Artisan

In the corner of the park there is a tree.  It is great and tall and huge, a truly awe-inspiring creation.  Each leaf is so finely crafted, unable to be truly mimicked by any artisan, no matter how they paint or sculpt.  The bark is rough but painted with designs that no hand can recreate, that no tree has ever had before.

Like the stripes of a tiger or a zebra, like a fingerprint, like the things that are so original, that never repeat and cannot be copied.

It cannot be some random idea, some quick switch-up of nature.

Have you ever seen a canyon?  Echoing and huge, pressed down and orchestrated in a nice symphony of color.  It is large and enough to bring anyone to silence.

And also, fields, rivers, valleys - the oceans.  Gorgeous things that no matter how much anyone tries they cannot get it just right, cannot mimic the exact flow of the water, the feeling of flight, the motion of a boat, the cool sand.

But in doing so they create something of their own.  And though people will try they can never truly copy the work.

Photographs and print-outs can only scratch the surface of what a thing is.  So unique and powerful it takes all your senses to even grasp the concept.

For there to be such a fantastic world, there must have been an artisan, once, long ago, who decided to write and sculpt and paint, and made these gorgeous running lands.

This world was made by a master artisan.

The Light

A glimmer from the flashlight, shining out on moonlight waters, dancing like tomorrow

like tomorrow is already gone, dancing like life is beautiful and painless and dreaming of all sorts of crazy things,

moon and stars shining and creating boundaries to the wild, making the light sparkle in control,

so the fire doesn’t burn and consume everything, a powerful force that sparkles and

smiles.

Reflected on glass-like creations, purring, content and happy in its life, hoping and praying and wondering

please that you’d see what you can do, values and hopes and dreams and things people don’t really think about,

like how you don’t have to take sides, and this real war isn’t about that at all; no, it’s more about

hope.

How that’s what we’ve been fighting for, person to person, creature to creature, connected,

though of course the light whispers this in a language that nobody quite understands, but shhh, listen, you can hear it,

straining its voice and telling you, yes you, that you’re beautiful and important and it knows without a doubt that you’re

just right.

How can you argue with it?  the light that’s dancing, shimmering, showing you a whole world you’d never seen before

of city streets and jungle trees in peaceful co-existence, and while lions don’t lay with lambs they don’t hate them, either,

and it’s showing you how beautiful it is, when a tree rises against a high-rise and a house shelters a family of mice,

unharmed.

This is the world now, it whispers, the light, a flashlight or a glimmer of moon or sun or whatever it is,

whatever it is it’s telling you, showing you, showing all of us, that the city’s as natural as the rain, and that we’re all interconnected,

saying that interconnected, there’s a solution and a way and people thing there’s only one thing, a me-or-them fight, but it’s a fight that means

everything.

We can make it out of this, this pit of dark blackness because it isn’t oppressive, and that’s what the light’s trying to say, sparkling and fizzling like a firecracker,

a firecracker wise in all ways of life, demanding our attention and if you just listen, you can hear it,

hear how content it is with itself and with you and how it hopes you can realize that it’s all together, all connected, and their can be peace and co-existence and every life

thrumming.

So it is not a one way path and it is not good that people hurt each other or any sort of crazy idea you can come up with,

instead it is a multi-wayed path and eventually the solution will be reach, the solution when people lay down their guns because they feel safe and lions and lambs sing music hymns together,

and there’s no worries of political battles and manipulations and hatred, instead it’s nice, because of

patience.

And one hundred years from now we’ll be telling our grandchildren how we’d all but given up hope,

but hope wasn’t ready to be given up and so it sparkled and whispered in a still, small voice, echoing all the whispers of slaves saying prayers and children taken from homes, the hope that’s in all of us that’s telling us to realize and to wake up and understand,

that it’s not a war of human versus earth or human versus human but of hatred versus hope, and that hope can and will win and do not give

up.

Look up instead, and smiling because there’s something sparkling up there, dazzling the eyes with its displays, and look down and see the pavement and the grass, and how they seem to be content,

and peaceful and at home, co-existing, like we all should be, and do not forget

that little light, shining on the water, glittering like a firecracker, whispering in a voice so soft but if you just listen really closely, you’ll hear it:

“Believe me, we belong here, and all will be okay.”

Breath

 

Anyone remember my “Songs of the Day” and then “Songs of the Week”?  It was from ages ago, back when I was still Unistray208.

Cheers to all times, happier and sadder.  Today and tomorrow.

Maybe it’ll eventually get better.

Masks

Forgetting that I am covered I go about my day,

Amazing that everyone else can do the same, when they show through,

Could anyone ever still be true?; I’ve given up on such a feat

Almost before I began I realized that I couldn’t do something so fanatically fantastic

Dreaming dreams and showing them as if they were reality;

Evermore for someone much, much braver than me.

Facade

Façade that’s mine, a faceless mask,

Or more of a smile, more that I’m asked,

Nobody can see the problems inside,

I cram them down and in selflessness hide.

And when I say but a single word,

Do you know how hard it is to displease the world?

I don’t want to hurt anyone so I never speak.

Right now, right here, my knees they are weak.

I won’t, I can’t, I’m not the victim you see,

So to make sure I don’t manipulate I never am free.

Every moment I peel off a bit of the mask,

Each time I give information without being asked,

I shake and I shiver, I tremble and fall,

I shrink and I hate myself, I never stand tall.

I prefer to hide behind endless confidence,

Nobody worries, not even one bit,

And you see, when I do voice my complaints,

They’re always quiet behind other strains.

Seems I get shot down by my so-called friends,

But I refuse to let our relationships end.

I love these people, they’re dear to me,

The whole world is my family.

