[video soon to come]

Monochrome

(“A Brilliant Shade of Gray”)

I dream in black and white

Force myself to sleep away the daylight to avoid the walls that would cage me

The voices would enrage me

The men that would rape me

The lovers that would hate me

In bed, I lie. Open my eyes; see the sun

Tell myself not to move until night has won

After dusk, I can go

Tell myself the sky is the best mirror I know:

It’s dark, but it’s pure

A midnight sky is thick-skinned, knows how to endure,

Resilient and never

dirty.

Unlike the stained panes of glass that grace my walls

I’ve never seen my whole face through the grime

I stare into his bathroom mirror and see a face aged years past her crime

Crying

Quietly

Avoiding prying eyes and spying ears

Hope to God he doesn’t hear

Hope to God the grace of laughter

Fake my way through the morning after.

Silently, I stand,

Mirror in hand, while I debate the ways to play the passing time

Debate ways to break habits of truth or dare

Stop whoring out my regrets for pity and prayer

[I don’t want your sympathy

Just for you to understand my pathology]

But we both know

I’ll just end up walking out your door before any words can be spoken

Just like every other time before

I sleep in your arms

Hoping it’ll be different this time

I sleep in your arms

Hoping this time… I’ll stay

I sleep in your arms

But still…

I dream in black and white

Calling out to monochrome men caught like deer in the headlights

I want to ask you if I’m beautiful

If the sky’s reflecting the right image because more times than not

This feels like borrowed skin

And I’m trying on new clothes in the spun webs

Called the beds

Of first-name-only men

And I keep telling myself,

Darkened by the shadow of spiders,

“Eight legs isn’t enough to catch me.”

Testing fate with self-destruction and

Come-and-get-me taunts

All my lovers should thank the man who thinks he’s entitled to anything he wants

The biggest skeleton in my closet is the only secret wearing a face

I’ll shake his hand

While pulling a trigger

Thanks…Now I’ll never have to be afraid.

But I still won’t look you in the eyes.

I just bee-line for the door

Before you get a chance to tell me that you love me and want more

And I’m faced with the truth

Of what I don’t think I deserve…

“Baby,

What we just did

Is all that I think that I’m worth!”

I keep waiting for my dreams to embrace their colorings

To embolden each breath I breathe

For each step I lead

And each time I refuse to leave

Face my fears and claim a creed

Cry when I bleed

Because you ask me

Why I’m running

Why I think this is okay…

And I can only explain:

“Because,

I don’t want to dream

Of you

In a brilliant shade

Of gray.”

Video Here

Grave Digger

I don’t want to say you’re still and angel

Because you might ask me to give you back your wings

I don’t have them to give

Just the comfort of a hug

on the off-chance you let me touch you today

I don’t want to say you’re the devil

Because that means, at one time, you had wings

And it’s so much easier to hate you

When I picture you as always being a monster.

No one would believe it had happened to you

You’re too beautiful for pain

Too strong to become a statistic

 No one would belive it was you

Because rape still remains

‘strangers

in alleys’

Broadcast on the crime watch of the six o’clock news.

Tell me so I’ll understand

All I want to be is a friend

How many times will you push me away?

I’ll never understand

She wanted to be only a friend

How many times did she push you away?

You have to eat

You have to talk about this

You have to get out of bed

Stop speaking in suicidal riddles

and put those grave thoughts out of your head

There’s more to life than this pain

For the last time: you didn’t do anything wrong

I see you slowly killing yourself

You’ve got to be strong.

See what you’ve done?

Look down

A six-foot deep incision in the ground

Turn around

Let them see what you’ve become

A grave digger for children,

Once, a mother’s son

A hollow-eyed shell

Shell-shocked

Hollow-point bullets spinning in the chamber of your gun,

Once, an artist

Once, a friend

Once, a strong young woman unafraid to meet the gaze of men

I want to tell you

I love you

Put the gun down because we’ll miss you when you’re gone

I want to tell you

I hate you

That your body is a lethal weapon if you use it wrong

This is what you did; look at the monster you created

The human being you destroyed

I’ve never seen eyes so jaded.

I’ve never seen eyes so void.

At ngiht, you never sleep

You think you hide it so well

But I recognize blood-shot eyes

I can always tell

It’s so much easier to see others’ scars

When you have your own to compare them to

And I,

I see my scars on you.

I see her scars on you.

I see one-in-four women’s scars on you.

You,

You’ve been busy

One-in-four women? That’s why at night,

You never sleep.

You’d rather be out on the prowl preying on the weak

I know you’re praying for peace

Praying to breathe

Layering new bruises on top of the old ones on your knees

Rubbing the color off your rosary beads.

Whispering away your guilt

Whispering away your fears

What exactly was it that you whispered in her ears?

She’s tortured with nothing but your voice

She covers her ears and screams for silence

Did you want her to say you were good?

Tell me.

Did you want he to beg?

Tell me.

Did you want her to say your name?

Tell me!

