Thrown Aside

This was a piece performed live in Tacoma at UW for a slam poetry competition.


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At the ends of time
the wind rushes through my skin and hair, piercing
my ear drums like spears in cantaloupes, and I bleed
out from them, screaming for the surface.

time knows no end and has no feelings, pushing on
ruthlessly like the ocean tides and the sunrise, a new
day a new clock a new spot on your insignificant
calendar pinned to the kitchen wall with a fancy purple tack.
where are we going
what are we doing
what are we achieving other than a microscopic
square, a spot, a dot, a speck on your daily planners
stuffed with your appointments and pouring out, leaking
through the seams to the floor of your car.

ring, ring.
you fly toward your cellular phone, you jump to it like
your life is on the line if you miss.
hello, here's a time block, another 1:30 to attend
for the rest of your life, another lifeless hopeless
worthless attempt at making a difference in a
world full of lifeless, hopeless people.

there's more to it than that.
lifeless
not lifeless

I shine, I reach, I yearn for the things that
make you mean more than your pocket
pc's and mp3's and computer screens.

beauty in the world is waiting for you to
take off your masks, your disgusting, rotting,
moldy blindfolds, your boxes of stupidity, and
just throw them aside like you did once with
your huge handful of hidden dreams.

throw them aside.
open your eyes because there is more to see,
open your mouths because there is more to
speak, open your lungs cause there is more to
breathe, and always more to dream.

time knows no end and stops for no man, not
even you who fails miserably at putting on smiles
and making a charade of life
faking
through life pretending you know how to
control it
with things

throw them aside.
the time has come to believe and
pick your dreams back up off the floor
where you let yourself and others trample
over them like marching soldiers through the mud.
throw them aside.
tricks and funnies will lead you
astray with the fake plasma tv screens and fake
fast shiny cars and men in perfect clothes that
dwindle on the strings of hopelessness as they
spiral out of control not understanding why or how.
hydroplaning and slip slopping through the rain
puddles that drown them
drown them in their own fears and insecurities.

no, throw them aside.
let go of everything holding you back with ropes
and vines that cut through your skin.
no, throw them aside.
let them cut your skin.
let them try to ruin you as you climb your way to
the top and drop it all to the ground. drop your
materials, drop your fears, drop your insecurity, drop
your phones and tvs and high speed internet cables.
drop your perfect house and perfect vision of your
perfect life and listen to it shatter when it hits the ground.
make room for the beauty screaming in your face. drop
everything and throw them aside.
throw them aside.
because you can't take them with you when you die.



HGM


9-4-08

Mirrored Hero

An amazing english professor once told me that I should write to write. And she let me write for my grades.  This was one of those pieces of writing.  Thank you Askew!

__________

Struggle. The struggle.
Reaching for the calm peace I recognize in everyone else, my hand leaves my side,
arms outstretched, looking, searching for the blur in the distance I wish was mine

Struggle

My heart stops, my body heavy like mountains of bricks and stone
Putting one foot in front of the other isn't something I do well,
With the mistakes in the back of my mind weighing me down
Surrounding my heart like vines, holding me back in their menacing, choking wrath

My eyes dart around. Where is my hero?
I panic, I try to scream but the words are halted in my throat, suffocating my lungs.

Where is my hero?

I stop and suddenly my world erupts in flame and then I know, it's time for me to go.
So I put aside my fear, put aside my animosity toward the villains in my life and toward myself, and I leave.
I let go of the world I held onto so tightly.
Leaving a part of me behind, I knew this was my only way to cut the vines that were attempting to
tie my hands, tie my legs, tie my heart.

Struggle.
A new struggle, new home, new life.
Alone in a sea of people I push through the crowded hallway, shoved, pulled, walked on, but I press on.
Fear begins to drown me, of abandonment, of helplessness, of loneliness.
The path to my contentment is a long road home, a rough road filled with potholes and ditches just waiting for me to fall in them.
Disregarding them, I stop walking and begin to jump.
Somehow it's easier, saying goodbye had set me free.
So I strive. I take my burned hands and I use them.
The black bruises slowly turn yellow and I open the purple door, crawl into the blue bed, and keep my blood red tears inside my eyelids.

Tripping, stumbling, watching the faceless names and nameless faces oblivious to my inner struggle, I start to fall.
But before I hit the ground, I am caught.
I look around for my hero, for the arms that pulled me up, but then I realize.
It was me. Alone, unfallen, unbroken, unweakened.
Strong despite the struggle.
Unwilling to let the villains ruin the music of my life.
My harmony, my song, my peace.
I stand tall. And hear my name called out from the place where it all began.
The vines that I cut from my skin pull me back to them in their realm of dissonance and imperfection.
I cringe, I hesitate, I wonder.
But I turn around and grasp my harmonious heart in my strong, unbruised hands and I walk.
Not backward, but forward, to my old, burned, and shattered home I used to call mine.

