Bad Habits

Bad habits die hard
in murky red veins.
Cancer spreads
invasive aggression.
Matters of mind
matters in body.
Dangerous thoughts
seep into molecules
of life.
They are black in despair
and
in death.

something called legacy

I woke up in the middle of the night, wondering about the people I have cared for in the last few weeks. There was a close call last night and the paramedics came. I woke up tonight with their face in my mind's eye. How can it be... all these years of life to suddenly just disappear. Poof. Nothing left. You are there and then you are not. What happens after? What is left behind?

I'm not sure what I would leave behind. I'm approaching three decades, yet that is still a foreign thought. Yet so much can change in a year... 

Humans of New York

This blog satisfies my curiosity about the people.

http://www.humansofnewyork.com/


Brandon of Humans of New York site aims to take 10,000 pictures of New Yorkers and plot them onto a map. There is a collection of quotes and short stories, which offers a glimpse into the lives of different individuals.

Photographer and Blogger Brandon

Human. Being.

Life.

one word,

one picture...

to encompass everything

that you 

feel

see

hear

touch

taste

experience

breathe

dream

wake

endure

fight

listen

love

cherish

hope

...

the mundane.

the meaningful.

whatever done by the brain. whatever done by the heart. 

what matters?

when it is all over,

what matters?

When it all boils down... what really matters?
What does it mean to be a human being?

My words are me yet my words are where I hide. I hide behind these lines of curves and straights, endlessly encircling and blurring to whichever you may wish to speak. 

Speaking




silence

nowhere to hide

I am absolutely mortified, terrified, beyond the border of embarrassment,
falling with fingers clawing, into another world which sticky, pulsating, sickening twacks

splinters at my side,
ripping apart my rib-cage
as lightning does elegantly to the skies.
Open and nowhere to hide,
no shirt or sleeve to disguise
this sickening, palpitating organ.
Red, red, red, red.
Flushed and bruised,
quivering in distaste like sour wine gone bad,
bile rising and rising and rising, churning with a sickening pain of too-late and too-far, no more exits
for those who miss all the warning signs, taking no cover, no common sense, but being a fool and looking into the sun without any inkling of shade or health
until all I can see is
myself.

Onion Layers

What depth lies in a person's heart, whole layers swaddling a person's core that never seem to end. I hold a fascination in trying to peel them back but the deeper I get, the more my eyes seem to water and burn. Pain. Joy. Fear. Gratitude. Human life.

As hard as I try to be the objective spectator, my own emotions get in the way. I respond without knowing why. I run without knowing why. I sing without knowing why. I reach out my hand without knowing why. I crave without knowing why. My own infinite core is a mystery to me.

What is the human connection? To be seen. To be seen and heard. I see you. I see your layers, the ones you'll allow me to see. I see it and I'm still here. There is no fear in perfect love.

In gardening, onions don't like to be crowded so they must be planted apart. They are all lined up in the closeness of the other bulbs, all waiting for the sun and rain to fall. We are our own yet we all still yearn to be known.  

Do you ever wonder...

The stars were marvelous tonight. My absolute favorite thing to do is to gaze up at these beautiful twinkling lights. We can see them yet we can never reach them or see them enough. When I was a little girl, I would squint as hard as I could in effort to capture them in my gaze, longing to see them in their fullness.

I forget sometimes that they are there. My worries and anxieties of daily life cloud out the starlit diamonds like the light pollution of the busy city. But every now and then I catch a glimpse of the stars. It slows me down. My breath. My time. My thoughts roam as big as the expanse of the sky. As I stand against the frame, the cold crisp air filling my lungs, I begin to wonder...

Right this moment, who else is gazing up into the sky?

Who are they?

Where are they?

As I'm gazing up at the stars in wonder, is there someone out there looking up at them in hope? In longing? In despair? Fear?

Is there someone looking at them now with a longing for the freedom out there in the world? Or a little girl with her hopes and dreams on a sleepless night.

I wish I could meet them. I wish I could meet them and see the world through their eyes for a little while.

Mark

I cannot bring myself to that point
of cold shaking hands and a stifled breath;
when the memory can only disappoint
a heart already close to death.
So here I sit in a cloud of grim wonder,
daring to take a step towards the dark.
Teeth clenched, emotions torn asunder
as I dwelt into my soul's sore mark.


____________________

Verses discovered on a scrap of yellow paper in between old notebooks.
Penned in high school.