Apathy

         It is sad when apathy creeps in... When I see post after post completely overloaded with emotion and I know or see these people in real life (and it used to be week to week) and they are just the same as they would be any other day. I truly wonder if anyone really grieves or feels anything when they blast it on social media. I see them later, perhaps the same day, fresh faced, no sleep lost, not even a grimace in their eyes, after they say things like "it hurts so much." I turn to be unphased and untrusting. I turn to be weary of all the latest issues even though at some point I did feel an immense weight over these things so much that I did lose sleep, I could not eat, and I could barely function at some points. I wonder then if it is solely I who feels deeply and actually puts weight to every word I say, good or bad. This cannot be true. There must be others who are earnest with their words.
         It seems so very easy to fight it out on a website with someone else, so easy to say whatever your conscience has decided is right based on whatever drives you even if it pushes people who were once close to you further and further away. "Stand up and be heard!" Is that the price of this "freedom of speech" we claim to own in the USA? Is that how one chooses to own that right, to be so engrossed in an opinion, that may very well change within minutes given the right circumstances, that you make an enemy of another human being and feel justified? You feel justified over an idea that is so gray and so technical and so complicated more then you feel justified to respect another human? It is true that in this society we are so physically disconnected with one another yet so intimately connected in mind because of the ease of access to thoughts and ideas. It adds a sense of being able to release deep pain or joy without the need of being known, labeled, or identified solely by that emotion or happening. It gives you the freedom to be anonymous, yet is it really freedom?

         Our thoughts and ideas have become so outside of ourselves that we also take the thoughts and ideas of others outside of them. A human with flesh, blood, emotion and a heart beat, breathing air in and out is on the other side of that screen. However, we seem to define our very identity by our ideas because without then some may say we aren't even human. We have heard this is every which way and form but what grieves me now is how humans are lost in a sea of heated emotional out bursts, the latest trends if games, sports, pass-times and whatever is making money for someone out there be it the media or the people feeding these new games and applications to us. Do we need a device to dictate how long we have walked to get  sense of accomplishment? Do we need a device to tell us who of our friends is acceptable?

         Debates have become cut throat, ultimatum land where you must, surely you must, agree one side of the latest "injustice" and have a clear argument or you have no value as a human being. Do we even know what love is anymore? A person who I hold value in not because I know him well nor because he has gained any deep sense of trust but because we shared words in person more than once, was in the hospital very recently. The news of this was posted in a popular social media website, completely over shadowed by endless rants about whatever was a hot topic that week. What if I had never seen him again, hey, not sure if I still might never see him again, but right now I know I have a chance. It was always important to me to keep tabs on people, day to day, week to week, month to month. It would often depend on the accessibility to each individual person. I fell victim, however, to this circus phenomena of "what is everyone angry about this week?" These issues were always things that I thought mattered, my guess is that it is the same for many others who rage online, but what has mattered most to me, most of my life, is truly knowing the hearts of those with whom I can share and have life.
         There was a time I was told I had a big heart. Today it seems to have grown such deep callouses that I mock whatever it is that is hyping up everyone I know. Do I still care about these things, to some degree, yes. However, I would rather talk about whatever is effecting my friend today, right now, good or bad because that is tangibly the only real and true way I have of loving a human being. I don't want to shove my head in the sand and act as if the rest of the earth does not exist, but the more I think of those things which I cannot solve in a million years the more it hurts. A friend recently made me see something I realized a while ago, I cannot give myself room to enjoy life because of all the hurt out there, sometimes it is all I can see, and I turn to myself, who I pushed to live a life of love, and tell her, you fail, everyone one you love is hurting, and all you can do is laugh. It is far too much to carry; especially when I read one thing and see another. It is hard enough to love one person fully, yet I truly believe to love one person with all your heart is more in the end because love is interesting that way, when it is real it over flows, and reaches far beyond our limits. Am I happy about the violence in the world, no, but I can't do much more than what is within my reach. That should be enough for anyone to feel accomplished. I think that is all I wanted to say right now.

Who

          Who am I off the stage? Who am I when I have nothing to offer or give? I am told I am brave to go on a stage and sing a song, strum a guitar, but to me, performing is easy. Let me put on an image, a strength, and give every last ounce of me that I have to give, that is the easiest thing for me to do. You see, even before I decided to take on a music as a career I have been an excellent performer. I spent my life hiding myself to be a strong, independent child, who then became a woman, and I dealt with my inner darkness alone.

