writing

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

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

All in a Moment


Here we are on this journey
This bittersweet mix of joys and of worries
Some slow-paced but many hurried
Heads buried in flurries of distractions
Valueless stimulation stealing our time in fractions

Little moments to never again be retrieved
Let’s make them count, instead of failing to see
That this is our life
A chance to love and be free
Not just miserably
But with a head held tall
With a sense of awareness for what we know above all

That the galactic process begun eons ago
Had never really ended, we are still the show
The show of life, the days and nights
Wrongs and rights
Pulsations of lights against the darkness
Suffering amid this one bliss

Here in this moment exists our awareness
The heartbeat of a Universe with a second to witness
The magic and wonder of knowledge without limits

Surrounded by patterns of some known but many not
Where the answers remain elusive in our ever-dynamic plot
In a temporary world condemned to be forgot
And yet here we are, able to give all we’ve got

—
Photographer: Keith Misner

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

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

Live Undivided


Close your eyes
Breathe in
Breathe out
Other distractions you can live without
As you already know the next step
The path only appears forked to those with hesitation left

Open your heart and truly listen
To the rhythm of the world
A life that glistens
Accept your pains and begin dismissing
States of mind which cloud your vision
Become aware of the illusion of division
Between the Universe and you, there is no fission

—
Photographer: Joe Parks

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!