Take your stars from my crown, they exist without your brillance. Friends of fire never fade on lonesome nights. The moon's silent heat cools a summer evening with ruthless gravity. Harsh unkind words betray their master. Tears fly among a circle of angels at war. Love does not leave hope. My heart has no space for air. A tainted soul loses the strength it had to once to walk on water. I searched the holy books, the poets and the analysts. I have travelled to a foreign land to be nobody's child. She lives below my skin. Love will allow our hands to touch but Spring was once here. An unseen green dress from that season dances in my closet next to her favorite blue shirt of mine. Summer came and the days grew longer but there was always a smile to build dreams on. Warm arms at the end of the day made the journey worth taking.
Departure is forbidden because a thing of beauty can not die, like sleeping spirits, they whisper a lullabye. Shut out what the liars say, they are not the what you once knew. I hated my origins. All save the music that raised me. That's when friends were nice, and to think of them just makes you feel nice, like the smell of grass in January.
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
---And Still I Rise, Maya Angelou
There is nothing left to see. I strain to look at the paintings on the wall but there is too much darkness in the room. It is a shame, for the scenes of my life on the wall are things I have tried to remember, some I have tried to forget, but they are all part of the exhibition. The sun is shining outside the window. If I pull myself together, I may find the strengh to part the curtains long enough to give the outside world a parting glance.
I never really knew anything previously held to be true. Hell is cooking a storm that will blow by all. This too shall to pass. I am going pray. All I have is today. It is lonely, but it is allright. Hope springs from the filthiest places and I believe that I am no exception. If only questions were asked before the shooting started. Deceit is betrayal's bitter fruit. The taste on my tounge does not easily slip away. Let Kingdoms come, I will find my way. It is allright.
I had a dream, not so much a dream as much as wishful thinking. I was in that state beetween sleep, dream, and awakening. I could see nothing but I could hear everything. Judy and Kent must have been talking about something, but in my mind I turned it into the perfect wistful fantasy.I was asleep at home and there was a function, a birthday or Christmas, something that involved people talking outside your door in exited tones. Hot cups of ginger tea would be ready when I go downstairs. Along with beings that light up with the very sight of your drool-encrusted sleepy face.I did not want to wake. Foolishly I thought I could will myself to sleep forever. Perhaps I kept re-visiting dreamland to find the comfort I can not find in this world. Maybe that's why I woke up at 6pm. But outside it looks, feels and sounds like 9pm. Rain hasn't stopped. Still feels like I'm trapped in the sounds and memories of the rain from yesterday, playing in an endless loop like a Mobius strip.
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
---D.H. Lawrence
