a lost soulmate's lament

when you leave me i cry. i stand in the empty space of this room and i'm lost. i turn around in circles in the dark and i can't find you. when you leave me i can't sleep. i don't want to eat. there's no point. i loved you with all of me and now there's a hole. and it hurts so much. i can't focus on any of the things i want to do. i don't want to do anything. why, when you live your life so far away, should i live mine? how can i be happy again? i don't want to remember our good times because it only hurts more. when you leave me i cry. and i wonder why we ever love at all when the hurt of your absence is greater than the emptiness before i found you.

Sometimes my arms aren't long enough

to reach out and gather you all
into my embrace to squeeze you tightly
to simply say "I love you this much."

I wish my arms were big enough
because nothing fully shows you
how I really feel when you're near me
or how you bring my heart its warmth.

I wish my arms were strong enough
to keep you locked inside
because I never want to let you go
to leave me and live your life.

I wish my arms were enough
to hold myself so tightly
to make up for your being away from me
and bring me the love
I miss giving to you.

"The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps."

Sometimes when I write . . . I don't want to. Sometimes I stare at blank lines that look to be filled. The pen rests and stares back at me with questioning eyes. I pick up the pen with exceeding effort, and I feel like I'm peeling off pieces of myself with something really sharp. But I continue even though it gets painful. I feel like it's my life or my identity, and I must continue, I must press forward even though I have no desire or will to. I wonder if this is healthy. I wonder . . . if something is not ready to leave the safety of my self. But I still push it. For I fear that if I do not write, then I will lose the desire or the will altogether. If I do not write, if I do not force myself, the pages will never have any meaning. People look at a painting and assume it was naturally done. Maybe it was. But naturally does not always mean easy. Sometimes . . . to write is to urge something out of oneself with great pain. And the hope that someday it will be worth it.

BAHAHAHAHA

"Do you say your prayers night and morning?" continued my interrogator.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you read your Bible?"
"Sometimes."
"With pleasure? Are you fond of it?"

"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah."

"And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"

"No, sir."

"No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a ginger-bread nut to eat, or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, "I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."

"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked.

"That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to change it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
--Jane Eyre, Chapter 4

Windows

"Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!" - Jesus

I think we often forget that windows are meant to be two-way. When we think of windows, we imagine looking out. When we search for windows in Google Images, we find images of people looking out. But when Jesus starts off this announcement, it seems as if people are to look in. And he ends with saying that we need to be open so light can come in. What a dark life you will have... when you hold your money too close in greed... when you turn away from the needy stranger in distrust... when your fear takes hold of your freedom to love and be open and let somebody inside.

What happened to open doors and making too much bread or cake or tea because you could always expect somebody to stop by? Oh, nobody stops by? Maybe they want to. Maybe you just haven't made it known to them that they could. Anytime they wanted to. Of course you said, "Come by anytime!" but so does every one else. That's the equivalent of "How are you? I'm fine." Neither question or response is ever sincere. It's sincerity, people. Sincerity and integrity. Two of the three things I try to live my life by. I can't remember the third one. That's why I have them written down, but I don't have that piece of paper with me.

That's what I already miss about dorm life. As long as we were there (and even if we weren't) the TV or the computer or the microwave or the refrigerator or the bed was available. And we were available. I wish the world knew that.