Thursday, December 27, 2012

they were lies what she said

"they are just words" she said,
"they mean nothing" she said
 
she lied.
 
because there is no such thing as just words my dear
these are words and i am speaking them, writing them
onto paper and they have meaning and they are not
just anything, they are not
meaningless.
 
i can take these words and i can make things
that are ugly seem beautiful and i can make things that seem
boring a little bit more exciting, i can
use these "meaningless" words to make you feel
worthless just as easily as i can use them to make you feel
wonderfully meaningful.
 
so my dear, my dear little young one, don't listen
to her when she says that words are nothing
because they are something and they are not meaningless,
without them there would be nothing, they make things
and break things, they are
the very core of our beings - writer or not - because
we would all be nothing without these words, the words
that lift us up and pull us down.
 
and i ask you this;
if words really do mean nothing than how can i say
"I love you"
and actually mean
something.

baby, i've burned myself away

baby i've got myself a new addiction and you would kill me if you knew
that i quit cutting through your carefully sewn stitches because it was too easy
to get new ones and too easy for you to notice that i was breaking again
because i have a bit of an obsession with the idea of shattering into 
a million pieces and your careful attempts at sewing me together
made me want to scream, made me want to cut through the strands
of your love that was holding me together and so now, now i've got myself
a new addiction baby
and this time there is no way to fix me.
this time you can't sew me back together because i'm becoming too hard
for your needle and your thread can't get through my skin because it is burning,
burning away your attempts at fixing me baby
with a little bic lighter and little yellow flame i've got you out of the way
and now you can't fix me because i'm too charred and if you touch me
with your needle i will just break because i am so burned out, i have
burned myself away into a pile of ash and dust
that you can't sew back together
and you will never know this because i will never tell you because i secretly
want you to make me a pile of nothing, then i would have an excuse
to die.
 
and baby, it would be all your fault.

its too soon for you

they say that age doesn't matter in death and they were right
because you are only two years old and yet death is sneaking up on you,
slipping into your room late at night when the monsters plague your dreams
and make you wake up suddenly, fear making your little two year old limbs
tremble as you cry out for your mother and your father;
"mommy, daddy!"
but those monsters are not the ones you should be fearing,
the one you should fear is hiding in your blood and your bones
and you can't see it as it rips you apart from the inside out,
making your parents want to cry out to God and plead for Him to save
their little baby girl with only two years of experience who is so close
to slipping away because of the cancer that plagues you and eats at your
two year old body, two years of no experience yet
so close to being taken away.
 
and i pray that someone can come and take away all of the monsters,
hiding in your dreams and hiding in your little body that is already
so very frail and fragile
because, you, more than anyone in this world
deserve to grow big and strong and fight those monsters and live a life
with many more cakes because two is not enough to know
which one is your favorite.

it was too early for them. (dedicated to the children in the Connecticut shooting 12/14/2012 RIP)

i.
his big brother came home from college last night
and promised him that they would play soccer together
when he got home from school that day,
so when he hugged him goodbye and told him
"I love you",
he had something to look forward to.
 
he hid underneath the table when the big scary man
with his scary gun turned towards him and the sound
was so very loud and so very scary and he just wanted
his big brother to come and save him, to come and get him
so they could play soccer together when he got home from school.
 
he never got to go home, he never got to play soccer
with his big brother who was at home waiting for him.
 
ii.
she told her mother that she wanted to be a nurse someday
as they sat down for breakfast that morning,
she said it was because she wanted to help people
like her grammy did and it made her mother smile.
 
she didn't even have time to react,
the gun was pointed at her before she could even scream
and when the shot rung out through the room
she could only hear the others around her as she fell to the ground.
 
she would never be a nurse someday, she never would get to
save people like her grammy did.
 
iii.
her mommy promised her that they would go out for dinner that night
because it was her birthday and she was going to be
six years old, a big girl, and she was so excited 
for cake and ice cream and presents when she got home.
 
her eyes were closed and she pressed herself against the wall
as he fired away at random,
hoping that if she couldn't see him then he wouldn't be able to see her
because she was scared and everyone was screaming.
 
she never got to eat that cake, never got to eat the ice cream
because she never got to finish her birthday.
 
iv.
he was excited because he was going to play with his
new baby sister when he got home,
his mommy promised when she dropped him off at
school in the morning and he was so excited he even bragged
to all of his friends and his teacher that day.
 
when the man started towards him and the chaos around him
made him turn to run,
he didn't know that behind him the gun was being raised
and the trigger was being pressed and the shot was being fired.
 
he never got to play with his little sister, never would be her big brother
and would never be able to teach her everything he knew.
 
v.
at breakfast she had gotten to eat a chocolate candy,
the 14th one of the month,
as she counted the days until Christmas morning
with her family everyday because she was so very excited
to give her mom and dad the gifts she had picked out for them.
 
when the bullet hit her it caused a pain she could have never imagined
and she screamed out as she fell to the ground,
her teacher ran to her side and knelt down to try to stop the bleeding
but she couldn't get it to stop in time and she began to fade a little bit,
becoming oblivious to the sounds around her.
 
she never got to eat the candy for the 15th day, never got to see Christmas morning
or give her parents the gifts she had picked out just for them.
 
_____________________________________________________
 
and that was only five of the twenty children who had their lives
ripped away from them too many years too early,
torn from the world and their families only days before Christmas
by a man whose rage became so uncontrollable that he couldn't
keep it in check and so he brought those guns to that elementary school
where he shot so many children and the teachers who just wanted to protect them
from this monster, killing so many people,
including his own mother.
 
what has this world become?
 
[author's note: the children described in this piece are generic, semi-fictional children who represent the ones killed today in the Connecticut shooting]