gray area

My head rests on one hand as the other grips a pencil, filling in the answers to a test. My thoughts flow from my head down into the pencil that I hold. Tracing their familiar shapes, my conclusions spiral onto the page. I look down at the next section, one where I must determine whether the statements below are true or false, my least favorite type of test question. It's hard to assign an answer so concrete and final, so.... black and white. If you tell me something is true, I will make it my sole purpose to seek out an exception, some inconsistency. Tell me something is false, and I will squeeze every drop of truth and goodness out of it that I can find.

 The sharp contrast between black and white often leaves me feeling uneasy, its lack of shades feels somehow incomplete. The distinction becomes more blurry as my mind pulls me away into the gray areas. Nothing can be left unexplored. For even in the darkness of the night sky one can find stars. And though the sun lights up the day, there are always spaces that its radiance cannot reach, creating shadows. I must wander among the stars, hide myself in the shadows. In these places that choose to be different from their surroundings, I will discover how colors can be blended and distance can be mended.

I cannot make my home in the gray areas for their walls would be too fragile, filled with uncertainty. Yet still they draw me in to find common ground between all that disagrees. Even when the truth seems clear, it takes a journey through the gray area to understand another's point of view, to reconcile our differences and make peace when colors clash. No, we shouldn't compromise on what we believe, but when we only see things in clear black and white and refuse to explore all that lies in between, we are missing all the shades that can give an image such great dimension and depth.

For now I will fill in the answers to this test, identify the truths and falsehoods around me and hold firm to what I believe. But I have also learned to never stop questioning why things are the way the are. I don't want to lose the hope that maybe things can be different, maybe things can change.

caterpillar feet

Fresh and green, her youthful feet were caterpillars. Inching along, they carried her to explore the new world she had entered, carpeted by their fuzzy innocence and childlike exuberance. But soon she learned to stand on her own, and after that, to walk. Towering over them, her journeys began to crush the defenseless creatures. Each step weighed more heavily upon them as she grew. Her foundation was being trampled and squished beneath her, and she had only herself to blame. Often her wanderings caused them to burst, and she had to patch them up again. Her attempts to fix what she had ruined left behind scars. At times she wished she could remove the strange appendages altogether! Bruised and purple, she started to cover them up with sock and shoe, a protective chrysalis to hide her shame. Trapped inside this chrysalis they stayed, unable to move. She was powerless to walk again: her fear kept her from uncovering her caterpillar feet. She was afraid that someone would see the ugliness that had become a part of her, afraid that movement would only cause her more pain. Because every time she tried to walk, she felt her scars beneath her burning with the pain of past steps. The gentle insects soon grew accustomed to the darkness and isolation of their cage, reflecting her paralyzed soul. However, something was changing inside of them. She slowly withered away, and it was only when she reached the end of herself that she could see her total inability to walk on her own, what she had been trying to do for so long. If she were to go on, she would have to be carried. So she slipped off her shoes and endured the sting as she peeled away her socks and all that she had built to stand on. Sunlight flooded her darkness and she was lifted up onto new feet. Damaged caterpillars had been transformed into beautiful butterflies to carry her above the hard earth where she had once trod. The beauty had come from outside of herself and could only come in when she had been opened. Majestic colors spread beneath as she let them lift her up, as she opened herself into the wind. The scars that once lined her feet were now stripes of decoration for her wings, banners of hope that told her she no longer had to walk alone. Now all could see her, and now she could finally fly.

teach me how to sing

For Kortney...


She sings her favorite melody
With a voice big as the sea
Like pure water, clear and strong
The waves in her heart form a song

She wonder if she'll ever fly
Lately her head's been in the sky
Do you know how bright you shine?
You make me smile on the inside

And way up high in your castle on a cloud
In paradise though I don't know how
When night grows darker, you smile brighter
And it makes no sense to me
When you teach me how to sing

You are my laughter every day
The silly things you do and say
While the love you never found
Makes you strain to hear the sound

Of songs that beckon you to sleep
Wide awake in restless dreams
When your world is crumbling
You can hold on to me

And way up high in your castle on a cloud
It hurts to hide when it gets too loud
When night grows darker, you smile brighter
And it makes no sense to me
When you teach me how to sing

Will you teach me how to sing?

