You Took it Away

You said I betrayed you.

You said I kept a secrete from you.

You said I was a bad friend.

You said I was just advertising myself.

You said I was depressed.

I didn't hide any thing from you.

I wasn't I was depressed.

I didn't lie.

I didn't hide.

I didn't sing my praises.

I didn't want you to know.

I wasn't trying to show you.

I didn't want anyone to know.

I wanted something for me.

Just for me.

To be not me.

Not the me you think you know.

I had that.

I had something for me.

You took it away.

You betrayed me.

Then you stole my secrete.

You stole my refuge.

You were a bad friend.

You depressed me.

You took away my shield.

I had something.

You took it away.







You took it away.

You Took it Away

You said I betrayed you.

You said I kept a secrete from you.

You said I was a bad friend.

You said I was just advertising myself.

You said I was depressed.

I didn't hide any thing from you.

I wasn't I was depressed.

I didn't lie.

I didn't hide.

I didn't sing my praises.

I didn't want you to know.

I wasn't trying to show you.

I didn't want anyone to know.

I wanted something for me.

Just for me.

To be not me.

Not the me you think you know.

I had that.

I had something for me.

You took it away.

You betrayed me.

Then you stole my secrete.

You stole my refuge.

You were a bad friend.

You depressed me.

You took away my shield.

I had something.

You took it away.







You took it away.

You Took it Away.

You said I betrayed you.

You said I kept a secrete from you.

You said I was a bad friend.

You said I was just advertising myself.

You said I was depressed.

I didn't hide any thing from you.

I wasn't I was depressed.

I didn't lie.

I didn't hide.

I didn't sing my praises.

I didn't want you to know.

I wasn't trying to show you.

I didn't want anyone to know.

I wanted something for me.

Just for me.

To be not me.

Not the me you think you know.

I had that.

I had something for me.

You took it away.

You betrayed me.

Then you stole my secrete.

You stole my refuge.

You were a bad friend.

You depressed me.

You took away my shield.

I had something.

You took it away.







You took it away.

You Took it Away

You said I betrayed you.

You said I kept a secrete from you.

You said I was a bad friend.

You said I was just advertising myself.

You said I was depressed.

I didn't hide any thing from you.

I wasn't I was depressed.

I didn't lie.

I didn't hide.

I didn't sing my praises.

I didn't want you to know.

I wasn't trying to show you.

I didn't want anyone to know.

I wanted something for me.

Just for me.

To be not me.

Not the me you think you know.

I had that.

I had something for me.

You took it away.

You betrayed me.

Then you stole my secrete.

You stole my refuge.

You were a bad friend.

You depressed me.

You took away my shield.

I had something.

You took it away.







You took it away.

Be the Reason Somebody Smiles Today

Today give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.
                                                                                          -H. Jackson Brown, Jr: a voice who smiled

Smiles are the most undervalued thing in the world. They change lives. In the words of Maya Angelou, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." People will hold on to your smile. I like to think that when I give a stranger a smile I set off a chain of events making the whole world happier. It's a little delusional, I admit.

Sometimes, in the evening, before dinner, I leave the house. I walk. It's nothing particularly interesting. It's peaceful though. I see people I know, people I don't. I've made an effort to smile at everyone.

When you go do school, or went, did you cross the street? Usually in the public school system there's a crossing guard. I've always made an effort to wish them a good morning. Nobody else ever does. So I smile at them, and they smile back, and we talk. I'd ask how they are and they'd ask me and then we would wish one another a nice day. It wasn't rehearsed. We genuinely want to know how the other was doing, or I least that was the case with me. I feel happier when I'm smiled at, and I feel happier when my smiles are returned.

I've had a problem with eye contact. You know when you glance across a room and there's somebody who's doing the same. You make brief eye contact. You both pretend you didn't see the other. It happens all the time and it's not a big deal. Except, if instead of glancing away, you hold their gaze, you smile, that's a big deal. It's a small gesture, but it gives them- a little warm feeling in their chest that makes them want to smile back. If they return the gesture than they in turn make you have the warm smiley feeling and you both have a smile you can't get rid of.

Wouldn't the world and everyone in it be better if we woke up each morning and said to ourselves, "I'm going to be the reason somebody smiles today." I wish people could get up with the intention to go outside and just smile until the world smiles back. I wish people would say that for every reason they have to cry, there's a thousand reasons to smile. It's true. For every tear you shed, there's a smile available. And you shouldn't wear a frown until you are absolutely sure their are no smiles left.

Of course it's okay to be unhappy. You don't have to smile through your whole life. If you never cry you won't notice that smiley feeling. 