And so I feel the mother’s shame,

When a person makes an unforgiveable mistake.

And then, furthermore, I forgive unconditionally,

Even the one time I hated someone other than me,

I loved them, still, it was just a grudge,

I don’t have it in me to be much of a judge.

See, from my view, I’m the worst person ever, much worse than you.

And also from my biased eyes, I long to never speak the truth.

I refuse to burden you, I’m no victim here,

So I run and I hide with the strangest fear.

And being this straightforward, it chills me to the core,

I guess that’s why poetry appeals to me more.

Question Time–For God and Readers!

Everyone has a story.  Everyone has a life.

What is the meaning and the value?

The value is unable to be calculated.

The meaning is beyond understanding (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – the number 42.  Well obviously this is just a bizarre answer.  Make it up as you go along.)

There’s always the what.  And the why.  And the how.

Questions that end up filling your head with circular thoughts.

And then there’s the hard times intermingled with all the bad.

And I ask this all the time:

“Who are you?”

It’s to myself.  It’s sometimes to God.

Sometimes it’s to someone I’ve just glimpsed.

But it’s always kept in my head, bottled up and wrapped in a cloth.

It’s a question I’m too scared to ask.  A question I’m too scared to answer.

And who am I to question God?

The thing is, I question him all the time.

I believe in Him.  He is much greater and wiser than I am.

But to myself, I think, “He’s not perfect”.  God is just as fallible as the rest of us.  No wait.  Not ‘just as’.  Considerably less so.  But not quite infallible.

Satan was once His son.  Still is, really.  He talks with the Devil.  But the Devil can’t live with Him.  And oh, I understand we must be tempted.  I understand free will.

What parent hands their children everything on a silver platter?  A bad one.

But then I think that something imperfect can’t be with God.  Someone like me, as I am now, couldn’t live with God.

No, I’d need a Savior for that.  Someone to make up for my sins.  Which I have.

(Thanks, Dad in heaven).

Still, though.  It all becomes a muddled mess.

Also: polygamy.

Read the Bible.  Polygamy left and right there.  Sure, we don’t do it today.  But what about in Heaven?  Would it be allowed there?

My belief is that everyone has a Soulmate.  Sometimes that Soulmate isn’t encountered until after death.  But you’ll find your One True Love eventually.  With patience and kindness and love.

But then polygamy.  What then?  What if it is allowed in Heaven?  So Kings of old in the Bible have multiple wives… Family is forever, after all.

Disturbing, isn’t it?

And there’s more.  Gays.  I mean, being gay was something… originally created… by God… sort of.  A genetic thing that happened to occur.  Slash being effected by the world around you.

Honestly, I don’t give a crap if someone marries someone of the same gender.  God is a merciful person.  He would want us to be happy here on this painful Earth, even if it went against His wishes.

After all, one can’t control the heart.  As we know from books and movies and games and even real life.  Yeah love is sort of a random occurrence.  When it’s more than the puppycrushes of high school.  Those may be borne of desperation.

But then there’s the Soulmates.  Shouldn’t there be a chance to connect with the Soulmate on Earth?  I mean…

So it just confuses me.  And frustrates me.

Obviously God is considerably more perfect than I am.  I said He wasn’t perfect and then turned around and said He was… He is as perfect as He possibly could be, I believe.  As anyone could possibly be.  Wise and omniscient.  Meaning He sees all possibilities, all choices, all futures.

He never knows the choice we’ll make until we make it, however.

And even then, All Things exist Simultaneously.

It’s sort of like a science fiction novel.

One of those head-banging ones.

And maybe I shouldn’t question God.  He’s ten million times wiser than I am – or may ever be – after all.  But my dad here on Earth taught me to question. everything. (politics man)

I think I have a right to question even God.  It’s how your testimony grows.  It’s how you learn, explore, test your boundaries.

How could I know of Him if I do not question my heart, my friends, my family, and then Him, first?

So right now I’m in the learning stages.  Eventually I’ll understand the whys of these.  If it’s after death, then so be it.  Though it’d be really nice to know now.

Yes, God, I know you’re seeing this.

Please help me understand?

…Yes, I do talk to Him aloud ALL THE TIME in the middle of conversations.

And get teased mercilessly for it.

But then again, I get teased mercilessly for a lot of things.

Mormon Christian who believes that fairies and unicorns and mermaids and etc. exists and thinks her stuffed animals are alive.

Yup.

I’m getting teased and treated as an outcast.

Woo-hoo.  People are meanies.

At least God… understands my questioning.  That’s one thing I can take comfort in.  He understands all my weirdness.  Even when my parents don’t (and they really DON’T understand that stuff), He does.  Small mercies.

Now God, help my parents out?  I love You, but You know how I am… I need the Earthly, too.

But really, I’d just like to have some answers.

In the Name of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

(weird broken-paced post COURTESY OF The Ting Tings – We started Nothing.  Oh music, how it affects us all.)

Brainzzz

Dude I had a seriously weird dream last night.

It involved a group of friends, two straight guys and three gay girls.  And also Minecraft and various other video games.  Including stuff that doesn’t exist irl.

It was insane.  I even got like two names!  but I only remember one.  Shane Carson.  Who was a girl.  And also black.  She was lesbian but got hit on by guys a lot.  Though one of the guys in her friend group joked with her.  It was actually a funny situation.

This, my friends, was a dream.

I have a weird brain.

I do want to write about these people now.  They were pretty cool.

Two of the three girls could also sing.  They sung in my dream.  One of them sang about Minecraft, and the other one was Shane and she sang about being hit on even though she was lesbo.

Fun fun fun.

I do want to write about these peeps anyway though.  They’re pretty cool.