something new i'm working on

somewhere there is a factory. and in this factory are workers all in anonymous uniforms working their hands and fingers in a machined fashion that keeps this particular factory flowing like the rain does down the large windows that reminds the workers that there are places other than there. everywhere at all times there are these industries which work around the clock making every sort of something that makes life easier.

except this particular place prints a certain kind of paper. Rolls and rolls of it, flying out of a press like a water wheel, which is also an exceptional source of energy for a place such as this. In fact, that's exactly how the lights are lit and the machines are mechanized, by slow trickles of water through a dam of the river right outside.

and the workers in their toil, in their endless lever pulling and matching uniforms produce pink slips. Paper tirelessly perforated and inked and sealed and stamped and mailed and recieved and crumpled and cried over, reminding people that they aren't important anymore.

mark sheffield looked up through those large windows, saw a white dove flutter by. he blinked, smiled, tried to find it again before it passed to the last pane. "this place is a prison," he mumbled to bob parker, safety inspector, NO. 74, to his right, over his shoulder, marking off the celebrated and proper measurements of the pressured dials.

a steam whistle blew, an old sound signaling ancient time shift changes, the only relic left in a place that replaces parts more than it does men.

bob and mark sighed, waited for the next set of workers to pat them on their backs, give everything a once over and take over their shift. mark still gazed outside into the sky over the river into the clouds shadowing miserable tress, which tried their hardest to stretch their limbs besides smokestacks and concrete, the dove had flown away, gone forever in mark's mind, to somewhere where men aren't handed pink slips, beyond pastors of the apocalypse, passed places that use glass and steel to contain, to greener pastures.

that dove gave him peace. it gave him hope. he wanted that little white bird to have a palm frond in its beak, like those bible stories his ma told him about the flood. he wanted to be that dove right about now, floating and diving and flapping to some forever horizon like you see on a movie poster. he smiled, felt the pat on his back, and went home.

outside, the dove was just a broken white napkin the wind caught and put in a nearby tree.

a note clothespinned

I lived in blue sky, you on your stomach smiling at some far away thing. I can't remember the last time I relaxed at a park with someone so new, so fresh, so lovely. And how a smile is like the fall, wiping away every bad memory of a hot summer of a blistering thought. Caught in the moments, this beautiful way of saving me in the smallest and most innocent of ways. Always near the brink, feeling and fearing the rocks might give way at a moment's notice, yet just in the nick of time a bold move and a fire inside can turn it all around. And here I am standing on the brink of something else, something foreign and old, something I boxed away a very long time ago, something good I purposely buried to bring out when the time is right. And that comes so natural, like water gathering on the leaf of a lily.

Remember how I said my heart is a prodigal son, coming back, limping back, barely beating but alive somehow? Well, it seems to have mended itself up quite a bit, some nasty gashes here and there, but ones that muscles memory has fixed and repurposed, like an old dress with new owners.

There is an old brick that sits somewhere at my place to remind me of solid ground, to remind me of the past, to show me what hard work can produce and how sturdy it can be. To never give up on some things, even when they give up on you. And all in all at the end of time, I think that I would like to be like that brick.

I wrote a poem the other day. It's short, maybe even sweet, but it works in this instance quite well. I'll share it just because I can:

Whether the world

ends in a bang

or a sigh

I'll turn to you

and kiss you goodbye.

I suppose that's what everything everywhere is all about.

fracture

Our bodies move with such grace sometimes, like children swimming underwater, hair flowing slowly behind them. We have this instrument we have been given, this practical mass which allows us to connect and touch and see and hear and taste and experience. And throughout our lives we learn how to walk correctly, not bang into corners, watch where we are going, how to properly jump into a body of water, and most of the times the reverse has to happen so we know how to do it correctly.

Scars fading on our bodies, bruises constantly fading, small knicks and cuts on our hands and knees, this constant reminder of how mortal we are, how fragile we can be, and how fleeting everything really is. I often sit at my desk and think about all the cuts and bruises and every trauma my body has ever taken and how I work fairly well, considering. And what if all those closed up places, those repaired spaces suddenly opened back up, if every wound I have ever taken decided in an unanimous state to undo. I would surely die. I think we all would of the shock of seeing how much we have been hurt, of how much the crux of that pain could be. Writhing on the floor, screaming for mercy from the walls and the furniture and the ceiling, only to be offered no comfort. It's a good thing we have mothers to bandage our wounds, salve and ointments to facilitate healing.

Yet we do this all the time with our hearts, we let a wound stay open and open and fester and hurt and never heal. We, or at least I, have been guilty of letting an old wound become a wrecking force in my life because I was afraid of how it would heal, what if I changed, what if I was different, what if I got hurt again? But the freedom of wisdom lies in the failure you had to achieve to see what is the right way and what is the wrong way.

So, my bandaged and long lost heart returns like prodigal sons, beaten, worn down, disconnected from reality, but nonetheless back. And I think that's a good start.

something i read this morning. needed to read this morning.