Smiling changes our day. When writing this, I smiled. I'm still smiling. I want to make other people smile. Our faces can change to express many different things. Turning up the corners of our mouths, getting little crinkles around our eyes, it's oddly enough the most important expression. And when you need a reason to smile., the thing at the top of the list is that you can. You can smile and keep smiling until you go to sleep. Then you can spread your bright smile into your dream world. Then, you can wake up and go make others smile.

Be the reason somebody smiles today.

:)

Gratitude

Some people grumble roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.
                                                                                                                            -Alphonse Karr

It's Thanksgiving. Happy Holiday! First, whatever you're doing for the holiday, be sure to thank the people you're doing it with for being there. There are 7.442 billion reasons to be grateful. I just wanted to acknowledge them for the holiday. People are all around us. They provide light. Sometimes we forget that they are a gift, extra, and more than we deserve.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindles by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

                                                                                                                         -Albert Schweitzer

We have a lot to be grateful for. We have wonderful people in our lives. Not all days have thorns, but the ones that do have roses. This is just a short little sentiment for the holiday. But you should be grateful everyday. You should always wake up and ask what you're grateful for today?

I'm always grateful the wonderful and supportive communities I have in my life. I'm just grateful for the world, one large community.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Into a Microphone

Nothing haunts us like the things we don't say
                                                                                            -a voice that's been quiet for far too long

I wanted to write a blog to give myself a voice I didn't have before. In the world we're told we have freedom of speech. We can speak our minds. That is what we need to hear.
We don't ever say what we think. We say what we're expected to say. I wanted to say what I thought. What I didn't say for the fear of being judged. I'm embarrassed by what I think. I worry it's wrong or weird to have my opinion. I think we're always scared of that.
I wanted a format where I would say what I wanted and people would disagree with it. I wanted to hear what people wouldn't say to me. What we don't say is usually what needs to be heard.
I'm disappointed with myself for my silence. I think I just didn't ever want to be the first speaker. I wanted to agree with somebody else. Only you can be expected to say what you're thinking. I hoped that maybe some stranger I would never meet would be given a voice now that they didn't have to start the conversation.
Still, I wish I would hear a voice. Not my voice, echoing in my head. Not my voice being hidden or disguised. Not somebody else's voice being disguised. Not a voice camouflaging in the murmurs of a crowd. I want to hear a voice speaking into a mic, completely unrehearsed, not holding back.
I want to listen to a world not governed by fear. The only way to destroy that fear is to get rid of what haunts us the most. What we don't say.
I want to know what your voice sounds like.

You have the stage.

Stargirl: Enchanted Places

"So," I said, "when does the enchantment start?" We were sitting side by side, facing the mountains. "It started when the earth was born." Her eyes were closed. Her face was golden in the setting sun. "It never stops. It is, always. It's just here."

                                                      -Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl: a voice who's seen an enchanted place

Have you ever been nothing? Have you ever been not there, just erased, just part of the world? It's like your a rock. Not present, but existing. Your breath is the worlds breath, and you can sense the world's every tingle. Everyone in the world walking, you can feel their feet pounding.

"I imagine a big pink soft soap eraser, and it's going back and forth, 

back and forth, and it starts down at my toes, back and forth, and 

there they go-poof!-my toes are gone. And then my feet. And then my 

ankles. But that's the easy part. The hard part is erasing my senses- 

my eyes, my ears, my nose, my tongue. And last to go is my brain. 

My thoughts, memories, all the voices inside my head. That's the hardest,

 erasing my thoughts." She chuckled faintly. "My pumpkin. And then, if 

I've done a good job, I'm erased. I'm gone. I'm nothing. And then the world

 is free to flow into me like  water into an empty bowl."

                                                                                                             - Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

I doubt very many have ever felt that. Just becoming nothing. An eraser taking you from existence so that you stand apart from it, and can see all of it. It'd be like if the Mona Lisa peeled herself away, got up, and looked back at her painting. She'd be looking back at the world without her covering the image. She'd see what was past her. And just moving herself from the picture, that would be simple, but that wouldn't be the end of it. She would make herself truly not a part of it.

Her senses would leave her. The Mona Lisa would not just be erased from the image. She would stop being part of it. She would not be a part of the world behind the paint. She would stand outside it, she'd look at the painting. Her eyes would stop seeing the world in front of her, the world we can't see from outside. Instead she would see what was behind her, what she wouldn't see before. She would no longer hear the gentle breeze whistle by her ears. Instead she would hear the true silence of her reality. Her nose. She wouldn't smell the outdoors anymore. She would smell the paints that had brought her landscape, her reality, to being.

