Contradictions

Contradictions

I’m afraid of being right

I’m afraid of being wrong

I’m afraid of being quiet

I’m afraid of being loud

I’m afraid of blending in

I’m afraid of sticking out

I’m afraid of speaking my mind

I’m afraid of never being heard

I’m afraid of taking risks

I’m afraid of having regrets

I’m afraid of following my heart

I’m afraid of losing its beat

I’m afraid of finding love

I’m afraid of losing it

I’m afraid of my dreams

I’m afraid of never achieving them

I’m afraid of not being me

I’m afraid I’m a contradiction

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Why I’m Here

(FYI, this piece was written off a prompt for “Why are you here?” and to make it as crazy, bragging and laugh-inducing as possible. It’s a wonderful thing to do when you’re feeling down, I promise!)

Why I’m Here

Because I am 16
And I haven’t lived yet
I’m here because I have just self-published a book
And I want to sell a million copies
I haven’t seen Japan yet
I haven’t learned to ride a motorcycle yet
But I am the manager of a 50 person dining room
And the editor of a magazine with 3,000 people who read it
I haven’t seen all my friends face-to-face yet
And no one’s able to fly
And I want recognition
Happiness
Love
And peace
But I’m still trying to figure out what all that means
I’m here because my brothers need me
I’m here because my parents want me
No one can fix broken bonds yet
But I want to be the first one
And I want to see a world of peace
With no pollution
War
or greed
And I’m going to make that happen
I am here because I haven’t signed an agent
I haven’t found a publisher
But someday I want to see my title be a NY Times bestseller
I am here because I want to live
And my dreams have stopped the darkness in my heart
I am here because I have something to say
And I haven’t said enough yet

Poetry Potluck–Love and Romance: Where Are You?

This is my entry for the Monday Poetry Potluck over here: http://jinglepoetry.blogspot.com/2010/10/poetry-potluck-love-and-romance.html!

Where Are You?

I see you in my dreams
My love
I see you when I wake

I hear you in the radio’s songs
And the trills of the birds in the trees
I know all of your favorite things
And just what you love about me
I understand your moods
And all your little quirks
I can tell when you are holding back a laugh
And the tears you hate to have fall
I know everything about you
And you know everything about me

I see you in my dreams
My love
I see you when I wake

Now all you need to do
My love
Is enter reality

September 29th – Songs on the Radio

Songs on the Radio

So you listen to the radio
Singing your heart out
Wishing with all you’ve got
That person in the song was you

You sing a little louder now
Trying to block the tears
The world in the lyrics sounds perfect
Why can’t you live there too?

You want to believe
You want to find love
You want to live your dreams
You want to discover yourself

Hold on to your faith, your hope
For I have faith in you
One day you’ll hear a melody and smile for
That person in the song is you

September 27th – Get a Life

Get a Life

So maybe your dream is a little out of reach
So maybe you’re waiting for love to knock
So maybe you’re thinking you’ll get it tomorrow
So maybe it takes some more courage
So maybe it seems frightfully costly
So maybe it needs some work

No one ever said you couldn’t stretch
No one ever said love would come to you
No one ever said tomorrow is better
No one ever said you could be a coward
No one ever said it was priceless
No one ever said you could float through

So maybe life is hard
No one ever said it’d be easy

July 26th – The Nightmare

Don’t you love nightmares? Yeah, me neither…

The Nightmare

I didn’t think
I could have
A nightmare
About you
The thought never
Would have occurred to me
Awake
But last night
You were there
Hating me
Hurting me
Making me cry
I feel sick
Even now
How did this happen?
Why did this dream
Feel so real?
How come I can’t
Shake the feeling
Now that I know it
Supposedly
Wasn’t real?

July 16th – Hello Dark Thoughts

Hello depressing poetry! Yeah … more of that to come, too!

Hello Dark Thoughts

Hello Dark Thoughts
What are you doing here?
I thought I told you
To get out
And never come back
You tried to take over once
I kicked you out
Wasn’t that enough of a lesson?

I suppose you’ve realized
How potent my fear of you is
And how heavy of a weapon it is
One skirmish from you
And I’m sweating bullets
Fighting years
Considering surrender
Refusing to admit it all

I like to think that I’ve changed
Since I last saw you
But you know better
You understand that my fears
Are the same, just deeper
And my self-confidence
Is still the same
Shattered mess

I know you’re laughing at me
Because I was so sure
I’d beaten you away
But you creep into my dreams
And chip away at my smiles
Even now
Welcome back, Dark Thoughts
Here we go again

June 26th – Talent

On this day so long ago, I went to an art museum with my friends and had the thought that appears in the first three lines of this poem. That, obviously, spiraled out into the entire poem and gave me one of the longest poems of the trip!

Talent

I wish I had the talent
To paint pictures
That look like photographs
Or move my body like the wind
And dance with fluid grace

I wish I had the ability
To climb the highest mountains
And celebrate from their peaks
Or win a million awards
For something that comes easily

I don’t

But I have the talent
To paint pictures
With vibrant words
And move my pen like the wind
To write down my dreams

I have the ability
To climb the highest mountains
With my characters
And win a million awards
For them too

All I need to do
Is never give up hope
And remind myself each day
That for each thing I can’t do
There’s something that I can

June 24th – I Miss You

Hello blogosphere, I’m BAAAACK! You miss me? 😀 I know I missed you guys! Forgive me for being slow to update my blog with the days of poetry I couldn’t post–my jet lag is rather ridiculous… But here is the poem I wrote way back on the 24th of June as I was flying in an airplane!

I Miss You

If you were to look up
Right now
I wonder if you’d see me
As I dance through the sky
And build castles with the clouds
I wish I could tell you
To give it a try
But the space between us
Is too great
Maybe someday
I’ll invite you
To my palace of sunbeams and mist
But for now
All I can do is build
And every once and a while
Send you a shooting star
To say
I miss you

June 21st – Forgotten

I suppose today’s poem has something to do with my latest short story, which was titled The Forgotten. However, while today’s poem doesn’t start today, I think it’s more upbeat than the first draft of the story! The word “forgotten” was, obviously, rolling around in my head and I got to thinking about everybody is afraid to be forgotten in the end–and today’s poem was born!

Forgotten

I don’t want to be forgotten
My name removed from all minds
My face wiped from all memories
My smile removed from all photographs
I don’t want to be the one
Who people only semi-mourn
Who leaves no mark on the world
Who slips away unnoticed
I don’t want to be the person
Left with a heart still empty
Left with a dream unfulfilled
Left with no hand to hold

I want to be someone
Whose name is on everyone’s lips
Whose face is recognized
Whose smile is glory-filled
I want to be the one
Who no one forgets
Who leaves giant footprints
Who goes out with a bang
I want to be the person
With a heart full to bursting
With a dream achieved
With a loving hand to hold

I refuse to be forgotten