          Depressed? Oh no, not me, smile and laugh, watch the world happen around me without taking a thing. There is no room for me to be taking, this world is full of greed, I refuse to be another mouth to feed, I refuse to be another weak human being.
There came a time when I just wanted to stop fighting, but then I wondered "why am I here taking with nothing to give, nothing to offer?" Why should I be here at all? Why can I not just stand on my own two feet, and breathe and love others? What I didn't see is that love is an exchange so when I needed I felt shame, when I was weak I felt guilt. So when that happens I shut down and sit in silence until I can find the strength to live again... The problem is however that I am human, and now I have depleted all my resources because I was constantly giving to no be a burden and I honestly don't know how to receive anything.

          It isn't that I don't want to receive, at this point, I just don't know how, and I much-less know how or when to ask. I feel like an intruder, even when someone invites me into their life. In my mind, the person who loses sleep for you, stops their life for you wants to invest in your life and your health, that is a person who loves you. That is what I understand as love. It is for that reason I will lose sleep for you, I will suffer for you, I don't mind and will never mind because you are important to me. When I love I give.

          Mom did that for my brother when he was a baby, and later for me when I was a baby. My mom spent years in a painful and damaging relationship because it was the only way she knew to care for my brother and I, the only way she was sure that we would be fed, sheltered and cared for and whole. I remember her fighting sleep to cook for us, or even spend time with us, despite having to wake up at 3 am for a job where she was sexually harassed and physically overworked. That to me was love, but as a child who loves her mother and has never had a child of her own, I never stopped to think she was receiving from us, for whatever reason, she benefited from my brother and I just being her children.

          So as I sit here, and I cannot give, and especially when I need, I see no reason for me to breathe. It is silly really, because when I care for those I love, the very reason I give, it doesn't feel like anything is taken from me. To be honest, when I can give I feel alive, but I cannot seem to accept that someone else giving of themselves to me is just as beautiful and fufilling and human to them as it is when I give.

          Who am I when I am not performing, not on a stage, not trying to be super human? I am myself, and she is weak and strong all at once, she is human. Who is each of us when we are both weak and strong? We are all beautiful and able to make bonds of an endless exchange, humans who are able to love. There is joy in giving; I really hope to give myself room to find joy in trust and receiving. All these years and I still don't know how to be loved because I don't trust enough, and faking is easier than living.

Harmony

Sometimes I just want to harmonize.  I want to mesh my voice with another and not have any plans of where it's going or what we are doing. The composers and arrangers who give us predisposed parts and chord progressions are beautiful and I enjoy interpreting that art, yet there is something I have longed for, longer than I can even sense. I want to make mistakes with someone. I want to have a vague feeling of what I am doing and where we are going and just run with the rhythm like a mighty river that just takes you in, and just flow with the music. There was always something captivating to me when watching a jazz combo play and improvise. The sense that the musicians know eachother and just feel a common energy that is leading them all to one beautiful moment that will never happen again. I was told it takes chemistry and it takes practicing together to build that chemistry so you can feel each other. I wanna guess it also takes openness and acceptance of one another, flaws and all. While the rhythm section keeps the heart beat, and the rest feel the melody, one body a single organ creating its own child. I have never gotten to experience something like that, though. I have rehearsed with someone usually for one performance and we both or all have a predetermined road to take. To make music out of a moment with another, however, that I long for... to just wait and feel it and have that freedom, I long for that. Sometimes when I am singing in a car to a tune everyone knows I get a sense for it... but I can't sink into it... Then the song ends and the moment ends or there is an interruption. It's five thirty in the morning and all I can think of is wanting to feel the music with someone. I want nothing more than to hear that song that follows me like I feel when I am alone with my guitar, yet have the beauty to hear it with another person, through another person and unite our heart beats... Alas... Tonight or this morning is a weird one. Sorry I haven't posted in so long. Life has been more external contemplation than internal and that makes for less writeable moments. Is that a word? Welp, just striaght thoughts here.
You know there was this church I joined once based on that feeling, and I have never joined churches because of arbitrary or superficial things like well they set the stage like this or their building is this or the music is that... I would choose based on theology or where the spirit was moving me at the time. Regardless, I remember following this feeling of synergy that was shared amongst this group of musicians that seemed familiar, hinting to something eternal that follows me. I think there is a magic in synergy, and the thing about churches is the crowd joins in the concert and I won't get too much into that here; they call their concerts worship. Anyway, when I felt that shared energy I felt more than alive. It's been a while now and I haven't seen or felt chemistry between musicians like that since then. I wonder if that is what makes some music feel dead to me, or maybe it's just lonely. Maybe all the musicians have talent and all the technical things are there, or maybe the musicians are obviously flawed and have no technical knowledge but that chemistry, that grooving together is there and I don't hear the actual notes I feel the spirit of the music and what it is meant to be and where it is supposed to take me and all of us.
I have this deep longing for home, my theory is we all do, that we all long to be home and unveiled to our creator, to have that deep intimacy with the maker of all things, to tap into the universe and take root. This is what music should be, and all the arts I believe, but many of the arts aren't as communal and I think some of its communal sense has been lost as we became "civilized" but dance and music are the two that I can easily say bring you to feel our creator, in the moment, and feel connected to another human, whether they are weak in the moment or strong, you feel one another and there is that wholeness and reconcile to creation. We are vagabonds whose home is within us and around us... but we choose to not belong or we are forced to be homeless wanderers. We don't feel the energy of creation that is in the earth and the sky and every living being. We close our hearts and guard our souls in fear, in pain, in guilt, in shame. I want to sing with someone unveiled and unafraid...

