"I Think I Have Cancer, No Really I Think I Have Cancer" She Said As She Shook His Shoulders Trying To

I miss the rain

Or better, i guess i miss the way it rained there

Fat heavy drops

Not like delicate tears on your skin but so full of water you could feel the individual impacts like your grandmother's hand patting you on the head

But just like grandmother's, not all rain was soft and kind, it also raged and thundered

Loud screaming into the night and the sound of those heavy blows on the roof like rocks from the heavens

To go out, to experience the storm was to feel whole and yet also wholly small

The rain is

Quiet, here

Tamed and angry in it's taming

Anger of futility

Anger of frustration

Maybe some others would call it gentle or kind or soft

But there just isn't enough of it to be those things

Not to me

To me it's just a drizzle, never more than a pattern of calm and too still even in it's movement

The last remnants of a still dying god killed long before it's time

The rain here is dead

And so

I miss the rain

Be not afraid

Be not afraid of that to come, for you are stronger than you think 

Be not satisfied with pictures of places, long to see them and be 

Be not afraid of success, that which opportunity affords those who risk 

Be not complacent in your life, but show your feelings and strive for the best 

Be not afraid of emotions, raw and powerful, but let yourself express and experience 

Be not who you were 

Be not afraid of who you could be 

But love who you are 

It's hot but it's not too hot it's hot in that summer, carnal, sweet sweat and hard work smelling strong of sawdust and body odor way

And you only get it from working in the sun, sweat doesnt smell the same if it's a hike or just sitting outside or a workout indoors in the winter

There's some . . . Visceral about hard work sweat in the summer

It's original sin

A wet hot American summer

Adam eating "the apple" under a blazing sun feeling the sweat bead under his curls at the back of his neck at the same moment that sticky savory juice graced his lips changing forever how he saw the world

It's what the pope fears more than anything

Raw

Humanity

Unfiltered

Un fettered

Animals running flat out across a grassland under golden rays

Laying in the shade of trees older than their speech

All their warts and beauty on display for anyone to see

Drops of it, stories encased in wet salt hit the ground and color it dark in a silent plea for rain

Stars

And as she sailed across the plain,

The men awestruck stared at her wake.

The beauty of her grace so sweet,

Forever gone from his embrace.

The king so sad, destroyed was he,

Her life was once his great escape.

The prince distraught, his mother gone

He’d miss her touch tender yet strong.

The star she was shined brightly through.

The years she spent on earth now done.

The blessings of her days endure

While she ascends to take her place

Her place among the stars awaits.

The Red Backpack

What do you do when it hurts this much?

I don’t even know where the pain comes from. It’s a combination of loneliness and longing I think. But why? I thought I was perfectly happy, I have nothing to be this upset over! 

I am blessed, so why do I feel cursed?

Why do I feel like every person on the planet is mocking me? Why do I feel so alone? What’s wrong with me? am I really lying to myself that badly? will I end up like the man at the library talking to someone no longer there I imagine his story 

It's. . . Odd

I'm deeply Appalachian

Fundamentally claimed and cursed and part of that mountain chain that's older than words and hides and traps things older than that

Those mountains were my womb, where i first hurt and where i first held, how i learned to heal and harm in turn

Those mountains are the spine of the world, sinking under the weights of ages, settled in their rage and power but no less dangerous

These mountains are flash in a pan

Young and loud and tall and prouder than they should be

They take and take and take and forget that if you want to keep taking for long then you need to take less and more kindly

These mountains are barren in a way that Appalachia never was

Stripped of life and all emotion except numb fury

The things living in these hills aren't tricksy and wily and powerful, they're injured animals on the run and they're cornered in by the press of toxic humanity

They don't know me

And i don't know them

But they see me, sense me, look for me

And I'm afraid sometimes

I don't dislike them

They're alien

They're wild

They're not home

But i could learn to work with them

But also? I miss clever jack, i miss the plants i know by heart and smell and sight

I miss the ghosts of those who should've never been there but dug in deep anyways

I miss the AGE

I feel old my dear

I've been around too long, this is not the first meaty church my spirit had occupied and these mountains make me feel old and weathered and like I've walked into a party i was not invited to

but my heart went west so now thats where we make our home, itll do for now

it feels so disingenuous and false to be writing a personal statement about how I wanted to save the world when I am applying to a university that  contributes to those issues. The world is ending and I am passing my time by trying to put on the facade of a higher class than I am so that what, do I can fit in? so I can get a job? what the fukc is the use of that

Fall (in retrospective)

The leaves come falling down like lovers hearts and children’s knees

Everyones getting engaged and loving each other

People are preparing for the long cold winter

People are cuddling with loved ones and reaching out

Dress up as ghouls and ghosties to scare away the demons in our own minds, fall is a time for reflection, the leaves are changing color as is the people’s hair. The temperature lessens, the frost slides into the cold mornings and covers windshields in intricate crystalline tapestries. The rain falls down, the monotony of school starting is broken up by dreary rainstorms and brilliant shining brisk days full of cold sunshine. As the seasons change humanity is reminded of their own inability to control the world around them, photosynthesis and the water cycle and all of the wonderfully terrible things about fall remind you of all of the wonderfully terrible things about yourself.

The Soulless

Those who do not see and care even less. 

The soulless aren’t those without an eternal soul but those whose souls are born asleep. 

They annoy me 

I am awake, ALIVE 

I was born that way, I don’t know why 

I’ve been awake since I opened my eyes 

I pity those who never awaken but I weep for those who awaken later in life because then they realize what they have missed. 

You don’t have to be awake to be saved but sometimes that change in your heart can awaken you 

That should shock to your soul acts as a defibrillator 

or you have a choice 

and the Psychosis will Worsen 

Control

My emotions are like currents under the waves, deep and powerful and yet on the surface I can seem completely calm. 

I am tired of having to seem calm 

I want to rage and gnash my teeth against the light, 

I want to scream and bellow my anger and sorrow to the winds 

I want to use this power I feel, this passion to wound and break and bend the world into my image, into what I see fit, into what would suit my whims 

But I don’t 

I muzzle my rage, I suppress my howls of pain and tether my biting indignation to other calmer outlets, like logic, like patience, like fore thought and premeditation 

I direct my anger inwards, I point my passion at myself and shape it into a desire to cut out injustice and create better lives and healthier places for those I love. I turn it into a drive to do better, to be better, to accomplish more. I seek to improve, to inspire, to incite others to also be better and do better and yet. . . 

I am still left angry, my self hatred battering the walls I so carefully construct to keep others from being harmed by my emotion. And when the walls crack I am reminded of why they are needed. 

I hurt other, I twist and my face contorts into venom and malice and reveals an inner core of ice caps broken over a volcano. The hot and cold fighting for control causing the winds to whip ever louder, ever stronger, ever wilder. And I wound. I take offense to words that should not hurt, I bite back viciously at perceived attacks and stab using words meant to wound in such a way that I can twist them later to soothe the pain I have so caused. 

and so I must maintain my control even as I weep from the pain of being caged