Blooming Death
Awake my gentle flower
Go and explore your brand new home.
Greet your brothers and sisters.
Your grandfather Oak who stands tall guarding you all.
Who gives you cool shade when the sun is burning with hate.
But don’t be afraid, go enjoy your day.
To play in its’ light when the sun is calm and comforting.
Years will pass, and life comes and goes,
Soon you will have a whole new world to explore.
Towers of stone have entered your home.
You stare and feel the cool lifeless forms.
Their clear glass eyes hold no soul but reflect your own.
But there’s no need to fear for they welcome your brethren,
Allowing them to grow around their form,
But still, you feel a distance grow.
Time is such a marvel as you continue to wander.
Life replaced with land of sand and gravel,
and though it is fed with water, it does not grow.
They lay still to seal the gentle ground from your hold
Lost in the coldness and confusion you still find a friend.
Though sick and old you never loosen your hold.
However old friends must go as new structures are formed.
I carried by her side not sure how to protect her from the biting light and the cold loneliness of night. I did my best to hold her close as I wondered…
What was she to be then a wilted flower on the street?
You began in darkness, though grew in light with blissful life.
Watched it vanish as time passed by,
To only have you drown in light and return to the darkness of eternal life.
Stargazer
Tonight the moon is high, and the stars are shining bright, and ten million children are looking up at the sight to try and make a wish upon a light. A different wish every night, wondering if their dreams will come alive. Though I hold my thoughts and count the stars wondering just how many wishes can be made in a single night. I count each wish, each hope, and dream, and I see every child on their knees pleading to the stars to take their hearts, asking for a taste of their dreams.
A girl in California wants to be a movie star, a boy in New York hopes to have his voice heard as he performs across the stage. The little girl in Pennsylvania wants to be a princess. You can easily see their wishes in the sky, because these are the wishes that light the night sky shining bright, right along the moon held high. One look and your hook, and soon you’ll be making a wish and hoping it comes true. These are the dreams that make the stars, that kept burning almost turning the night to light.
But wait, how about those specks hiding behind the rest. Can you see them? Try to find them. I know they’re hard to find, but avert your gaze from the brightest gem in the sky and hold your eyes to the smallest light and you will see a child hugging his knees holding onto a broken dream, wishing to find a place called home. Then turn your eyes to another small star lost in the sea of dreams. That small speck is of a girl wishing for less artistic parents because she’s tired of being their canvas, she’s tired of how they both use the same colors, purple, black and blue. Because each day those colors are splattered around her face, down her arms, hugging her legs all colored, Purple, black, and blue. Or how about that star right behind you of a little boy wishing for food because he wishes to live another day. He wishes and wishes, but his hope starts to fade When a child's faith begins to fade the night sky gets a little bit darker.
Who is Love?
Love is a beauty
Warm and gentle
No longer scared of cooties.
Love wipes away your tears when you're in pain.
They will always play your favorite games.
Love will always hold you close
and whisper they will never let you go.
Love grows extra special once a year
With boxes of chocolate and stuffed bears.
They are there to wash away your fears.
In elementary school, I had no idea who or what Love was.
But every other 7th and 8th grader in my class,
Understood Love as clear cut glass.
Love was gooey and warm like a chocolate chip cookie
Love was shy and gentle
Love promised to never lose the key,
Love would sneak quick kisses on the cheek,
Arms wrapped around whispering they will never let you go.
Love, was a lie
In high school, Love was a game,
Spin the bottle, truth or dare, competing to see who had the best aim.
An RP game, the right gear, and combo can win you the most hearts.
Love is a double-edged blade.
Sworn to protect your best friend, only to end up in your best friends back
Because love had a 6 pack
Love was SORRY!
Love would move right past you,
Stayed far behind,
But never right beside you.
Love choose what was best for them and always stayed on guard.
Love would force you to start over, telling you Sorry,
Because that was the line on a little game card
Love was a challenge.
Who was the true beauty to win the guy?
Who was the strongest to have the princess by his side?
Love didn’t always care when you were sad,
Love didn’t always want to listen,
Love didn’t always want to kiss,
Love didn’t always want warm and gooey,
Love, just wanted to let go.
When I entered college I had no idea who Love was.
Thought I know what they were like.
I never played their game but witnessed it just the same.
Love was only for the cool kids in 8th grade.
Love threw my best friend in my arms, having me stitch up the broken parts of her heart, only to show up one year later and have me never see her after high school again.
Love said together we are birds of a feather, now and forever, until Love leaves you for someone better.
