art

Don’t Forget

When yesterday you said tomorrow
Now there’s no more time to borrow
No seconds left to put on loan
When the time has come for your work to be shown

Given the opportunity to create, did you sit still and hesitate
Or conquer a path laid by those who already tempted fate
Those who made the decision to grow
To combine everything they know and convert it all into something new
Defining what life is for me and for you

You see, so much of our existence was at one point crafted
Yet often we forget that we are the craftsmen
Thinking only in static frames unable to see dynamic waves
Failing to remember all of our changing ways
That nothing exists that will always be the same
There’s nothing to hold onto
Just a life of change

The question is whether or not you wish to play a part
And start taking actions resonating with your beating heart
Working on bringing dreams into your life
So that no longer they lay dormant past regretful nights

—

Photographer: Luis Llerena

Summer Goals

Sweat and code
Health, you know
Taking this time to focus on where I’m going
One step at a time while continuously knowing that as long as I move forward
Moving toward the person that I dream to be
It doesn’t matter if it’s difficult or if it comes easily
This is the story of the self-written prophecy
Inscribed with a pen shared by all who inspire me

No longer waiting for dreams to come to me
It’s a craft, you see, to create and let your own art breathe free
Freely expressing whats pressing on your mind and your heart
When one plus one makes two, but you still don’t know what to do or where to start
Living on a shared planet but often feeling galaxies apart

—
Photographer: 

Rewind

If this arrives on time, then it’s 365 days in the past
I’m you from the future and I want to express how last year went:

Tomorrow you found yourself on the wrong side of the line between escape and entertainment
Enjoyment and an attempt to fill a void with thoughtless distraction
A fraction of life’s potential wasting away in inconsequential moments of apathy

Until presented with a choice
You could choose to allow self abusive habits to roam free
Or you could choose to grow
Choose to rise past the sorrow and move toward a new day
A day worth living, worth singing, worth every of ounce of life that
we’re all clinging to

And you chose to grow

In a month you found yourself alone
Nights of cold, empty blankets while dreaming of someone to hold
When the thermostat says 70 degrees but your heart’s feeling 40 under
Feeling darker and darker until fading into nothingness
Destroying all you’ve worked for until you cared for none of this

And then you saw a reflection that you often miss
The part of you against the love
Who wants to live alone in a world of his own problems
Who sees self-sabotage as simply a way of life
The inescapable cycle that always ends with this metaphorical knife

Yet still, you shook off your doubts and fears and you chose to grow

Six months in came the confidence that you always had, just never felt was there
Consistency and discipline laying the foundation to self mastery
Taking it one step at a time while working towards bad-assery
Seizing this moment to be the hero of your own story
Fast forwarding to the good part, where we live with
Every heartbeat remaining, no complaining
While continuously sustaining this temporary
Expression of love

And you chose to grow

In 12 months, you came across a quote
It read: “A year from now you will wish you had started today”

You’ve got some work to do, my friend
Good Luck!

—
Photographer: Jordan McQueen
Quote: Karen Lamb

Captain

A boat in a bottle
Never let out at sea
Too busy worrying what she’d think
Instead of letting my own heart live free

You see, love is not an arrow shot at a target
Love is open seas — three-hundred-and-sixty degrees of rough choppy water
With the gentlest breeze

Choking on the salt of dried up tears
Of which time stole all the moisture
So much time spent unsure
Just a wish in a bottle, a boat that never touched water
Whose sails never felt the rush of a gust of wind at
Simply the sight of you

It’s not a carefully crafted message to never be seen
It’s spontaneous — dynamic!

Love is a shared boat

I tried to build the perfect boat to lead me to you
I followed every direction perfectly, didn’t break a single rule
Yet still I find myself crying these tears of solitude
Once more drinking on an empty deck

You say there’s more fish in the ocean
But I’m too scared to let my boat sink
Took me so long to realize I never made room for someone else
I looked for a savior without being one to myself

You see, let me not forget I am the captain of my own ship!
Shaken in the seas of good days and bad
Sailing through these waters, a soul sits at the helm
Seeing out into the world and deciding upon which direction to go
Which direction should I go?
Here or there, who really knows
All that matters is to feel how the ocean flows
Waves of emotions as we die and as we grow

—

Photographer: Barn Images

Side-note: If this piece reads a bit differently than previous poems, I’ll tell you why! I’ve recently been going to the Poetry Club at my school. The long-form rhyming that’s in most of my written work reads out-loud much differently than in my head. I received some awesome critique and feedback and wanted to apply it. This piece is part of my growth into being able to perform my work. It sounds much better spoken 🙂

Each Passing Second

One time
A line of continuous moments
Separated by a distance that no one has known yet
The space between each passing second seems impossible to grasp
No way to unmask
The illusion my mind conjures before me
Allowing the opportunity to write my own story
One that I love
One that can’t be boring
No, not one-hundred-percent happy
But one-hundred-percent invested
Taking each passing second as a chance to better who I am
Defining new limits, new bars to reach and overcome
For now I know I won’t stay forever young

As the only time we ever have has only been now
Everyone has been saying it, sharing out-loud
That numbered days are irrelevant when presently involved
Giving all to this moment, whether we rise or we fall

