Silence falls like snowflakes
Covering the field
Where birds like statues watch
My huckleberry heels
With frost left underfoot
The hallow ground revealed
Where doe tread light as feather
And sun spill bleeds me home
Home » Posts tagged 'summer'
Silence falls like snowflakes
Covering the field
Where birds like statues watch
My huckleberry heels
With frost left underfoot
The hallow ground revealed
Where doe tread light as feather
And sun spill bleeds me home
Today the time ran out
just as it had begun—
Hot water fills the tub
you swore you’d never become—
It’s warm and shallow now
cut servings for only one—
The echo down the hall, well
that’s just yesterdays love—
Now it’s all become a song once sung
to an infant under the gun.
Today the moon refused
to trade place with the sun—
Sidewalks full of people
but still you know only one—
It’s an impossible force
that drags you from yourself—
Now it’s all become a song once sung
to an infant under the gun.
I try, you know I do, to balance
fault lines and faith, the surgeons
steel blade, it draws a bridge between both—
It’s a symphony of simple things
that will seem eclipsed by the sun—
Cause it’s all become a song once sung
to an infant under the gun.
If I could go back, all those years, and stand next to twelve year old me, would I have the courage and strength to tell that nervous boy watching all the other children, swimming, laughing, and running—playing shirts v.s. skins—to quit worrying and join in, that it doesn’t matter how chubby you feel, or how different you look, that as long as you love and accept yourself, no words from another can harm you, or would I just sit back and watch, still the observer unable to join the party?
It’s funny how something so simple as taking your shirt off to swim can be so detrimental to a young child’s self esteem and yet as adults we often forget what that was like or rather what external forces beyond our control led us to believe ourselves unworthy of such a simple, yet harrowing task.
As in childhood, so as in adulthood, what we allow to harm us will.
Commercials show us long, slender, sleek models who seem to effortlessly fit in to their surroundings while being rewarded with warm smiles and admiration for seeming perfect.
Television shows and movies give us well manicured, quintessential versions of ourselves that often seem more like science fiction than what actually is.
Billboard ads and magazines are placed conveniently to fill all our psyche with blemish-less detail to promote this false sense of unattainable beauty that even when met, there’s ultimately an even whiter teeth formula, or wax to whisk away our imperfection.
It’s a cycle that even before the mind has time to develop, stunts it’s growth and like a cavity begins to decay all sense of self worth.
How often have you judged yourself by your looks rather than how you feel?
For this average white guy, countless.
But it’s taken all those countless times to figure out that it doesn’t matter in the slightest, especially as a child who’s developing.
So would I tell that twelve year old me to take his shirt off and go swimming with the rest of the lot?
I don’t think there is a clear answer other than that instead of telling him what he should or shouldn’t do like all the rest of the world, I’d allow him the opportunity to listen to my story and decide for himself.
But I would say this. Chances are that boy or girl over there thinks there nose is too big or there ears are too small. Chances are that kid who cringes to put on his glasses everyday feels just like you do now, wondering what others will think of what makes him human.
Perhaps I’d reassure him that everybody has stretch marks, even the biggest, strongest athletes. Even his mother, and what could be more beautiful than sacrificing your physical form to grant another life?
But we all figure it out in our own time.
I know he did.
Everyone has problems
More elaborate than my own
Like these they fall in autumn
Their limbs are all exposed
I want to tell them something
Assure they’re not alone
Still leaves they fall in autumn
Sometimes to live you’ve got to die.
Some say the world’s worth saving
Some say we’ll never know
Like a corn cob pipe and button
Left in the melting snow
A fireplace can warm you
For a while from the cold
Still a child holds his coal eyes
And now he knows.
It’s not his fault that his friend must go
Either way he’s gonna cry
You’re beautiful so it’s logical
This season’s just a state of mind
If I could save you, you know I would
But even I know that’s a lie
See summers change and then grow cold
It’s no longer up to me to decide
Seated in the summer sun
drenched in heat
reading a novel, alone
how sweet.
With memories of you
drenched in heat,
feet stretched out
along the beach.
Where in the summer sun
you’d sit and read
a novel too, my mother
sweet.
While you’d watch us kids
the swimming sea,
and how you read
effortlessly,
I never wondered then
like I do now,
how a quiet lesson
could teach me how.
I turn each page
my mind at rest,
my mother’s sun
warm on my chest.
Did you think it would be that easy
just to walk away.
Like we were the 30th of April
now it’s the 1st of May.
The sun here is always shining
yet I still see rain.
I was California dreaming
just to numb the pain.
Awake
or asleep
It doesn’t really make a difference
Blue
or green
The ocean looks the same
Black
or white
Just pictures on a TV screen
You
and I
We’re searching for significance
I guess…
You had to make your move
like we were playing chess.
Across from one another
we are at our best.
Stuck between the sun and moon
like all the rest.
Before my Confirmation
I never did confess.
Up
or down
The world’s full of extremes
Then
or now
The choices never change
Commit
or don’t
Either way there’s so much pain
You
and I
We’re just finger painting our esteem
I guess…
Then a baby’s born
Then another one and then some more
While a preemie dies
It’s not her fault that he’s premature
Grief
or guilt
Both come in due time
Live
or die
Flip a coin put it aside
Bitter
or sweet
This Adam’s apple is proof of Eve
You
and I
Banished from that Garden
we couldn’t find.
Still, did you think it would be that easy
just to walk away?
Life was shit
and life
was all we had
stuck staring
at the Casco Bay
from a lighthouse
that dark summer
where nothing
would go right
and everything went
predictably wrong.
We held each other
in the morning fog
sharing our breath
as if on life support
barely hanging on
you and I and a plug
but we’d picked blueberries
earlier that month
and though life
was shit that summer
nothing went to waste.
like fine grains
of sand
everyone I love
falls through my hands
to a beach
of salty air
and deserted
summers
I wade
at bay with the tide
which pulls me
further
and further
from the shore
If you can manipulate life into a form
that suits your needs then wear it.
Or walk naked if you have to.
Either way,
Winter is cold. Summer is warm.
Spring is boundless. And the Fall is inevitable.
In this life
the naked and clothed
are one and the same
some just get lucky
while others wear the blame.
I
was
tired
angry
and
loony
for
love.
So
you
put
me
in
your
pocket.
While
Meatloaf
sang –
I
bet
you
do
that
to all
the
boys.