Trapped

I tear at the vail

But to no avail.

It wont budge,

I don’t leave a smudge

Im not going anywhere

That much is clear.

Is this who I am?

Reality hits with a bam

Im not trying to escape mortals,

But my own brokenness and troubles

I laugh hysterically and fall on the ground.

This is who I am, so I've found.

May as well embrace it,

Nothing is going to change it.

A piece of broken mirror lies on the street,

I pick it up, my eyes and reflection meet.

I scream for help, but no one answers.

But who would help me, I'm worthless I figure.

Im trapped, I'm trapped, I cant escape.

My scars and burns and hurts and pain.

My heart is broken and torn to shreds.

Everything I had was ripped from my hands.

My family and friends, everything I knew.

My life, my childhood gone to soon.

Life

You start by seeing sunshine.

Rays of light beam on you as you cry.

But the cries are empty,

Just the screams of a baby.

Soon though you start to grow,

You start to see things of which you didn’t know.

But you shake it off, you have nothing to say,

Off to the grass, to frolic and play.

Those were the days when your smile reached your eyes,

When your grins weren’t lies.

You hadn’t a care in the world,

You played in your room, where you danced and twirled.

A few years later you start to see,

Things aren’t as okay as they seemed to be.

You can see the stress

You can see the regrets.

Then you come upon problems of your own,

They seem silly though, so no one knows.

You keep them to yourself,

Stuff them in a bottle and shove them on a shelf.

But it becomes too much, your bottle bursts

Exploding with your pain, anger, and hurt.

They wash over you like a wave from the ocean.

Drowning you in a boat load of emotion.

Now it’s out of control,

Everything they say burns you like coal.

So you lock yourself in,

It’s the only option.

Spend the rest of your days

locked up and away,

until the end when it’s done,

then your life’s gone.

Homesick

I’m homesick. Homesick for dad grilling dinner on the grill while the family comes over. Homesick for late-night TV watching on a quilt-covered couch. Homesick for the rickety wooden ramp leading up to the house. Homesick for slip-n-sliding with cousins in the backyard. Homesick for skinny cow ice cream sandwiches in uncle Larry’s pool. Homesick for worshiping in in English at church. Homesick for pier 419. Homesick for eating cheese crackers on grandfather’s boat. But I’m also homesick for campfires in Croatia. Homesick for leather couches in a hotel lobby in Hungary. Homesick for eating Pringles at the beach in Thess, homesick for the little hotel in Bulgaria. I think that it isn’t the places I’m homesick for; it’s the people who made me feel, in those little moments, at home.

Goodbyes

Farewell to the innocence

Farewell to the whines

Farewell to the time

I didn’t know of goodbyes.

For I’m all grown up now,

I’ve seen the pain

I’ve seen the cries

I’ve seen what it means to say goodbye.

For I’m in a different place now,

I’ve seen the smiles

I’ve seen the frowns,

I’ve seen that grins cover the pain.

All of my life now is saying goodbye

Goodbye to people

Goodbye to places

Goodbye to things with a thousand faces

Sometimes the dreams keep me up at night

Of what life could have been,

And of a thing,

A thing they call light.

But light I haven’t seen,

Farewells are dark.

Goodbyes are grim.

That’s what clouds my vision, that’s what I see.