Took In Another

Underneath my wind-blown skin waits a sore-hearted girl with little to show for her pain-stricken journey. Is it any wonder I’m vulgarly drawn to reminisce of the mystery you leave as you trek onward ahead of me?

I won’t disassociate myself with the truth of my history. I am part of a legacy and in respect to that I project certain qualities into the generation to follow me. I am not the missing stretch. I am not erased.

Yet, in all honesty, I am very much a sharp bend in the river of my heritage. Or at least my reality leans away from my past. Each time I contemplate returning to my roots – the place where the soil is rich from years of churning – I cringe to think I’m the weed that grew up alongside the crop. That I, may be the portion needing cut away? That my absence allows the intended growth?

I own most positions in my life, but this one carries burrs against my skin. I want to be as gorgeous and healthy as the row I grew among. Strenuously as I may try, I do not look like those around me. I took in another. I produce an unusual seed in comparison to my genesis.

That said, I acknowledge, I’m responsible for me and mine. And sometimes, I’m irresponsible for me. But, all the while, I know what peace smells like. I know what guilt looks like from a distance. I know how skin tastes.

Dead-Butterfly-Heap

S.Musick

Slash me with a thousand blades
Why do I question myself
Was is you
Did I miss it
Was I so scared of forever
Non-committal felt warm
Lush
Resistance
Sliding my body over
Another
And another
And I’m alone
Dashing around
Looking for my place
Dreading the day
When I’m not enough
Hoping we’ll grow
Together
But wondering all the same
Was it you
Did I miss my cue
Relentless
Unabashedly scared
Daunting attempts
At love
In love
Why love
Why do I invest
And still starring off
Trapped in a daze
Trying to keep my momentum
Second guessing each day
But I can’t
I won’t
I mustn’t be caught
They may never release me
I can’t be caught
Was it you
Did I miss it
My only chance
Will it fade like they say
Does time actually heal
I’m sick of my hand
Sick of my sheets
Sick of this rebuttal
Sick of fitting in
Sick of your sightings
Sick of being reminded
Sick of the songs
Sick of torturing myself
I’m so very sick
I want to rip off his arms
Shove them in his British mouth
Go fuck yourself
Prick
A child can’t be around
This
Me
So it goes
And it’s true
By the time he’s old
You will be too
I’ll look elsewhere
It’s a big wide world
I’ll find something special again
Prone to your door
Windows work too
I’ll sneak in
Sneak out
Just Once
Once is never enough
And this is what I chose
To dispose of your beauty
For another
How
Could I
Demands made of myself
You never placed them
On me
Please
Get on me
I’m groaning inside
Sick inside
Trapped inside the pit of
My stomach
All those butterflies
Stopped flying
Floated to the bottom
Of my stomach in a heap
Dead-butterfly-heap

Fallen Child

S. Musick

I walk through sideways doors

in a dilapidated shack

Never enough submerge my pores

naught bring me back

I’m kissed by the dew of springs array

taken aside and slashed

I acknowledge the legitimacy of new day

refusing, I trace my tracks

Step down from lofty stance away

with grief-enamored life

My dark-seated love rests within, stay

by me through the night

Only one ever knew such love gone astray

accept mother’s child’s blight

I cringe-recall your piercing stare by day

your weeping when all was quiet

I sailed madly away from thy stormy bay

splashed in sea’s delight

And like my flesh, contemplated a way

to end this battle of inner might

Years have torn the veil ‘tween our prey

have dimmed the dark rapport

My purpose now is no more stunted say

of Love’s vain truce recoiled

Distance is a fallen child

Expresso Thyself

Sitting here, watching the coffee shop transform with each passing hour: morning buzz; mid-morning lull; noon energy; afternoon calm; evening stragglers; occasional dates; bits of business; wifi feens; head-scratching thinkers; ass-scratching grumps, heart-thralled creatives; bad writers, who at least write; students studying; break-up lines and pick-up lines; medium skinny with whipping; ironies embodied.