Funny, isn't it? We're all so terrified of losing our minds, but that's exactly what we need to do. We need to escape our minds. We need to stand apart from it, take an eraser, and erase our minds. Don't be you any longer. Stop reflecting on your thoughts and your memories and your voices in your head. You have to stop thinking. It's hard to absolutely clear your head. To let reality just flow. For you to be a part of the flow, just another drop of reality floating around us. It's a little odd being part of the stream of always instead of watching it rush past you.

You do it everyday though. When you wake up, when your in your half-awake-half-asleep-state. You aren't awake. You aren't conscience, not really. You're sleeping. But you v\can hear think and feel time passing. You are more aware than you ever have been. It's like that, I suppose.

Enchanted places are everywhere. They're everywhere you don't expect. They are a point in a space time by which reality leaks through. When your there, standing in the full of the gushing flow, you allow it to engulf you. You can step back, be nothing, be everything.

Do you believe in enchanted places?

I'm Fine

Saying I'm fine is like saying I only want the best for others. We want it to be the truth, but we know better than to believe ourselves, making it further and further from the truth.
                                                                                                                         - a voice that isn't fine
Has anyone ever said I'm fine and it was true? It's hard to mean it, we aren't ever fine, are we?

People say it's a girl thing. They say it's because girls are irrational and emotional. It's because it's a human thing actually. You know how sometimes you hear about how guys won't share feelings. I hate hearing girls are emotional. Guys are just as emotional, they're just embarrassed, so they say that their fine.
This is where we draw similarities as human beings. Girls say I'm fine when they are screaming "help" on the inside because we're embarrassed. I'm tired of being told that girls are irrational and emotional, we say we're fine because we don't want to feel weak either. Don't you see it's an agonizing cycle? You tell girls that their feelings aren't real and that their being irrational, so they don't recognize their feelings and agony as real. You let them believe it and that's why we all say we're fine.
But isn't it irrational to assume that we're fine. How can we be human and fine at the same time? Being human means that there is always a reason to cry. From the moment we were born, we were born into a world so gray, and then told it was black and white. We have grown up in a world of gray, without color. We live in a world where the sky is dominated by darkness, only stars, little specks of nothing, give any light and warmth. So we revolve around these specks of nothing, because we are too afraid of being left in the darkness.
Can we be fine? Maybe, if we can find the light switch. Most of us spend our whole lives just sitting by the light, waiting to die so we can leave the world of darkness. The few remainder, spend their life in vein looking for the switch, trying to turn on the light, trying to rush the escape of darkness. Life plays a cruel trick on them. Life makes them think they found the switch, then makes them flip it, only to find that they just put out one of the sources of light. So they don't join the rest by the light. They just sit there in their darkness, broken and depressed. Their will to leave a world of darkness is now crushed, they don't even try to find the light. Instead, they take water and some matches, and drops them in. They now want to live in the darkness, see in the darkness, and burn in the light.
Sometimes they get up. They squint real hard and find a source of light. They join us in revolving around a little speck of warmth and light in the cold darkness. However, they forever wonder if it would have been better to sit and be cold and blind in the darkness. What does being near the light help them see any way? There's nothing to see but darkness after all.
I pity them. They are so consumed by the void and feel suffocated by it. They think being near the light is helping them see the nothingness, they believe this so much that they don't even see what the light illuminates. They didn't even stop and ask: where'd these lights come from anyway?
These lights are a gift. They aren't to help you see how dark it is. You aren't sitting alone next to the light. Our entire planet gravitates to a star. We call it the sun because we don't know it by another name. It is a source light and warmth. So what does this little light of ours illuminate if not the darkness beyond it? I pity the fool who doesn't see it.
The light, if you would open your eyes, illuminates the faces of the others sitting around it. You aren't sitting alone in that world of darkness. How is that we honestly forget the warmth and light that sits around us?
We don't see this. It's so obvious, but we can't see it. We are blind. If we are blind we are not fine, we need healing. We don't believe we're fine, as we shouldn't. The more we grow accustomed to the blindness, the less we realize our eyes are just closed. We say we want it to be true, that we want to be saying we're fine and mean it, but if that's so, why are pushing that reality away?

Stargirl; Cards

"All you need is your eyes and another person."
                                                                                         -Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl: a voice still speaking.

In the book Stargirl, she leaves anonymous cards. She leaves them for strangers, like they're friends. She learns things about them and makes the card they need. She also plays a little games. I want to tell you how to play, because playing it can change the world for you, or, make you laugh.

1.  Go to a public place. Make sure it's crowded. Better if it's a place like the mall so that there will be different places to move to.
2. Find a person. Just another face in the crowd.
3. Follow them and watch them for 15 minutes, no more no less.
4. Decide what card they need.
5. Don't send it.

