Feeling the walls.

I don't show you
the darkness in my mind
to blind you;

Maybe together
we can find the light.

12/02/2012
-|KXM|-

The Bitter Winter of Discontent

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror
my eyes staring down a cavern of failure;
looking back over a life of regret
instead of forward to what's next.

I'd be the first to tell you
that age cannot define you,
but the lips of a hypocrite
kiss my ear with a whisper....
"too late."


12/02/2012
-|KXM|-

Trayvon Martin

I don't have the words today--they're still blocked behind the tears that are choked in my throat when I look upon the sweet brown face of a little boy in my city and wonder if he will live to be a man. I'm tired of watching young men in my country get killed--by each other, by the police, or by alleged "do-gooders." 

I'm tired of the line in the mind of white America that sees the death of a Young Black Male as disconnected from us. I'm tired of the sound barrier that prevents white America from hearing the cries of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents and friends mourning the loss of a life from theirs. I'm tired of the line in the heart of white America that sees Young Black Males as "someone else's" children and their untimely deaths as "somebody else's" problem.

They are OUR children and their deaths and the injustice that pulls the trigger is OUR problem. 

The fact that being a Young Black Male IS what it is to be "suspicious" is OUR problem. I say it because it is a sad truth--my "protection" from not getting shot in my city is that I'm not a black male between 16 and 24, but that's not okay. None of this is okay, and whatever it is that insulates you from understanding that, from feeling it down in the marrow of your bones is a sickness from which you must free yourself. It is not protecting you, it is smothering you and stunting our nation. Wake up! A little boy got shot by a grown man to whom he posed no threat for buying Skittles and an ice tea, and you can turn your eyes away? Trayvon Martin was not someone else's baby--he is my child, your child, our children, our future...

No, I don't have the words today. 

Just this sad, sad sorrow pressing my rib cage into my spine. I am not a believer, but Jefferson's words (oh, irony) ring true: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever." 

May justice roll down from the mountaintops and wash our country clean.

Happy Spring

Ghost moon,

a wispy sliver of silver suggestion

in the pale morning light.

Gossamer tendrils of mist

rise from the dew-covered earth.

Spring pushes up through moist soil,

thickening the air, coloring the world,

fleshing out life in all directions. 

-|KXM|-

03/20/2012 

Love lessons.

An undated note tucked in the back pocket of my journal. 

All that I have learned of love (and I have been a poor and difficult student), I have learned from the forest, Wendell Berry (who showed me the depth and the beauty possible in marriage), Jesus (who showed me the extremity of love), and the Buddhists (who showed me equanimity—the agape love that holds everything dear, just as it is). 

I understand that the pain that comes from stretching the soul is the pain of ripping the ego in its battle for reality. It is, however, nothing more than a construct, a falsehood that tries to contain our hearts and souls as though our love is an exhaustible resource; making us believe that there is only so much room in either when both, like the Universe that dusted our bones with bits of stars, they are infinite and one with the all-that-is—equally sacred and profane. It is only the ego and its false fears that there is something to lose that keeps us from opening as wide as all existence. 

-|KXM|-

edited & posted 01/31/2012

Grace

 

...must be why mine looks so much like you... <3