writer

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! 😀

 

Don’t Tell Me You’re Stuck

Wake up from denial
Open your eyes as it’s been a while
Been a bit of time since you last cleared your mind
Of all your self doubts, worries, and binds
Self created shackles, illusions of a kind
Where instead of living free, you chose to live it blind

Forgetting that whether or not you choose to act
Time continues its march forward, never going back
No more repeats or second chances, let’s pick up the growing slack

I know this failure hurts, but it can be oh! much worse
For if you do nothing but sit by and curse
You’ll take it to the grave, from this chair to your hearse
For this reason alone, I write you this verse

Don’t tell me you’re stuck, give it a different name
Shift your perspective to one embracing change
Let this directive flow through your growing brain
You have the power to love, live and be brave
So keep moving forward, day after day

—

Photographer: Matthew Wiebe

Time to Live

It’s time to begin
Time to bring together the lost pieces
The ones flustered in disarray
Spread out in a land of pure dismay
Where we were too afraid to live it brave

It’s time to release the tension
Been in class for so long, but never got the lesson
That it’s better to be and let be
Than cling to the depressing feeling of self pity
Feeling shitty
Self induced chains restraining the growth within me
Preventing me from finding the strength to sing free

Once disconnected in reflections of fear from imperfections
Let me cast away the state of mind that can’t hear this message
All you have is one life, make it fun and live it right
You won’t always know what that means but you will definitely feel it
This moment reveals it
No more illusions to conceal it
Awaken to the love and let your heart wield it

Express yourself and let love flow through
Grow, grow, grow as you become you
Before our days are done, there are moments to renew
We’ll likely never know all of what is true
But this music sounds so good, and oh! what a view

I’m Disappointed and Here’s What You Need to Do

Open your eyes and see the projects you’re denying
Letting them shrivel up and face the threat of dying
You haven’t worked hard enough to secure these dreams of your mind
So start moving already and begin making use of your time

You already know these kinds of days won’t last
The clocks move the same but each second’s too fast
Leisure not worth the price of letting dreams pass
So start paying attention and get off your ass

I know there are unanswered questions outstanding
But trust me on this, it takes some understanding
That none of it exists, your time just a series of blips
Wibbly-wobbly bits of information
Stored in symbolic logic for mental integration
With many unknowns still due an explanation
So don’t get too caught up trying to escape our situation

Instead, dive in and become fully aware
No longer blind to the love in the air
Notice it here, feel it there
Start finding your reasons to care
Reasons to share a life worth living
A hero who knows that this is the way
Living with love, making use of each day
Knowing that it’ll pass regardless what we say
So let’s make a past worth remembering today

I love you and only wish for you to grow
Just trust me on this, for I definitely do know
That the hype is real, the potential in your heart is truly surreal
Melting into emotional journeys of free will
The power you have can still become a force to be reckoned with
The power of the hero not just held in myth
But in the way your soul moves forward
Moving towards a day that you believe in
Aiding dreams that need relieving
Bringing oxygen to struggling lungs that keep on breathing
Able to become more than expected, don’t ever stop dreaming

Welcome to Blue Skies

At last this feeling is finally back
Here we go, let’s have a blast
One step at a time from the first to the last
Let’s create memories worth calling the past

Allow these hardened walls to crumble away
Insecurities from a different time, the fears of yesterday
Let go of the pain you’ve come to know
Come in closer and let me show you
This is how the Universe has thrown you
A unique perspective aware of it all
Aware of the rise and of the fall
Here for a moment to haul in all these memories
Slipping seconds of new and old dreams
Fleeting senses in the midst of your journeys

Welcome to life, here is your mask
No defined purpose, no specific task
Welcome to the moment, one not to grasp
But to truly let go, feel absorbed at last
For this is what truly matters
Keep working and growing
Disregarding other factors
Choose a life that your heart can follow
Live it well and avoid that hollow sense of void inside
Where all you wish is to run and hide
You’re not alone, you have friends by your side
So stand up tall, become a hero to recognize
Resonate with emotions that continue to amplify
The sense of connection with all under our grand blue sky