This is good just as a game. For example say you went to a mall. You follow a women in jeans and a green sweater. She grabs a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks, then moves on to a pottery shop. She spends the remainder of the time there. While there, you notice how she lingers at the collection of handmade pottery by little kids made to be sold for a charity to help raise awareness for cancer. She acts very touched. Then she moves on to vases, she ignores all of the smooth classic ones, but pauses on a vibrant pink one. Her face lights up and she raises it to check the price, which you see, she hastily puts it down. 15 minutes are up!
From this, you make assumptions that aren't verifiable. That's why it's just a game. It causes you to read into peoples lives after just 15 minutes. None of it you know is true, but that's not the point. Neither is it to judge them. Even the happiest people can be given a card to make their day brighter, even if you don't know what it is. The point is to make you care.
So, based off watching the women in the green sweater, this is what you know. Her name is Alice, you read it off her Starbucks cup. She wanted to be an artist and pursued for a little while, but quit because it stopped paying bills. Now she works as a pharmacist. She pursued a career in health in medicine after her mother survived breast cancer. She's unmarried and in her thirties, you can tell because she lacks a ring. She still has college loans to pay, but has a spending problem that she's trying to over come. How can you tell all of this? You can't. It's not true. But what card would you give her. How about a Stay-Strong card? Or a Joy- isn't-Money card?
I've grown to like this game. I go to the park and play sometimes. I don't follow them, but I like to watch. I look at their clothes to guess what school they go to. I guess their age. I guess whether or not they have siblings, I guess what they're good at, what they ignore. I don't make the card or send the card, I'm completely wrong and know nothing about them. Still, I like to wonder what they need.
When was the last time you looked at a stranger and thought to yourself, "How can somebody make them feel like they are being hugged by the whole world?"

Stargirl

"She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.
                                                                                -Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl: a voice not done talking
You probably won't understand the title. It's based off a book. You should read it.
In said book, there's a girl who is odd. But she is so in touch with something we all lack. She is different and she knows how to be happy. She will cheer for the other team, celebrate her successes and theirs. We support our communities, our cities, our schools, she supports everyone because we are in her community, the world. It's a poetic story, but teenagers are surprisingly interested in it, even those who aren't really readers.
This isn't a book review.
I wanted to talk about a few things she does. Not all right now. To sum it up, she sings happy birthday to everyone, she gives anonymous cards to give people light, and she goes to enchanted places. She grieves for strangers and smiles for the little things. She appreciates lightness in the world like we never could. I want to talk about all of it, I will, but not now.
I wanted to tell you I would, I wanted to give you time to look this book, to read it. You don't have to of course, I just thought, it's a book for light. You don't have to be struggling with depression to read it. On some level, we all need this level of seeing. It points out so much we dismiss. It's not poetic or at high reading level or anything, it's just a good book.

I wish we could all just read our books and be kind to one another.
She is different. Unpinable. I want to tell you why it's such a waste of pins to try to hold that butterfly still.

I'm a Voice, What Else Matters?

I've tried this before. I'm not good at it. I cannot keep with a blog. I think it's because I try too hard to keep it light and fun and like you're talking to some incredibly energetic person. Once I tried a fun but sarcastic person. I'm pretty sarcastic so I thought it would work, it didn't. My writing is very different from who I am. My writing is my point of view, my frame of reference, I'm somebody who just picks an avatar they want to present to the world. I won't talk about my age or who am, because I don't want it to matter.
My age shouldn't matter. A voice is a voice. I want you to imagine me however you want to. I could be a young but deep child, who doesn't share their age because they want to be taken seriously. I could be a teenager who is too embarrassed by the way the write to want anyone to know it was them, too busy trying to play sarcastic and moody. I could be a young adult who just wants to share a voice without the knowledge of the people close to them, to have a place they can just think and be heard. I could be a middle-aged woman who needs help remembering what their voice sounds like. I could be an older woman, who wants to share their experience without drawing attention. Or, I could be so old, I want to spend the rest of my life proving I had something to say the whole time I was so quiet.
If you don't know how old I am, why does it matter who I am. I am a voice, if you really must know. I am all and none of the people I just described. I like to think I am just another person who passes by, and you don't remember their face. I'm nobody special. But that makes what I have to say worth hearing. You might not always agree, but there are no original thoughts. I like to think we've all thought what I think. We just might not say it. I wish I would say it. I'm not going to insult people or talk about politics. I'm going to write something you don't hear enough. I'm going to write what needs to be heard.
If your intrigued, keep listening.