And here I am, again.

Speak (in progress) Oil on Canvas board

April 25, 2006


Late for work, I sit on the train across from a crackhead couple. As he loudly whispers to her that I have a big nose and she responds that she thinks I'm pretty, I pretend, like they believe, that I can't hear them. I think about the relationship bewteen what you get and what you give in life. I feel I'm slipping.


Many good things have found their way to me the past few years. Not because I'm "lucky" but because I worked hard for the "blessings" that seemed to magically follow me.


I believe in staying driven, not just because it sounds good. I'm in the middle of it as a life lesson. The results of forgetting how you got where you are can be disastrous.


It's easy after a long stretch of hard work and a subsequent long stretch of its fruits, to forget that there is a reason why all things fell into place. Easy to begin to feel entitled, to believe that good things are simply owed to you in life, just because, well because you really are "lucky" as your less motivated critiques so lovingly label you.


I have forgotten. I stopped earning what I have a long time ago. It's catching up.  


For me, for what I want to leave behind, for all the people who lend me their light, for all the people mine illuminates and for those whom it offends, I have got to get back to more solid ground.

 

This is one of my favorite poems. I want it on my tombstone upon my demise.

AFFIRMATION

(Drawn by Anonymous, 2nd Avenue F Train Platform)

 

I AM.... WHAT I CREATE. 

MAKE YOURSELF.

 

Interupward

We're propelling each other forward. Feel the cool wind whipping against our faces as we dance in the distance between us and our old shells. A distance created by these changes that WE are creating.

I like the wave we're on. The things that dont matter quietly falling apart as we push, hard, and the things that do grow strong.

I look forward and I see us as we pause to sit with each other, with hot faces and warm hearts, knowing we helped each other, held each other while giving space to each other. A silent glance exchanged that without any sound says "Look how far we've come. WE MADE IT." 

Then,
 we do it all over again.

Water

If I genuinely want your happiness then I can't stand in its way.

I want to be happy. I want you to be happy too.

I want to be proud of myself. I want you to be proud of yourself too.

I love you. I want you to love yourself too.

Even if it means a reluctant goodbye

to plans I had for us and the things that include a "me & you."

It's OK. Life is transitory that way, and love,

true Love isn't set in any particular way.

Love folds and bends like the waters of a river around and over

the pebbles in its way.

I'll be here always.

In love. 

In all ways.

The Paradoxical Commandments

by Dr. Kent M. Keith


People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.


If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.



If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.


The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.


Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.


The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.


People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.


What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.


People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.


Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.



© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001

WORTH SHARING AND LIVING BY.

Love Always,

Christina

Streamline

I will keep these emotions encased in a sleeve
and pointed away from my face.
Left to their own devices
they'd cause some sore eye or another to bleed so,
yes, I'd rather let you guess.

Guess wrong,
wonder more,
and guess again.

Speaking less starves my regrets.
In the paddings of my mind all things uttered can be safely unsaid so, 
yes, I'd rather let you guess.

I'd rather my thoughts stay missed and left

                                  suspended,

thudding softly against the walls of an enourmous glass case.

Pointed away from my face
where they are harmless.

Honesty, Bludgeoned.

Eternally painful
Eternally sweet
Masked my eyes
Eternal your sleep

Yours dance with life
my reason retreats.
So sharp is the knife,
that lays beside me.

A pierce of your skin;
a plunge, a rip,
quiet, and deep.
Ears
that still ring
from the sound of your screams.

Eternally painful
Eternally sweet
Unmasked my eyes
Eternal your sleep.

Short Mind Muscle Flex

Memories become instincts
Lies become regrets
A lot does the heart forgive
That the mind cannot forget
A wound that heals with time
Time can open up again
Memories become instincts
Lies become regrets

Te Extraño

I miss lying on your belly,
my head rising and falling with your breathing,
ears flooded with the sound of your heart beating.
Mind at peace, far off, dreaming

Safe and sound in concerted breathing.

Today, the lonely beat of my heart
labored and heavy
is sometimes...
too, too, too, too, heavy.

Even though I thought
somehow I was prepared
for this dark day.
Somehow.... ready.

Today like the first day,
again,
I feel it.
My heart’s just not in this life
without your breathing.

oracion meditacion

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT
BE STILL AND KNOW
BE STILL AND
BE STILL
BE.

This I learned a couple of years ago in my practical philosophy class. Learning to sit silently with your inner self behooves everyone. In the first line "God" can be whomever you want him/her to be, but the point is that this being is inside you, as you sit still you find it. The second line you sit with the thought that you and that god both just are. The third line invites you to know that and feel that inner "I" your spirit.  The rest is self explanatory.

I dont break.

This year I lost so much I stopped recognizing my self. The stranger that remains, is who I really am. I dont need to mold her. She just is. She is true. She exists. She is nothing like I thought I was. Or like I so badly wanted to pretend to be.

I'm not that good. I'm ok with the occassional lie. All is fair in love and war and I like the ugly in life. I know we all gotta do what we gotta do to get by. I'm ok with hairless tongues, sharp ones, either side. I've taken lashings before, many, and I've survived. I am ok with being estranged from my mother. I even feel more at peace for it.

I can act, without judging me . I can just be             with no words to follow. Because I dont fit into them.

I have nothing left to fear. So maybe you should be afraid. I know a few that may have dreaded this day. Shit, so did I. Because here, there are no excuses and no where to hide my shine.

I am not afraid to make you squirm. I will not mute what I came here to exude. I am not afraid of your anticipated discomforts. I am not afraid to savour the moments that bring me the most joy, a gargle of juice from my man's loins; the power my thighs have over these boys. 

I am not afraid to be misunderstood. I am not afraid to be politely mean; or a charming bitch; or a bad bitch; me.

I am not afraid to be kind. I am not afraid of your little lies. I am not a fool for being generous with my affections. I'll be damned if love wont reign over my life, over and above pain.

I dont break.

I am not afraid of love. I am not afraid of hate.

I dont break.

I am not afraid to fall and taste little grains of dirt as my face hits pavement
because

I dont break.

I've already been down there.

I dont break.

They fall short.

I was in the way.

But you couldn't tell me.

Instead you chose
wise word swords
with which to cut me down

cold straight stares
with which to burn me up

hazy rumor swirls,
and manipulations.

They left me sore.

No, yours was not the prose of Love. 

Your verses, adjectives, verbs, nouns...,
could only do so much.

The truth is more.

"The Truth doesn't make a sound."

IRREGULAR beats.

My heart beat's a little sore.
But it still wants more...

love     love     love

Naive little thing,
is that all you move for?

Silly cynisisms fall of to the side
and one answer beats forth

love    love    love

LOVE?....OF COURSE.

cum.

I came here to spread love
unity,
a path.

I came here to share myself

and truths
that last.

I came here to break chains
and defy
norms of living.

I came here to warm
a few hearts.
To inspire giving.

I came here to light fires with my ways.

I came here
to leave
a little stain that says

"Here
I
came."