Grow, My Friend

I’m trying to fall into love
To exude it like the sun exudes its warmth
The power to heal not given just to time
But in these hands, in these words
These moments of mine
A power to shine
But at the same time
Growing uncertainty begins to unwind
Any fought for sanity, my calmer state of mind
And enter the scene comes a part of me I ever wish to deny
The part who doesn’t care, the one who lets love die

Because he doesn’t quite understand how it all works
As love on the surface appears like something to be obtained
But rather, it’s already within you, flowing through your veins
From your head to your toes, love always remains
As there’s no better time than now to renew
A stronger sense of living true
Your dreams of late deserve daylight too

So let this re-spark an inner passion, let me lead you towards action
Perplexed consciousness amid a world of big numbers and small fractions
I know you feel stuck
But I need you to move
This is your life
Whose time there’s little left to lose
All I want is for you to grow
For you to choose
A life worth living without the self-abuse
Making smart choices so you can produce
Works of art instead of a noose

—

Photographer: Dustin Scarpitti

Onward to 2015!

What a year it has been!

I’ve grown a lot more comfortable opening up and expressing my thoughts here. Coming to the realization that the words themselves do not matter as much as the emotion or meaning they aim to convey. Much like how a photograph fails to portray the stunning fluidity of a river, each poem is an attempt to take a snapshot of flowing water. Though the words themselves continue to exist, they are evidence of something much more. I could never fully recreate a poem word for word — as that moment has already passed with a new one to replace it.

I’d like to share my most viewed and enjoyed posts from 2014:

These are my stepping stones towards a dream of mine. I would love to somehow end up as a song writer and there’s no better way to start than by pumping out poems.

Once again, thank you for reading, writing, liking, and viewing. Your support is what keeps my blog alive.

Here’s to 2015! Let’s make it a good one!

Today You Triumpth

Something about living right feels so amazing
Once that inner fire is lit, just let it keep blazing
No, the road isn’t easy to allow your heart to keep displacing
All your fears and doubts before life starts fading
It’s the heres and nows that require your attention
This very moment is the ultimate lesson
Not yesterday
Not tomorrow
Today is the moment to no longer borrow

For time is not a currency that can be repaid
Dreams are meant to be lived
Not merely stashed away
Hoping for another day
Praying for the energy to come your way

You don’t exist alone and you’re not the only one
Who has unfinished business with matters of the heart
Take these words in and let them kickstart your path to playing the better part
As we’re all just acting between the roles of hero and villain
Often depending on the day, it’s one way or the other
For one reason or another, we either triumph or we suffer

—

Photographer: Chris Sardegna

 

Embracing Dreams

snowyphoto

What we need is some inflation
Of positive sensation
As we’re growing in this nation
A nation of once slave owners
Once blatantly segregated
Yet now that the visible walls are down
It’s time to break the ones that can’t be seen
To move beyond frames of mind which embody racism and hatred

A scene of obscene lack of empathy
As if people don’t care to be one connected family
On this tree of biological entities
In an existence marked by the intersection of the emotional and the logical
The true and nonsensical

Where we have more power than we think
To change and affect the flow of our human race
To champion a cause
Bringing meaning to our Place
Not through demeaning based on a face
But through acting with Love
With the whole world embraced

 
—

Photo: Samuel Zeller

Fractal of Life


Patterns
Series and sequences
Turning in all directions
Containing no meaning until cognizant perceptions
Visible connections
Audible reflections of the vibration that surrounds us
Everything linked in this World of the Wondrous
Look around and you too will see
The ever-present work of Love, this desire to be free
To aspire to be me
Continually growing into my potential to become as bright as the shining Sun
Sharing warmth and comfort to those who’ve just begun
Not stressed enough to forget about the fun
As these fleeting moments end just like they begun
Here for a second, and now already done