From the Ground Up

the old walls which withstood a thousand winters,
could not stand to wheather another year.
those same old thorns which pained the sides,
just couldn't hide inside anymore.
in a place where nothing could grow,
where brick and mortar lie like iron on the leaves;
as the walls which withstood a thousand tear drops,
that never could drop -- stood. it simply stood.

and with the rain it brought cold,
the night swells darkness around that multiplies.
but the wall just stood to stand in the way,
never protecting never keeping a promise it laid.
a thousand more winters and it would be,
forever the same -- always the same.
where blackness consumes and concrete seeps,
below flesh, below viens into a heart which lost all feeling.

and, Oh! how You tear me.
tear me down, brick by brick,
every inch of mortar.
how You tear me,
from the ground up.
You shake my foundation,
open my eyes, and --
i am undone. i am raw.
i cannot hide.
Oh! how You tear me...
from the ground up.

[insert title here]

i wanted to sit down and write a poem,
about love, and hope and beauty.
so that's what i set my mind to.
but every word that came out,
it seems, was only full of bite and pain.
no rhymes, no meter, could bend to.
i thought about green mountains,
blue rivers that run accross deserts.
about the time i stuck french-fries up my nose.
remembered orphan's hugs and smiles.
still, no poem, no good, came out.
i tried to remember better days;
when i didn't worry so much about myself.
to a time when i didn't bother,
or stoop, to fit some sort of picture,
that society had made.
and i almost tricked myself to believe,
that too -- that i was once 'okay'.
until i ran headlong into a wall.
the wall of my own density,
the weight defying gravity,
filled with selfish intensity,
marked by human depravity.
and i didn't want to write any more,
not one more stupid poem.
about how good things'd gone today,
or about ways i'd made a change and difference.
i wanted to crawl under a rock,
to hide like a little kid.
but then i realized, that this-
predicament i find myself in,
this -- means that i already did.

What of this makes us who we are?

"Some times it's hard to tell what to keep and what to kill, what of this makes us who we are?" - Sarah Groves

Some times it's a heck of a lot easier to write poetry than to write honestly without artistic shroud to cover up those things which are inexplicably hidden from the sight of others by careful rhyme and word choice. And some times, it's just easier to say nothing at all. After all, silence is golden, right? Not really.
I've done my fair share of saying nothing. Either saying nothing, quite literally, or saying nothing even when I speak. Making nothing more than a steady stream of noise to fill a void.

But what do I keep, if you will, of the past? What is good, what is right, what should I hang on to? And what needs to die?

I'm just wondering. What of this makes me who I am?