It begins in most hearts with lamentation over past sin. I have broken God's just commandments, I have done evil against my God, I have destroyed my soul; my heart feels this, and bitterly mourns. It is one thing to say formally, "I am a miserable sinner;" it is a very different thing to be one. To say it may be gross hypocrisy, to feel it is a mark of grace. Oh that every one of us, if we have never felt mourning for sin may feel it at this hour. May we mourn to think that we have pierced the Savior, that we have transgressed against a God so good, and a Redeemer so generous. Those who mourn for the guilt of past sin, before long, reach a higher point. Mourners are not suffered long to tarry; grace takes their load of guilt away. Their transgressions are covered. Do they leave off mourning then? Oh, no, they mourn in another way. There is a sweet mourning concerning my past sin which I would never wish to lose. It is forgiven, every sin of mine is blotted out, and my soul, therefore, with a sweet bitterness, would mourn over it more and more. -c.w. spurgeon

everything really was beautiful and nothing really hurt

Vonnegut speaks in the simplest of terms sometimes. In this beautiful easy way to read and feel and see. And I've read that line (everything was beautiful and nothing hurt) about a dozen times but today I think I finally GET it. Maybe it was the setting in which I was reading that line again. Or just thinking about my past few years and how it is applicable to specific places and dates.

This past week. Dark Washington night, Pacific coast, no cell phone reception, hoodie and beanie on riding bikes withe one of my best friends through low lit streets. The cold air cutting us on a June night. The low roar of a nearby ocean just over the cliff. Weaving in and out of unfamiliar streets. Smiling. Nothing behind us or nothing ahead of us.

Another instance. Sitting on the beach years ago. Comfort food bought to ease some pain. Blanket. Sunrise dusted by clouds. low lapping of a gulf shore. Body weight rested on elbows. Nothing except that moment. No one existed but us.

Another time: Sitting at the coffee house today, clouds so high strung up on the thinnest threads like cotton balls drifting. The trees blew slightly. A girl next to me smelled like someone I once knew. A special needs son and his older mother walking by. He blows on a hollow pen that makes a noise like I've heard on the World Cup. She holds his hand. He shuffles his feet. I wonder if everything is beautiful and nothing hurts for her. How she manages. What resolve and love she has. Their simplicity of love.

Is everything really beautiful and can nothing really hurt? I suppose so. I suppose there are times as I've mentioned above where everything seems in that instant and good. That that one moment is how eternity could be spent. The best place ever if even for just a second. And I have to remember those times when they aren't there anymore, like when a stewardess flips out over turbulence or low fuel in an airplane forces you to land. Or when I'm terrified. Or when anything can shake me. Even the strongest of us have our weak moments. And I suppose it's those moments that refine us. Either way I know I have these moments to pull from, to remember and focus on when the world is falling apart like puzzle pieces, one at a time. And the ends don't match up, don't ever seem to match up. And nothing makes sense anymore.

But those moments do. Like riding borrowed bicycles at night with a dear friend, under barely visible lamp light, riding towards the Pacific Ocean in a place a thousand miles away. And all you have is the air and the heat of a single beating heart and a smile that says everything is beautiful and nothing hurt.

freight train leaving town

I was looking through some photos of a friend of mine the other day, and in between pictures of flowers and little people smiling I saw a strange structure that did not make sense to me, some other world device that is not from here. And I still don't know what it is, don't wanna know. I like the mystery of something unexplained but useful for people I'll never meet, never know, never love, never hate. Just strangers on the other side.

Same person and I were talking later and I asked them what they saw over there that was beautiful that day, and they said they saw children in costumes pouring out of the door of their school because it was the last day of school. And the children ran with lunchpales and capes and papers in reckless abandon, running to parent's arms and bicycles and cars driven and parked on the wrong side of the road. And I asked:

"how does that make you feel?"

Response:

"like maybe we aren't so different after all."

I love that laughter everywhere sounds the same, same noises coming out of our bodies. This universal understanding of happy or funny. A smile is a smile. Body language or gestures are pretty constant everywhere. That gives me the oddest peace, that maybe I am not alone. That somewhere someone I can't understand or don't know can shrug their shoulders or laugh at something and at that moment we have bonded on a level deeper than language or culture. Some old balefire stirred up in us, deep inside, coals warmed by the thought of another stranger getting us.

I keep my distance, naturally. It's what we've been taught to do. Build the walls, fortify yourself and everything you hold dear. Close the curtains, turn off the lights, let the bandits pass you by. Live another day. But there's no use of living like that, alone and in the dark, shaky hands and pounding hearts. It's hard, no one ever said it would be easy. But to take that risk of letting someone in... I don't know how many more times I can do it before it breaks me. Too late now though, ain't ever been much of one to give up or quit. Suppose I shouldn't start now. You can't teach an old dog new trick, people don't change; well, they rarely change. Actually, maybe they do change, but not become better, just become comfortable with you and me and everyone else and get tired of acting.

That's why all those Hollywood folk get paid so much money. It's not easy being in makeup all morning and acting like someone you aren't all day.

But here, in the real world, when those supposed movie moments happen to us, big scenes, things slow down, we look around and people walk in time to the music you listen to, and its nothing but gorgeous dressed up people and everything feels like something important, no one yells "cut!" and we don't walk off the set and into our trailers and we don't live in mansions or fly in private jets or anything really. We just take another breath, a heart beats amazingly one more time, and every scene around us bleeds into each other.

I don't know why I wrote this. Maybe I am just reaching out to someone who won't be my friend anymore who I will see soon without a doubt. Maybe it's to cry out in the only way I know how. Maybe it's therapy. Maybe it's heaven. Maybe it's hell.

HERE IT IS!!!!!!!

The Cobbler and The Missing Peace by Sean Patrick Kirby | Make Your Own Book