The songs now beckon you to sleep
Feel the summer ocean breeze
When your castles fall apart
May I hold your heart?

here inside myself

I want to hold what I have inside. Silence protects me and I like to feel safe. But you're trying to draw it out. You say you're worried about me but I don't want you to be. I'm safe, here inside myself.

You tell me that my smile doesn't reach my eyes and you don't believe me when I tell you I'm fine. But I'm not sure what I am. I have no words, which is all you really want. Relationships need communication, and that's why they're so messy. What if I have no voice to give you?

You just want to feel useful and I just want to keep feeling useless. I might be tearing myself apart. Maybe you should be concerned. But that's not what I need.

I don't need you. Why do you need me to need you?

I don't know how to receive your love or love you back. Here inside myself, I only know how to love... myself.

It's strange how when you hate yourself, you aren't thinking much of anyone else. How you can hate and love at the same time.

the tree with the mangled roots

I remember sitting here, in this exact place, one year ago. A place of refuge and solitude. Of peace. Back then I was weary. I sat down to rest, my back pressed against the tree with the mangled roots, watching the leaves drift away as they floated down the stream. That same weariness haunts me now. Because I can't help but feel that things were brighter then. The sky less gray than it is today. The river and pasture have lost their sparkle, where the sun once shone. I wonder if it will be like this every year in my future. A little bit grayer. The river a little murkier. More and more like a dream. Age and experience I gain as the years go by, but something is always lost. I will dwindle away to nothing. The leaves are swept away on the current and forgotten.


Update: (March 15th) So I found a parallel. This is one of my favorite parts of White Nights, and I was probably remembering it while writing, which is why they are so similar, though the events I described did take place.
...

"I remember that exactly a year ago, at exactly this hour, on this very pavement, I wandered about cheerlessly and alone just as I did today. And I can't help remembering that at the time, too, my dreams were sad and dreary, and though I did not feel better then I somehow can't help feeling that it was better, that life was more peaceful, that at least I was not then obsessed by the black thoughts that haunt me now, that I did not suffer from these gloomy and miserable qualms of conscience which now give me no rest either by day or by night... Look, you say to yourself, look how everything in the world is growing cold. Some more years will pass, and they will be followed by cheerless solitude, and then will come tottering old age, with its crutch, and after it despair and desolation. Your fantastic world will fade away, your dreams will wilt and die, scattering like the yellow leaves from the trees." ~Dosteovsky, "White Nights"

a flower reaching for the sky

I was made for a harmony;

To fly just a little higher.

The melody my roots,

Pulling me into the earth-

While at the same time,
Looming above;
I'm free to bloom.

A small and precious duet,

I cradle the sound in my hands.

Blow its seeds away to the air-

Scattering into sunlight

To cast shadows underneath.

Parallel we glide,

My shadow and me.

At equal intervals

We soar up and fall free.

Coming so close,
But never quite touching.
Where you go I will follow-
Close beside;
Carving my own path.

Cold and clear notes
Contrast with your gentle warmth;
Cut their way through the space around us
Where we bloom-
Together, but apart.

Roots reaching for water and earth-
A flower reaching for the sky.

take these broken wings

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night."

~the Beatles

the hurricane

i can't think-
my mind won't stop racing in circles.
white noise growing louder and louder,
concealing reason.

a rush of panic.
blurry thought,
sharp emotion.

it's rising up inside of me,
overwhelming me,
overpowering me.

i can't do this.

a weak frame-
whisked away
by the gentle breeze,
tormented inside
by the hurricane.