if flowers do wither and windows do crack,

if rain dissipates and the sky looms black,

if our senses fail us and we shiver alone,

if everything feels like a torrent just adding to the storm,

hands cold, eyes closed, situated in the unknown.

Lately I've been thinking I'm not myself.

I don't know whether I know myself in such a definitive term, but I know what I'm not, and I'm certainly not the person as of late, it's as if an impostor has seized control,

the issue of control.

school.

grades.

family.

love.

church.

faith.

body.

food.

travel.

money.

cycle.

cycle.

the horizon lays beyond my reach, and every step I take keeps me at a distance.

I want my ambition back.

A familiar tone and a familiar face

she speaks with time interlaced

once just young and obnoxiously curious,

now pensive and strong like a thick flower's stem

her words move with strength and flow like waves,

the honesty in every pause keeps listening ears engaged

When did this change occur?

Perhaps during my absence,

life is a surprise only because we cannot witness all of it

we are given one scope of vision,

each to his or her own path

but the world is full of them,

lives weaving and crossing, sometimes paralleled.

Change comes in strange places,

what once irked one may now bring one to tears,

life continues to occur with everyone individually, simultaneously

here she embarks on the next footfall,

in this brief encounter where our threads weave together

I watch in wonder of the grand scope of the painting of the world.

i used to be unbroken,

Mended daily by prayer,

spoken softly with hands that felt,

lips that spoke, and

a heart that soared.

reaching for a trace of that memory,

recalled by innocence,

sought,

blinded by distortion,

eaten by frivolity,

take, take, take

cease the unrelenting torture,

hold still the trembling, wait

time will peace keep,

down, and up as direction can go.

clean face

wipe that smug smile off your face, it's insolence slapping the screen.
Your pretentious quietness blows explosions out of the sky, the sky being my mind.
I can't take it anymore, I don't want to hear your silence any longer.
I am impulsive and estranged from your words, from your attempts to save me.
This is not a plea or a cry for help, but rather, this is the truth; the person who, while you were around was gagged and held hostage behind the closed doors of some superficial decency.
What is decency? Who benefits from the Truth being locked away for the sake of kindness, and is it kindness or is it a seed planted beneath the soil of your mind that, when watered, will grow into an immense obstruction to your view of life. A vast plant with roots sprawled out and attached to your heart, your eyes, your mind, your bones and veins, all connected back to this carcass of nature. Or do such paradoxes not exist? Is it possible for something with kind intent to grow into utter corruption? Take this note as a warning for all the times the Truth may be in hostage in the moment of realization or potential vulnerability. When your worst fears or even sensitive inklings are expressed but not addressed, remember that Truth could be silent in your companions heart; it could be gagged by secrecy or "kind intent", but if you listen carefully, listen for every intonation and tone of sound, even the slightest inflections can trigger a sensitivity in your hearing, catch it. Catch it and examine it, and choose carefully what you do with it, because if you plant the words they say without filtering out the messages unsaid, whether they exist or not, you might just be investing in a seed of self destruction. It isn't always as obvious as the words, sometimes it's in the gestures, in the eyes, in the unseen but felt exchanges of atmosphere. Even a clean face can hold a grimy cell where the truth is locked away. Find it and search for it, I will not plant everything you say to me because of that.

the soul

They seek that which most terrifies and causes all my limbs to tremble,
the terror lies trapped in the skin welded to the soul, remains
washing in and out like an unsteady stare
with eyes inside kept away beneath stirred waters

sitting silent as a prisoner for treason it swallows
thoughts and the mind; the senses devoured
my very own freedom tied to this coward, mindless
without breathe it remains focused and hidden

always confused unaware of its grasp
this terror threatens life, yet sustains
only like an abandoned sunken ship
keeping still and rich, it must be explored.

-Jamie Shin

Listen to your thoughts

"For as he thinketh in his heart; so is he"

-Prov. 23:7

You are what you think. A lesson I have been learning repeatedly over the past 2 years. For

some reason I feel God has impressed it upon my heart to really focus on what goes on in my mind. I am not one who can easily overlook or pass a thought nonchalantly in any manner, instead I tend to examine a thought from multiple angles, feel the thought, question the thought, analyze it, and ultimately break it down into microscopic sub-thoughts until it is no longer a single thought, but somehow connected to my entire being. I know...it sounds insane, but the point is that there is a profound essence in the way we think that, on the surface, may seem frivolous or unimportant, but in reality it may well just be a building block of something bigger and more mentally powerful that cultivates the way we see ourselves and the world we live in. Most of the time our thoughts seem to circulate in our heads, in other words, we t

end to tell ourselves or think the same things over and over again because we have chosen to give in to that thought, and so by allowing the thought to enter into our minds, we are feeding our mentalities (which lead to perspectives/outlook on life) with these thoughts that are digested and remain present until we make an active effort to remove them. For me, thoughts have shown themselves to be quite powerful in my life, because when I examine my current thoughts I can see that it directly correlates with the way my life is lived. The importance of being "mentally" alert has struck a resounding chord within me, and has made me realize that I have been feeding my mind with "lukewarm" thoughts that have been hindering the more excellent and grand perspective that I know God desires for me to have. By

allowing these "stale" thoughts to fester in the crevices of my mind, I was allowing a "stale" perspective on myself and on life to grow larger and larger with each dose of a single "lukewarm" thought. But by the grace of God I can be set free from this type of thinking, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding is what will reconcile my mind to let go of such thoughts that take away from what God wants me to see. It's been a struggle these days to really grasp my faith in God, and I was beginning to think that nothing was really making sense, and that logic was nowhere to be found or even slightly felt...leaving me feeling overwhelmingly confused and hopeless, which also led to feeling miserable about life and empty

since life without God just seemed so meaningless. But God loves me, and that love is so powerful, powerful enough to override logic in someone like me who over thinks and analyzes everything in order to make sense of it, because it felt like an alarm clock in my mind kept going off about how my mind was under attack, and that I needed to examine my cognitive activity more than just my external environment. The world is so easy to see with physical eyes, we tend to forget that most of what we see and know all come from how we perceive them first in the mind. So then it would only go to show that how we think directly influences how we act, live, and thrive with others and towards ourselves. I definitely have som

e strongholds in my mind that need to be broken down, and the "stale" thoughts to be destroyed for good so that I will be able to administer the hopeful, promising thoughts of God's will for my life, His good and perfect will.

Philippians 1:6-

"⁶being confident of this, that he who began a good work

in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

I need to begin today by carefully examining my thoughts and being aware of when the stale one's start surfacing (to extinguish them right away) and replace them with thoughts of strength, power, and joy and love.

Power in words

God will bring about completion.

daaaang.