Fear attempts to drown me yet again but I close my eyes and breathe.
I return home.
Return to the root of all my fears, all my mistakes, all my failures, all my bitterness.
I choose not to spit in its face; I would feel too much like them.

So I stand tall, stand strong, and I use my clean hands to wave.
My heart whole, my eyes bloodless,
I look in the mirror
And begin to sing my harmony song
As I see my hero looking back at me.

HGM

10.16.08

Foreign Pillowcase

Colors of mascara decorate my pillow case now, and
my face stained with tears dried up has left my eyes cracked and empty with
nothing more to cry

The clenching of my own fists doesn't exist anymore
as my voice fails me yet again in calling you back to me.
Parched lips, tasted and unwanted, utter no words of meaning anymore,
only cries for help left unanswered

Breathing in the stale and humid air only reinforces the fear of abandonment coming true,
Coughing, choking, gagging on wasted words, wasted tears, wasted kisses
that were coated in lies and deceit

Paralysis takes over every part of my body as I sink
deeper still, attempting to claw my way out.
Emptiness consumes what was once filled with things too good to remember,
now too foreign to comprehend

My heart explodes with bitter emotions that hold no place in this language
and they bleed out,
reaching for a listener that isn't there

Screaming holds no answers now
so in silence I slowly decompose
with this foreign pillowcase

HGM

10.7.08

A Three.

Reels of thoughts go through my mind

A never ending cycle of truth I thought was lost

Overwhelm me they do as they keep me from saying

The most important of them all

Upside down direction left

I can’t let out what I feel

Said in dreams, said in minds

Said in hearts but never uttered from my lips

My tongue is tied in a knot

But the truth has set my butterflies free

I faced my demons and I faced my own heart

No longer locked shut and tight

I get lost in your eyes like some do in life

But I am found in the most beautiful place

Questions enter my mind like

How this freshness makes me fly

No sense can be made of my chaotic roads

Only one connects with where I go

Carrying the truth and offering it to myself

My heart screams words I don’t have

Open ears and heart I hope you offer

Standing on a limb, I leap

Laughter can’t hide my heart forever

Catch me if I fall

A sense of a dream

Unknown words that don’t exist

I realize

Are wrapped in a simple three

On your mark, get set

Blood pumps quickly through my veins

So stand still and hear me say

I love you.

HGM

Treading

I'm treading water but can't even find the waves I'm drowning in,
my parched throat so dry from relentless struggle, I taste nothing anymore
Bloodshot eyes, tangled hair, and pruned fingers are all I have left from the dive,
from stepping foot into the insanity that I thought was my puddle of comfort

yet here I am bleeding down the river at your ruthless command
with the impermanent ink trickling down my face and through my veins,
the water washes it away
erasing the once strong words that I see now were nothing but lies

sharp water fills my lungs like your empty promises and fake kisses
stabbing at my eyes and burning my skin
my world is on fire
but I'm drowning in the water that can no longer calm the flames of indecency,
drowning in the water that is no longer capable of putting out the forest fire of my world

you can't save me anymore
your water is making me drown,
defying the motion of the waves is something I can no longer do
so I stop pushing on, stop trying to empty out the sinking boat with a bucket filled with holes

waiting for the fire to go out itself, I can emerge as a new soul, a new person
scarred but whole
burned but never again believing of such atrocities that used to rule my life,
guiding my heart in the wrong direction.
set me free
so I can dive into the real thing this time

HGM

7.31.08

My Deep

Slow, pounding, rush of blood like drums in the hollow ground
Flowing through my veins as the voice of my conscience,
echoes through the night

I breathe
But the air is stale, polluted with words I call anything but home
Rusted, fear controlling the shadows of my misdemeanor
Coagulating deep within my skin

Desperation, hands shaking like twigs in the cracked earth of destruction
Crooked and twisted to fit my faces of many
Like the mask I call my world

The end tells tales of unknown finishes
Reasons to let it go into the foggy night of that which is me
and my deep

HGM

1.22.08

Balloons

the dust has only just begun to fade
away, with my past of many
busy streets of people continue their world
as I play hide and seek
with myself
lost, drifting
like the helium filled balloon that was let go
by the innocent child beneath my world
my heart is an inkless pen
with no more thoughts to spare
no more tears to stain the blank pieces of paper that lay in front of me
surrounding me with the disappointment of loneliness
crumpled and torn
like a picture that can't be made perfect again
like the life I call my own
walking with the ghosts
and drifting with the balloons

HGM 3-4-07

Redemption

Forensic lighting covers my path
of thoughts and love long past
Reminding me of who I'm not
the person I have forgot.

Crimes of joy and heaven of hate
Sits in my lap, upon my plate
Twisted, inside out from in
Holding tightly to my sin

Nothing saves me from the scene
Because no one here believes
That I, as me, can turn around
And hold the freedom that should be found.


HGM
11-17-06

This is my beginning.

This poetry spill.
For the parts of my heart that not everyone sees.

My poetry is my way of expressing myself.
So why not share it with the world?

Here I go and here's to everything.