Love was waking up at 3 am to hear shouting next door.
Yelling out “I don’t love you, and I never will.”
Love would slam the door leaving soft whimpers of gentle rain after the storm.
Love was a family of a shattered vase.
Pushed, thrown, smashed, never missing to hear the crash.
All the pieces scattered reaching for the glue to piece it all back together.
But Love lost a piece or two, and it never really looked the same again.
Love was never really sure where you fit in. Every hole was too big, too small,
It was never the right fit.
That’s why Love I’m prepared
I’ve dawn my armor and grabbed my blade,
Carrying 15 first aid.
And I made a vow to never let you in.
My mistake…
I started to feel the weight of the steel frozen chains I throw around my heart.
I never realized just how cold and silent the world could be when I locked you out.
I know that you and I are not perfect and I’m sorry for my neglect.
So I’m ready Love, the locks are gone, and my arms are open wide.
But love didn’t come find me.
I searched for Love for a day, a month, a year, or has it been 2?
Only to find that Love never wanted me.
I lost the game before it started
No matter how many times I tried, Love always pushed me back, never said a word,
Just showed me their card, SORRY (go back to start).
Our Stories
​Remember the time when we used to think we were unstoppable. When we thought we were unbreakable when we jumped from our tree in the backyard thinking that we could fly and that we would never say good-bye. We were fearless, ‘Till we heard the beat of deaths drum saying come, come, come!
As the living, we fear death for when it comes and takes us away. Even when you have the choice placed in the palm of your hand, there is still pain. But Death is nothing more than the end to the beauty of the cycle of life. When our soul is at rest, and we leave all our worries behind. Remember that Death is not a scary thing, it is not a terrifying skeleton in a dark cloak with a blade at your throat. No, Death is the end to the story of your world, But the beginning to the thousands of tales that will be told by the ones we love. Even the ones we love will cry and ask death why? Why he took us away from their loving hold. Thinking that our new home is a cold place beneath the earth. Though Death has a home filled with billions of books all established within the shelves or stacked upon each other near the open fire. So that they are close to death for when he’s tired.
Each book within his collection is different from the rest. From children stories to horror novels but no matter the story they each have a moral. Each book has its mark, has its place. Each book has a different color. Some rich with text, others faded and dusted. Some have a tale spun through the years with dozens of inked pages all tucked away behind its bind. Some only have a page or two for the two-year-old who tried to live as the grains of sand slowly slipped through the clear glass. As most days Death has seen it all, he brings a new book with pages slightly soaked within its own tears and of the ones who said their last good-bye before death took it to its new place in an open space.
Though today Death pulled out a bright new red book that was quite dry and light. One of a child, a young boy who died far to early leaving a loving family behind. Death opens the book to read the story of how his life was filled with nothing...
But dreams and joy. Every paged lightly scribbled with hope and dreams of what the child wanted to be. Death turned to very few pages at the end of the book to read the part he had witnessed only moments ago. He was there with the boy, who laid in the crisp coffin of forever rest.
Watching the tears of his family filled with regret as days light starts to set. Death heard he's family’s cry saying “we will miss you.” He heard them say through broken breath “Every memory will invade our mind just to remember you all through time.” Death hears them say how they could wish to turn back time just to be with the boy once more and have him in their hold and to never let go. But they know that he had been called on and that it was time for them to let go, but it hurts so much to have that little boy slip through their hold. It’s funny how life can end within a second, disappear within a moment.
Death closed the book and placed it back in its spot. Amazed with a child who, at such a young age, could smile and let go — one full of so much hope. For one who’s been alive since the beginning of time, one who can say he’s seen it all, there still so much for Death to see. Even through all the tears and hate he still remembers his job. Death takes us to a new home where our name is placed in stone, where we choose the path we want to follow, for we will live forever. Death lets us know that there is no more pain, no more suffering, no more sorrow. That our new destiny is pointed to eternity.
Death does not tell us to run and hide. He shows us to live our life. When we are born, we learn to take our first step, speak our first word, and as we grow we show the world what we are made of, and our stories follow. Through the years as we write our tales we write all of our dreams and hopes, we write the best, and the mess, we tell of the time we fell but got up and brushed of the dust. So when our last golden grain slowly slips through the stained glass of the colors, we have made, and we will play that story in our mind making sure that each chapter is long enough, the pictures are perfectly placed, and it is all clear for someone else to read, see, and hear. So that it’s ready to give to Death for when he opens the cover and reads the title, he will welcome us to his home.