 Tell me!

Tell me,

Why won’t you tell me his name.

                                        Hitchhiking

                Hitchhiking this highway I’ve named my own
Thumb out
Head up
Feet in the perpetual motion that physicists called impossible
Accompanied with age-old promises written on rolling papers and a charcoal pen
And a backpack full of ironed-and-folded dreams
Busting at the seams
And straps always pointed toward home
I catch a ride with a stranger I’ve named fate—
He tells me of a life—
Eyes reflecting highway stars disguised as brake lights—
His life
A story so close to mine, I could taste the ink from his diary pages with each word
I saw his past in my memories
And caught his stare in my mirror as I dabbed chap stick onto wind chapped lips
While pretending to just pretend to listen

 
He tells me of travels and trials and the miles under his tires
Marking each truck stop and 7/11 away from home.
He tells me of roots
And the importance of always knowing where yours are;
He says: “keep you past in your rear-view mirror’s horizon;
Close enough to see and seek should the need ever arise,
But far enough behind, you can imagine it’s not
Following you.”
He says: “sleep with roaches when you must because
At least
They will scare away the spiders that would aim to kill you as you dream.”
He tells me to never forget my place in this life,
Because my spit-out sunflower seeds
Are the rice grains at someone else’s wedding feet,
So never forget the cycles, never forget the connections.
He tells me that we are not our father’s children.
He says: “rifle shells and wedding bells were both cast from the same metal—
Never forget the beauty
Or the destruction
That one element can make;
Remember that when you choose your way on a forked path.
He tells me: “it’s better to go a day without food
Than a day without a dream
So find a beach
Kind enough to sing you sweetly to sleep with
Serenade waves
As you crash like surf on the sand
And hope
It’ll wash a meal on shore for you
In exchange for your
Sleeping inhale-exhale melody.
He says: “the light of day will guide your way
Even if it has to travel 93 million miles,
Reflect off the moon and back
To earth, just to light this night-time drifter’s path.
He told me to start and end each day with a laugh,
Because nothing
In your day can’t be fixed with the sight of a freedom-filled night.
He looks at me and tells me:
“Beauty
Is nothing but perceptions
So aim with both eyes open
And you’ll wonder why you ever blinked.”
He tells me: “it’s better to go a lifetime without air
Than a day without a dream—
So keep your heart out
Head up
And your eyes to the sky
Because the clouds will provide the visions you need to survive.
Keep looking up—a head in the clouds’ not as bad as they say
Throw away your zig-zag promises
And learn to write new ones on the middle of maps.

And leaves me in the night
At the curb of a fluorescent-neon box of a truck stop,
Leaving a red carpet of tail-light stars and
Tire-track scars on the asphalt
Leaving me to believe that scars can only better us
By reminding us what left a mark on our lives.
Lessons that deep weren’t meant to fade fast
Like vapor trails chasing stars or
Night-shroud clouds illuminating gray.
He had told me if I keep moving my feet
I’ll never run out of new things to see
And new clouds to chase
And I can still feel his voice as tangible as the wind on my face
And as new as my knowledge that the ocean waves sing

He’d told me:
You’ve got to feel the gravel beneath your shoes
To feel the wind beneath your wings.

“A person does not simply "receive" his or her identity. Identity is much more than the name or features one is born with. True identity is something people must create for themselves by making choices that are significant and that require a courageous commitment in the face of challenges. Identity means having ideas and values that one lives by.” -- Adapted from Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action

ASSIGNMENT:

Is identity something people are born with or given, or is it something people create for themselves? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.  25 Minutes.

            Identity is a multi-faceted concept. It is not merely christened to us like our names. Who we are as humans is a complex derivative of our dreams, our pasts, and our environments. As with many other young people, or just people in general for that matter, I have long struggled with my own identity. Constantly fixed within many of our minds are the quandaries of: “Who am I?” and “Where do I belong?” This is why a major factor of our identities (or the quest thereof) is conformity. This is where our environment comes into play. We as humans mimic what we see each day; this is why our family, friends, and community are significant factors in the creation of one’s identity. Those with whom we associate, obligatorily or by choice, influence us greatly and affect how we think, rationalize, believe, act…

Another factor in the forming of our selves is our pasts. Past experiences help dictate who we become. Traumas, successes, failures, lovers, enemies, and memories as a whole form us—giving us our fears, prides, roles… Our past also affects our goals. How we dream creates who we are. If one dreams of a doctorate, one will most likely adopt a diligent, studious nature. If one dreams of a life of no inhibitions, that is probably how one will act.

            Identity is more than traits or traditions; it is how we view ourselves as a while. Though familial roles and traditions may be set, for example, this dictates things about us, but not our spirits and who we are.

            Identity is beyond a name, beyond a job, beyond a passion, or significant other. Identity is a make up who we were, who we are at present, and who we wish to become.

            “Identity is not a birth rite, nor predestined or fate;

  Identity is the one thing solely ours to create.”