Earthman

The one
the body who feels like... the earth
Warm, and gentle, breathing within peace
fierce heart beats erupting with fire and magma
A swaying mind swirling as waves
oceans and leagues of depth rushing wild rivers
terra solid and tilled, harrowed and firm
giving way yet never eroding to lies or fallacy
That spirit, that sense,  that sweet sensuous vine
pulsing through to every chattering branch
brooding with fruit ripe and seed
he envelopes me in his anchoring vibe
the birds sense the dance twittering in song
I can't shake it
Who would want to?
This twisting and breaking over crashing thunder
writhing while rising to spread and fall
to quench the land that has been chained and forgotten
rain down caressing broken arid skin
My thrist drowns and shudders
as my hairs awake and I quiver
his love inundates my soul
I can taste it, this life unknown
a comrade to be born, a thrill
a yerning burn that cools and sooths the scars and wounds
shaking the fears to which I cling
death is abandoned no cold blooded display
What mystery awaits this ecstasy and elation
while endorphins rush my rhythm and rhyme?
I can't deny it, it's almost a drug
Yet this is too pure to be dirty addiction
too real, too weary, too imperfect in beauty
too calm, too organic, too metered and balanced
Come flooding memories of the face within me
this earth vibrates with the echo of home
Can I dare a stare to stars too long
or wait for the moon to hide its face?
I shan't be mistaken, I'm dreaming
awake, alive and loving this tide
This is the time, this is...
the one who feels like the earth made yet I am undone

I Fight Alone

You may have kind words
and play comrade under the sun

You may say we are one
and claim our blood is a shared body
broken and spilled

Integrity is key dearest:

Little words and little actions,
Large gestures and heavy lectures,
smooth talk sermons; what's that!?
Soap box delivery of self righteous soliloquies

Every breath you take in to release
gives light and body to your spineless soul, and
dictate the frivolous hot air you propagate with poise

What a lovely peacock skeleton

Your soul is void
Lies from the netherlands
of night's darkest shadows
Where no moon shines and stars flee and hide
Where do you abide, where is your dwelling place?

Face first in the ash

I can hear it loud and clear
the rejection of life, tides, and the wild ride
All your fears catalyzing your cowardice
as you claim to change these dark borders
Creation's suicide, I see no progress

All I see are children lost
in myth anthologies that they still can't understand
How many times can you read love
yet stand still and watch the world burn

While you pat your back for surviving in slavery
Your sisters are exposed!
Your brothers are numb!
Your fathers exploited!
Your mothers ravaged!

Wake up, wake up! Are you still deaf? Are you still blind?

What flesh are you giving to words you hold dear?
Rotting zombies expecting rebirth
never dying to the chains of the deceiver
Shed the death you carry
Fess up to your immaturity

"Firend,"
I fight alone...