—
Photographer: Andree Brown

Time-struck

stars

Why must we keep on pretending
When clearly everything we’ve come to know is soonly ending
I wish I could lock this moment in a box
Take a second to put it all on pause
In desperate attempt to infinitely grasp this sense of continuous perception
Not to mention, the fact that all my beliefs are held in suspension
Finding it hard to feel grounded
When the concept of sanity seems to elude me
Religious beliefs fail to sooth me
It’s when this pen touches paper that the world begins to move me
As I get further lost in taking my thoughts
And transforming them into something new
Creating a new perspective for me to view
While leading my heart towards living true
And expressing this thought from me to you

—
Photographer: Josh Felise

Set Your Sails

I didn’t always have the confidence
To stand up tall for my own stance
Only giving ground to external forces
As if my soul wasn’t mine and wasn’t even worth it
Not worth the fight of choosing to live right
Where I fell out of light and into more vice
As if insatiable addiction could suffice
To be a life to live, just a roll of the dice

Yet one day I looked in the mirror  and saw the picture clearer
Saw my own chin rise up
As if confidence was the direction of a head held high
Fueled by the dreams as vast as the sky
You see, it took me some time to truly believe
That in my own hands, my own mind
I too have this power to shine
Power to grow and become one step further
One bit stronger
A future to nurture
No longer in search of sweet salvation
No longer procrastinating the most important sensation

The feeling of living by one’s own side
Not just running from problems, for there’s no need to hide
Letting fear and doubt come but then it subsides
Living a life of love, not one of lies

—

This last Thursday, I went to my college’s poetry club for the first time. I wrote this piece for the prompt:

Something that took you a long time to believe in

—

Photographer: Kelly Sikkema

 

Grow Everyday


You don’t need more time
You just need to live it
Stop putting off your growth
As if this is your limit
You can do so much more
Just breathe and believe
That you can still rise up off the floor
I know you feel hurt, I know you feel torn
But that’s just what you get since the day you were born

This life is ultimately not of your deciding
But remember the power in your own hands to create
No, not in the future, but here on this day
Today we live in our own way, not afraid
No longer too scared to live it brave
Now stronger than yesterday
The dues that we just have paid
Give us what we have today

So help me make a better tomorrow
Where instead of choosing a life fueled off of our sorrow
Let’s choose one of love
No longer letting pain remain the status-quo
Hand in hand, let’s truly grow
Let’s come to know
That we exist together in this shared show
Each playing our own part, our own role

—

Photographer: Jamie King

A Reminder to Live

Raise your chin and begin again
For this moment is differing
A new song now for you to sing
A new chance for you to bring together your soul into a single fraction of time
Every ounce of your being, all put on the line
To live a life worth living, not just for dying
Not just complying with every rule given
As if life itself had a directions page, straight from the beginning
Where the laws were put in place with no room for disagreeing
No, life is defined through the process of your being
Through your growth and your love while continually seeing
This gratitude for existence, appreciation for feeling

Not afraid of confronting my own pain
Once broken and stranded, only left with the remains
Trying to figure out how to salvage the wreckage
As if life is a conversation with just a hidden message
As if there’s one secret answer, and then I’ll just get this
Acquire my own bliss
No longer in loneliness
No longer alone and feeling the torment of emotions stuck on hell-bent desires
Self-destructive tendencies lighting personal fires
Where I kept falling into currents of depravity
Easily giving up, avoiding all that challenged me
Impulsive desires urged living lazily
“To sit back and take it slow
Why do it now, when tomorrow you can grow?”

To that voice in my head, I say take a closer look
You’ve seen a friend die, like the unexpected end of a book
What about Ben Zukoff
The one who can not graduate
Whose sudden cancer changed his fate
Don’t give me this bull-shit preventing your dreams of late
With breath in your lungs, your power can create
Can create the ideas and dreams that fill your mind
Bringing time and space into something to find
Giving meaning to life in attempts to unwind
The difficulty of living philosophically blind

—

Last Thursday I shared this at an open mic poetry slam at my college. First time reading my work in front of more than like 4 people! I tried to recite it from memory, but 3 lines in, I forgot the whole thing. So I grabbed my phone to help me remember it all. Once I read one line, I was back to performing it from memory. I wish I could say the rest went smoothly, however, I stopped mid sentence during the end of the piece. Having to stop and repeat my favorite part of the poem did not make me a happy camper. But, I signed up again and shared Welcome to Blue Skies, and didn’t miss a beat! 😀

 

Gateway to Emotion

Trying to slow down and prevent time from moving so fast
Day after day just simply pass
Given several moments to be aware of the ride
Existing in time and space with a heart open wide
Aware of the fact that what we are is more than just what’s inside
Loves, fears, and pains we hide

Living in the age of anxiety, uncertainty
Born with the notion that we can live free
Overwhelmed with emotion, just ever so briefly
That we can grow as a collective humanity
Undiscovered, remain the depths of our sanity

Bringing back the awareness, the mindfulness
A receptive experience of one particular happenstance
Thrown into a world already in existence

With the power of our brains to convert light into meaning
It is us, with perception, that give the Universe feeling
So let us do more and truly start believing
That with our hands, we craft life into being

—
Photographer: Moyan Brenn