Ugh.

Dump me once, shame on you...
what I would give for a way
to trust another someday
for now, shame on me.

This is the strangest poem I've ever written.

Every time I go over a speed bump,
I hear the ching of my tambourine
and the clink of a dozen bottles in the backseat
picked up from places where they just shouldn't be
and then forgotten.

What do I want to be when I grow up?
Who says I will?
I'm always going to be me;
always learning.

People like the college
forward arrow to nine to five life
because there's a template.
Living without one is hard,
which is what makes life hard for those of us who do.

We live out of the box,
so people can't put us in a mental box
to store away for later.
People love films,
because reality is scary.
That's why I'm scary.

Men don't love women;
no, men love conquest.
That's why when someone says "she's out of your league"
he has to have her,
regardless of who she is.
It's why girls who put themselves out there
get trumped over and over.

Exercise is painful,
and so is learning,
and so is walking in a new pair of shoes.
Yet here I am,
day after day,
getting a cup of coffee
and sitting in one place until I finish it.

Who really knows what is healthy?

Ample Material Descends

I used to think that nobody could take anything from anyone else,
that it had to be given.
Then I realized that your spirit could be stolen.
A wise woman told me that people could steal everything but your intelligence,
but now I realize that some people will make you into a complete fool.
I then decided that the only thing that can't be taken
is a person's ability to love.
Over time, however, I realized that even that can be crippled by the most beautiful of the cruel.

Stopping to smell the roses
is not a cliche unreasonably.
Walking and thinking and smelling
give you the right kind of thoughts.
One of these thoughts finally gave way to my first break of enlightenment.

The only thing that cannot be taken from us
is the love of God.

I'm sure there's something else,
but I may or may not find it,
and I'm zen on that.

For now,
I have daily hugs of splendor,
and the most pleasant kind of distractions.

Symposium

A small-shouldered woman
with stylishly short white salt-and pepper hair and
lavender sweater
said sweet words of
reality of living life
and making melody
and blew me out of the water
and into the empty thin space where music is free to be born.

Revealing

The thing that makes me sad
about awe-inspiring music
is that I'm afraid I'll never
have real life experiences
to match these emotions.

Untalented

I have not yet the skill,
so am I a fool for trying?
Or, like everything else in life,
will my embarrassment be
the thing that makes me good
eventually?

I feel wrong.

Like my black boots no longer able to be held together by duct tape,
my sense of continuity is dead.
The world whirls around,
as does my spinning opinion of the world's whirling.
I'm dizzy,
and fall down in new shoes.

The Mediocre Composer

So many sleepless nights
that I can smell coffee in my urine,
wondering if anyone will be
feeling as inadequate as me.

Why is it so hard
to make something sound easy?
Will I complete anything to
anyone's fruition?

To my own?
To pleasure?
Or always to pain?

I am just the ruddy-faced girl
trying to turn a piano into an instrument
or at least a tool.

Wanting to put the rapture in others
that music has put in me.

All I have are words
and the songs of my heart,
which are quite odd,
but then again,

I myself, am quite odd,
and I can cause smiles,
and I know
more than anyone,

that a smile can save a life.

Fallen

A crow's feather falling
can float as a crow does
for a while,
but it is independent
and flies it's own course.

It decorates the ground
for those who look down,
and then it may decorate anything.

A Pleasant Dream

A dream
is something
that one expiriences,
enjoys,
relishes in.

Then it ends,
and we wake up,
say "Oh, that was nice,"
and continue to live the joys of the day,
that are so much better
because they are real.

My friend,
I can honestly say
that being with you was
so much
like a pleasant dream.

We are God's Children

We are all children of our Father,
and we live in the house he built for us
as brothers and sisters.

Like brothers and sisters,
we don't always agree,
but we are living in one house
and must learn to get allong.

When our Father looks around His house
and sees his children,
the children He created and loves constantly bickering,
it makes Him weep.