Daily Archives for December 16, 2012

4

You don’t have to worry, not anymore.

You already know what you need to know, we’ve exhausted our positions. You’re right, we don’t have a hold on each other because that’s how it is supposed to be. So, let’s keep it this way.

We swore to be more careful, I think it’s time we push that a notch higher. We’ll keep pushing it up until we understand the gravity of all our actions. I said it once and I’ll say it again, this will be our little secret. Our very own understanding. When the time finally comes, pray that we’ve already recovered from the heavens that this brought to us. That we can answer confidently that this is nothing close to all our fears. That we can walk away gracefully, that when night comes we will sleep soundly.

I asked you before to help me because I don’t want a traitors mark. You asked me to help you make it right, and so we will. We’ll work on it because there’s nothing I want more than to do right by you. As we go along, no matter how they might sound, remember that it will never be my intention to threaten you, never will I trap you into making a choice, never will I stop you from doing what you need to do.

You asked me what I want from you and I told you I want nothing. But I want to help you be the person you aspire to be, not the person who leads you to darkness just because I cannot stand the thought of losing you. But I’ll have to stand it, and I’m slowly learning, I’d say take advantage of it.

It’s the risks that we try at that’s going to give us that priceless feeling. The future is not necessary at this point, don’t worry about it. Let’s deal with what we have to do now. Let’s dance to our favorite songs, let’s bask in the lines that we love, let’s drown in the emotions that nice films bring. If we do it together, let’s enjoy the moment and wake the next day like nothing happened. But I think that what we fail to see is that it’s okay if we don’t do it together. It won’t be a waste, none of it is.

I always loved watching people lose themselves over the things that make them alive. It’s what I live by. But I’ll try my best to be more careful this time. Be more careful around you.

Poetry: My Darling Sara by Shane Koyczan

Listen: My Darling Sara by Shane Koyczan

“The failing use of my right hand

isn’t actually the failing use of my right hand

it’s just another way to tell the time

and I’m ticking

so I’ve been picking myself up at bars

with a bottle in each hand

but I never give myself any play

I only make plans with myself for the day after next

but by the time the sun swings back around into position

I forget the context of why I asked myself out

in the first place

did I think I was going to score?

I let a stranger pour me one more

she says

my name is Sara

doesn’t take much more than that

to start a relationship

My darling, Sara

cleans rooms for a living

giving her youth and beauty

to dirt and dust

understands more than most

that family must be the foot you put forward first

you must weather the worst together

but having never met her family

she places love above all else

then protests that I use the word love

too freely in poems

and I should really just say what I mean

and I suppose what I mean most is that

I’m trying

she’s been buying me time

on a maxed out credit card

arms scarred from selling her own blood

to pay down the debt

tells me she doesn’t mind going broke

just so long as I can give her a little sweat

she says

try

so I do my best impression

of a pen

and when every problem looks like a page

I commit ink to paper

the worth of the words that come out

determines my wage

I’ve been making enough

to pay her the compliment

of not quitting..

of not sitting

when standing is required

she only asks that I put the effort in

and in return she’s willing

to pin a paper heart to her chest

then do her best impression

of a target

She tells me that effort

is the siamese twin of success

so when everyone else looks like a wrong answer

she says she’ll settle for being my best guess

so we lie in bed like a mess

that someone’s been meaning to clean

for the large part

of a long while

we lie there like a pile of dirty laundry

and how we’ll ever come clean

is beyond me

so we don’t

she says

it’s supposed to be dirty

and if by the end you haven’t hurt me

then you didn’t try

so I do my best impression

of a surgeon

cutting purple hearts out of my own

use my veins like thread

then have hurt sewn to our skin like medals

because when the bleeding stops

and that dust settles

all we have are our wounds

to wear like decorations

upon our chest

Sara does her best impression of a war

tells me not to count my pride among casualties

because maybe faith means never keeping score

she says there’s more to effort than just switching gears

and in terms of what one should give in life

sweat holds more value than tears

you have to try

and even though

the failing use of my right hand

means I’ll never land a knockout punch

in the first round

life is composed of sound and fury

whatever noise is left in me

will be twice as loud when I try

so I plug myself into the idea of going the distance

and I amplify

My darling, Sara

has a throat like a vase

she sings her words into bloom

has voice like perfume

it’s been sticking to my clothes

so everyone knows where I’ve been sleeping

she’s been keeping me so close

you could use my body for evidence

pull her fingerprints as proof

that she’s been on top so often

she’s starting to look like my roof

but a real sexy roof

and she doesn’t leak

unless you count the crying

she does that sometimes

worries that she’s just a back up plan

My darling, Sara.

