proof of suffering is
proof of life
Tag: survival
Imperfect Love
My heart loves perfectly
Wholly
Without terms and conditions
My heart is caged
Trapped
Within me
By mind and ego and scars
The past warps expressions
In the rush to emote
I trip over words
Phrased poorly
I am tactless
The worse it goes
The worse I make it
Stumbling and desperate
To give and share the perfect love I feel
The more I try
The more I fall
Stumbling over broken shards of truth
This healing is too hard, I cry
I squash the ego with humiliation
I’m sorry, I say
I’m sorry I’m broken
I’m sorry I wasn’t healed enough
I’m sorry I survived this way
I couldn’t find another way to make it
I couldn’t find a different way to live than this one
I contorted
To be loved
To be understood
I try to be what you need and what you want
Yet in the end I am just this
Mess of partially healed
Partially wounded
Partially wise
Partially healing
Partially damaged
Partially processed
Parts
I am a stew of emotions
I am a bird in flight in the rain
I am the limping wolf
The deer tangled in barbed wire
My heart is caught and wild and pure
If I knew how I would be only peace
If I knew how my words would only soothe
If I knew how my actions would only heal
If I knew how to be invincible
I would cease panicking
Stop suffering
End doubt
Even rocks are not invincible
The world itself suffers
All of life is a blend of love and pain
Light and shadow
I am a layered painting
I am a song of dissonance and harmony
And so are you
And so are you
Loving imperfectly like me
Being imperfectly loved like me
We muddle through it
Wading through this life
Knee deep in mystery
Bog sucking boots
Trying to find dry land again
We slog through the difficulties
Until we’re safe on the forest path
Filtered sunlight and dry trails
Our love growing more confident
Skewed a little more to perfect
A little further way from pained
And we walk joyous together
In the welcoming woods
Keep Warm
There is the cold void of space
Expanding through your heart
Temperatures dropping
Daily
Every slight, every ding, every pain
We numb and withdraw
Our sap dropping from limbs to root
Our leaves fall beautiful
Into piles of decay
How to continue
Why go on
When it hurts
Grief overtaking
And spring is so far away
Don’t stay there in the heart of winter
Rest and repair and rise again
Capture each ray of sunshine
Be soothed by the songs of the birds
Revel in the blue, blue sky
Wrap the grey clouds around you
Sprout
Grow
Fly
The heart of summer is always within you
A blooming meadow
Paradise of butterflies and bumblebees
Keep warm
With the kind word of a friend
Laughter
A good book
Keep warm deep into the restless night
Keep warm kindled sparks in reserve
Until you become the star
Would You Know
A smile so bright
The haunting in the eyes shrouded
Would you wonder what hell she lived through
And to be able to shine
Still
All around us
Untold stories of survival
We pass by
We judge and look askew
Darting sharp glances
In ignorance
I listened to a voice dismissed by others
My blood ran cold
And when I got home
I wept
And she had thanked me for being kind
And had smiled
If you pass her on the street
You wouldn’t know
How she burned in the flames
Of hell
And rose again to shine
Lyrics to Patchwork Blue Songs are Now Posted
Patchwork Blue has been variously described as a smoldering fire (I am assured this is a good thing), Avant Garde, Soundtrack music, and as defying expectations (some people liked this, and some did not).
This collaborative album I did with my friend, Rosalie, was born out of free form improvisation with jazz and Blues influences. The album is out on major digital markets. There are 10 songs on the album, 2 are instrumentals.
We had a request for the lyrics, and so I’ve posted them, and thought you-all might like to read them. 🙂
Also, I posted this new work on SoundCloud. It’s a sad, gloomy, and makes you wonder why I’m still breathing kind of song, but it captures that moment when I quite seriously felt that my existence here is just plodding on to the end, because what else am I going to do? Some losses can feel like that…but that feeling lifts eventually, maybe showing up in waves, each time a little less severe, a little less sad, a little less lonely. And if you’ve lost someone, and grieve so deeply, I’m sorry.
Grief is a difficult companion, but no one walks without it unless they cannot love. So, you loved well, and will heal in time, building the strength to carry it.
I took this song off of SoundCloud to rework it. So this is a dead link:
