What? I Write Poetry?

This is a poem I've performed a couple of times recently, to fairly good reviews :). This post is for everyone who has heard it and wants a copy, and for anyone else who can read.  So yes, this is for quite a broad audience.

Feel free to pass it around to whoever, I don't care if you give credit to me or not. I'm not important enough yet to ask for royalties on anything.





Do you realize

You're worth more than the moon,
 Than vast deserts of dunes, than the blossoms in June?
 Do you know you're more important than the skies,
 The wolf when it cries, the lark when it flies?
 You're more majestic than the ocean,
 More authentic than the motion of the wind,
 And you are a masterpiece

Do you realize you're worth more than the earth?
 Love has followed you since before your birth,
 When your Creator chose to give you worth
 And masterfully craft you - beautifully, wonderfully

Child, you don't carry yourself like a work of art
 Your heart falls apart at the start of each day
 When you glance in the mirror
 And, to your dismay, you're not perfect?

Cut yourself some slack
 I can see you don't lack
 Merciless eyes that criticize
 Each fault, flip, flab, fang, fart, and flaw
 That aren't supposed to feature
 On a Covergirl teenage creature
 And as you slump through the world
 Saying "Woe is me",
 You close your eyes to possibility
 Assuming, "No one could ever appreciate me",
 And we watch as you slowly disintegrate

I know I shouldn't offer help,
 But darling, you seem to be deflating yourself
 You're like a walking piñata with nothing inside
 And I don't think you realize

Then, one Friday night,
 You wandered the streets looking for something new
 And a certain fellow took a liking to you
 He had sly brown eyes and a daring smile,
 And you thought, hey, this should distract me for a while
 So you followed
And as you took that first step, you had trust in your eyes
 The look of someone deceived by showers of lies
 But his words - his charming, alarming, disarmingly bold words -
 Were like water to your love-parched soul
 And oh, he drenched you

So you came home late, all sopping wet,
 Way past your curfew and your mom's upset
 But you can't even heart her, you're in absolute bliss
 Your entire life has been leading to this!
 And she couldn't possibly understand

Flashback
 To a sophomore romance, with parachute pants and a high school dance
 Lights getting dim, room getting hazy, one girl getting crazy
 And one boy who can move like Patrick Swayze
 Oh, baby
 Trust me, your mom understands

Flash forward
 To an outburst of words and miscommunications
 A foundational crack in the already fragile relations
 Of daughter to mother, with violent retaliations
 And honestly, you had unfair expectations
 Of how long and how much and how strong the patience
 Of a mother is when watching her baby destroy herself
 Innocence receding inch by heart-wrenching inch

And that one interaction, that's just the start
 In the following months you perfected the art
 Of slowly crushing your mother's heart
 You lash out at her whenever there's pain
 And you try to relieve it by going insane each Saturday night
 And all these mind games
 Add up to your, on your knees, feeling nothing but shame
 And darling, you can blame your broken heart on a man,
 But it began with a love that you didn't understand

You'd heard stories of love, but you wanted to feel
 So you gave yourself to this guy, and all he did was steal
 Your virginity
 He didn't give you his heart, he just left you in his dust
 And you two weren't in love, you were only in lust
 And a word of advice:
 Don't ever give your heart to a guy who can't keep his pants on

Do you realize
 You're worth more than the stars?
 More than galaxies beyond what man will ever find?
 You have potential, you have life, you were made one-of-a-kind
And you are loved, more than you will ever be able to comprehend

You throw love around like dirty laundry
But you're blind to all that love could be
 Love makes you whole where you have holes
 Love lets you know that you are known
 Love holds your hand when you're in fear
 Love won't let you disappear
 Love makes you strong and powerful and beautiful and new
 Love makes you shine and overcome and be the perfect you
 You'll be satisfied in love that's untainted and true
 And He'll create in you the masterpiece He's always wanted to

If you will just realize

Awesome

It seems I only have a craving to blog when I'm really tired and should be going to bed. That's actually when I have the willingness to do almost anything. A lot of things about me haven't changed since I was six and begging my parents to stay up just a little later. Unfortunately, there's no one around to tell me to go to bed. The cat sleeps all day, so it doesn't care whether I hit the sack right after dinner or at 3 in the morning. So, here I am. Left to my thoughts and stubbornness to go to bed like a responsible human being, and also a box of Wheat Thins. Luckily, I don't work tomorrow, so I can sit here and write and eat crackers 'til the dawn breaks. But I will definitely regret it later.

The thing I've been pondering as of late has been the presence of beauty in my life. Real beauty. Not People Magazine beauty. Not beauty to the standard of perfection. Beauty.
I still haven't gotten over being able to see the Rocky Mountains every day I'm here. I can just look climb a hill and there they are. As much as I don't like going in for early morning shifts at work, the last few instances have been timed perfectly for seeing the sun rise. Just as I'm walking across the parking lot from the bus stop to the !ndigo (because apparently that's the correct spelling), the sun is bursting from behind the big box store barricade (can anyone identify that literary device?) and cascading over the pavement. And from certain angles I can see the mountains. Sometimes intertwined with clouds and mist and hard to identify, other times in sharp contrast with the pale blue sky, piercing the backdrop with their power and size.

It doesn't have to be in the morning for me to see the mountains. Sometimes I'm on the bus in the afternoon with a couple dozen other people, and a stunning view of the mountains appear on the horizon, and I just look around at my fellow public-transportation users and wonder whether they can see what I see, and if they're appreciating it at all.

I've become fond of one particular bus route, in part because it's a lot less crowded and sometimes gets me home faster, but mostly because of the view. I work at the complex called Signal Hill, and it was a thrilling moment for me when I discovered that there's actually a hill behind Signal Hill. It's called Signal Hill. And there's one bus stop that I can use to transfer from one bus to another that's right where there used to be some sort of signal... thing... I haven't really read up on it. The layover from one bus to the next is usually between 12 seconds and 3 minutes, and it's hard to tell which one it will be, so I haven't had time to read the info boards yet. Someday. Anyways, the view from that bus stop. Amazing. A couple of times I've gotten there just as the sun is setting. So the wind is blowing, there are flags cracking in the breeze behind me, the sun is shedding an array of colours in the sky as it descends behind the mountains... And then bus 53 rounds the corner and I have to frantically wave at the driver because they never expect anyone to be at that stop. But seriously, those two minutes of just pure beauty a day... I feel like those are nourishment to something inside me. For me, it gives me a healthy dose of awe for my Creator, for The Creator. But for anyone, I think experiencing beauty is an essential to life. And I've realized that going out of my way to find beauty and taste it daily is not that hard, and so, so good.

It keeps things in perspective, if nothing else.

Here I am, frail and small and confused. Here is something else, something enormous and beautiful and overwhelming.

Awesome.