Some of my most significant conversations have taken place in coffeehouses. Except for the one with Mom and Dad, that took place in the living room of our cabin. But I digress.

It does me good to sit in this chair, worn and town by strangers before. Knowing secrets were told here. Conversations shared with the adjacent chair. This worn fabric speaks of so many experiences – expressions of life.

I understand, in part, the role every prominent figure has played in my life. Yet, there are some coffee shop conversations I will never shake. Good, bad, indifferent, and life altering.

I look forward to my upcoming days across the table from transparent you.

Banjer’ Picker

Banjer’ Picker, originally uploaded by acousticmusick.

Hold My Hand.

I’m full of stories. It’s a disease. But lately, well…lately there’s been blockage. Honestly, I don’t know how to express adult feelings through my childlike mind. More honestly, I don’t want to say some of the things I feel and make them too real. Everyone knows a thought grows legs when you say it, rather than just swimming in the confines of a gooey mind.

Evolution of thought is frightening! Yet where do we go without it?

I’m perplexed by my reactions. Tears all over everything. So many tears that they drip instead of stream. They splash. Anxiously I brace for daily changes. I question the intent of my heart. I question my abilities.

I think of every profound artist throughout history and how, in some ways their life’s work was more difficult than anything rational and realized. To conceptionally retract the emotion from the being is a most arduous and tedious surgery.

I don’t think I’m cut out for it.

Placing Pieces

The reality of human mortality is before me. Two primary things tripped my switch: watching every season of Six Feet Under, each episode beginning with a death scene; learning the fundamentals of risk management – protection of finances in the instance of life/death premature/late.

All, making us so very H.U.M.A.N.

I was raised with the idea of finite man and infinite God. I was taught not to hold this life as valuable in comparison to eternity. As part of my journey this concept distorted (somewhat). One of my most intense concerns now is to maximize my time on this earth. I’m not ready to say this earth is all. I want to believe it isn’t.

I know that I can do things in this lifetime that have an eternal impact, both functionally and figuratively. I am but one person. You are one person. Our children, individual people. When you start to add us together the impact we make is truly immeasurable. There is power in numbers.

My partner, Erika, makes it her goal to raise our son (and future child/ren) to be “good people”. Originally, I had a difficult time with this concept because I was taught that we’re all sinners and not one good among us. However, with enough daily examples on her part, I see what it is she desires.

She, in her own way, is Christ-like, as I know it. She is compassionate. She puts others before herself. She is forgiving. She is generous of her time, efforts, and resources. She is respectful and deeply loving. She is striving as a “good person” and regardless of “sin nature” she is good in her heart.

I’ve spent a lot of years trying to be what the community I found myself in said I should be. It’s taken a lot of trial and error, but I’m finally realizing that I have gifts as unique as my finger prints and they are meant to be shared with all I meet.

My new career is a role that enables me to be a “Dream Accentuater”. My role allows me to sit down with people for all walks of life and say, “What do you desire for your life and beyond?” And honestly, I feel my many wandering endeavors come together for me in this setting. What a significant reality to see so many seemingly aimless starts unite in a very purposeful direction.

I am hopeful.

Letter to Myself:

Letter to Myself: (but not by Walt Whitman)

How are you, most sensational, complicated, person? I’ve watched you over years, relationships, heights, and struggles. You’ve carried a great stone along the journey. You strapped it to yourself with a thick leather belt and every path you proceeded down you heaved.

This stone’s massive, dear. Bigger than you. But…you picked it, yourself. You chose, right!? Well at least it had your name on it at the transition point. Whether the tags were switched is irrelevant now. Regardless, you accepted it and strapped the harness tight. On you went. On you pulled. And little, fragile, girl that you are under your big, mobster complex, this has been a burden beyond burdens, hasn’t it?

Off the Shoulder of Pikes Peak

153, originally uploaded by acousticmusick.