Mutual Exchange

You tore the two of us apart

Like a piece of paper coming out of a calculator.

Between us, only a receipt for goods tendered

Marked “all sales our final! No returns!”

But you’ve put yourself up in the window again

With a bright yellow tag announcing “for sale”

Underneath where it says your name.

 

I don’t return broken merchandise

But have a tendancy to misplace pieces

Lost a piece of me underneath your couch

“you broke it, you bought it”

I agreed to pay the full amount

Saving this paper for my records.

In case I get audited

Or somehow forget that

We’re friends who don’t

owe each other anything anymore.

I haven’t seen you in a while

But I guess it’s true

What they say

That you get

what

you

pay for.

Busy busy busy...but still with nothing to do...

Hello friends. I haven;t forgotten about you all. I promised to post up some poetry about my life like, a month ago. I have been working hard, exorcizing my inner demons and grocery shopping, location scouting, learning the piano, crying over what could have been and whatnot, but I didn't forget you. So, here's more than what I promised. Three poems. I cannot promise that they are good, but that's not why people read blogs, is it? I guess I'm just trying to be honest. So, this is what's going on for me right now...in poetry code. Enjoy!

A Day at the Beach

I visited Long Beach today. Sarah and I went to visit our LAUP sites today. Beautiful town. My heart beats faster and my fingers twitch with anticipation thinking about it. I think I might belong there. We went  to see the kids at Covenant Pres's after school program. A few of them remembered us. I carried little Kayla around the whole time. I didn't get tired of holding her. I wish she was my little girl. Or, that someday, I could have a daughter like that. I know I don't deserve that, but who really deserves a girl like Kayla. It was Pastor Adele's birthday today. All smiles, and nothing different for her. Up to our arms in kids, hugging, teaching, kissing bruises, and tying shoelaces. She said that us visiting was her birthday present. how wonderful for your existence to be somebody's birthday present. I'd never thought about that possibility. The kids kept talking about us being there two years ago. I told them that it was one year ago, but in a way, I felt like they were more correct. It had been longer than it had been. I missed this place. A lot. I can see all the kids from when we were here. They're the same, but different. They're older, in more ways than one. I saw lots of spiritual warfare while I was in Long Beach. I'm not normally the type to talk about these things, but I know what I saw. I guess I forgot about how in tuned with these things pastors Rob and Adele were. They were winning. These kids, the ones that stuck around, were being transformed. Victory is happening in Long Beach. It's  beautiful. Then we went to COA. We wanted to see old friends, and serve a meal to the homeless. The only old people that were there were Dixie, Cindy, and Scotty. No one else knew us. That's alright. Someone told Sarah and I that we couldn't sit at the table with the homeless people. He said that they didn't run this program just so that we could sit around and talk to homeless people, and that they needed to eat, not talk to us. What a silly thing for him to think! As if the only purpose of feeding the homeless was to give them food! I didn't have time to explain this to him, because Sarah and I had to go. You and I, Long Beach. We're not done here.I want to be here again someday...

ADeepBreath

I'm writing again. I'm going to put a poem up here soon, about this weird phase in my life. So keep me accountable, you loyal reader(s?), because I should have enough time to accomplish things here. That's all for now. 

P.S. I just went on an outing with the kids from the nursery @ my church. There's something about children that makes life bearable. I know it doesn't really make sense, that the fact that new life is constantly being added to the painful, dizzying chaos of the "real world," and I think that's a good thing. You'd think I wouldn't want to wish anyone else to come and experience the world as it is. But I do. I think that's another reason why I believe in God.