I’ve lived long enough to learn

too many choices can destroy a man

I will make no exodus

I’ll be around long enough

to watch uncertainty bid us farewell

the echo our names into the crater

caused by the impact

of when our lack of conviction fell

you’ve never had to sell me on the idea

of absolute certainty in the trustworthiness of another

the first and only time you met my mother

mom said

“I like the way she looks at you”

and I echoed back to her

that I liked it too.

eyes like recycle bin blue

Sara looks at broken things

as if she can make them new

more than a few times I’ve caught her staring

caught her wearing

a smile reserved for those busy making plans.

Sara believes that distance is a fundamental

that can be side-stepped by a piece of string

and two tin cans

and I remember when my tin can rang.

they said

there’s no family to speak of

so love is next in line

and there’s not a lot of time but

she’s asking for her boyfriend

in the cab to the hospital I feel my heart bend

as if bracing for impact

so I do my best impression of a man

and face fact.

it’s supposed to hurt.

a doctor does his best impression of the truth

and spares me his attempts to skirt around the issue.

they can’t stop the bleeding

and the failing use of Sara’s heart

isn’t actually

the failing use of Sara’s heart..

it’s just another way to tell the time.

My darling, Sara

I was holding your hand when you died

and even though the failing use of my right hand

prevented me from feeling you leave..

I tried.”

Poetry: Instructions for A Bad Day by Shane Koyczan (Slam Poetry)

There will be bad days. Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now. Let go. Be confident. Know that now is only a moment, and that if today is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, today will have ended. Be gracious. Accept each extended hand offered to pull you back from the somewhere you cannot escape. Be diligent. Scrape the gray sky clean. Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the truth, and the truth is, whether we see them or not – the sun and moon are still there and always there is light.

Be forthright. Despite your instinct to say, “it’s alright, I’m okay” – be honest. Say how you feel without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity. Be lucid in your explanation, be sterling in your oppose. If you think for one second no one knows what you’ve been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone – that pain is part of the human condition and that alone makes you a legion.

We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn, we dissmissers of odds, we blessers of on – we will station ourselves to the calm. We will hold ourselves to the steady, be ready, player one. Life is going to come at you armed with hard times and tough choices, your voice is your weapon, your thoughts ammunition – there are no free extra men, be aware that as the instant now passes, it exists now as then. So be a mirror reflecting yourself back, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and that you’d never make it through.

Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue. Be forgiving. Living with the burden of anger, is not living. Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self absent of what you need. Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows is the one you feed. Be persistent. Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement, beautiful – because it doesn’t know it’s not supposed to grow there. Be resolute. Declare what you accept as true in a way that envisions the resolve with which you accept it.

If you are having a good day, be considerate. A simple smile could be the first-aid kit that someone has been looking for. If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can – do more.

There will be bad days, times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out. There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is all right when it clearly is not, check your blind spot. See that love is still there, be patient. Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end. Ignore what others have called you. I am calling you friend. Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis. Silence left to its own devices, breed’s silence.

So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life into context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud. Make noise. Stand in poise and be open. Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again. Everyone is blessed with the ability to listen. The deaf will hear you with their eyes. The blind will see you with their hands. Let your heart fill their newsstands, let them read all about it. Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights. Listen to the insights of those who have been there, but have come back. They’ll tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack despair, you can even wear your sorrow – but come tomorrow you must change your clothes.

Everyone knows pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you how was your day, realize that for some of us – it’s the only way we know how to say, “Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now – let go.”