Seat 6

Their intestines fly up into their throats
Their cheeks are raised, their eyes are glazed,
Their scratching and tearing at their coats.
All white knuckled, sick, and gasping
With pupils like pin-heads, their asking.
Prayers float up, gaping bodies drop down
Through the clouds we shoot.
And their wings carry them both to heaven.

The screaming wind suffocates their sounds
But not enough. Not nearly enough
I can still hear the gurgled confessions of the man in seat 7
I, strapped loosley in seat 6
Never imagined the view out the window looking quite like this.

I turn to that sobbing man, stricken with fear
I grab his collar and press my lips to his ear,
"I promise I'll love you 'till the end is here."
So he clutches my face, and we marry our eyes,
And he pulls me close to him
Oh sweet demise!
I think to myself as I gaze in his wet blue reflections,
"This is the last i'll ever see of my imperfections..."

But a jolting jerk breaks our moment
Cold sharp metal slices open my head.
All I hear is that steady riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinggggggg
And my hairs are floating up now like childrens dreams.

Blood trickles like rivers and collects at my breast
The man in seat 7 grabs hold of me and mouths "CONFESS!"
I squeek and I sqwauk  but alas, I am drained of breath.
"Oh God, Oh God, make it stop. SHIT.SHIT. SHIT. Oh God, please no!"
Desperate are a sinners thoughts,
In the moments just before death.

Divine progression of the human soul (old skool style)

Thine hands grasp all things divine
Filling empty faculties in the mind
No more do finite physics prevail,
Thine stagnant soul, now ship asail.

Auroral pleasures intertwine
Folds of the earth, patterns find
Eternity birthed, ignorance behind!

Men hath denied Higher Law
Dost thine Being wane upon Spirits call?
In all progressions of delight
Fullsome art thee with inward sight.

- I really enjoy  that early 19th century prose, I think it's beautiful and should be used in poetry more often, which is why I chose to write in this style. It portrays answering your calling, unity within, and of course your souls progression, meaning, inner growth and revelation. I found my calling and inner unity through nature ("folds of the earth") and the patterns that exist within nature and ourselves. I have concluded that the end of this world is the beginning of the next, ("eternity birthed, ignorance behind") and that one is able to see so much more when they connect with the "Higher Law" or... God. Alas, there is so very much to this poem I have left unexplained, as I would like the readers to decipher for themselves the meanings pertinent to them as individuals.

the latest..

Sunny love

Upon the first hours of the sun
I danced within her reverie
Marveling as she lined my lungs
Drying up morsels of misery
She ebbs and flows through one's tears
Disintegrates moisture through the years
Lock her in time and tuck away
She'll never sleep, that sphere digressing
Her particles in my palm, as the world turns gray
The perils of night are much less depressing
Gleaming still upon souls, the array
I shall let her frolic through my hair on a cold winters day.

Connections

It is the metaphysical in which we find hope,
The intangible in which we find joy,
The notions of love in which we are fulfilled.
We are connected not by circumstance but by
Profound human emotion,
And therein lies happiness.

Alright, so I've been out of the loop for a while on the whole writing thing but it's for a constructive reason. I have since started discovering painting and drawing and such. I have found that it is EXTREMELY theraputic and i really enjoy it. So, here are a few shots of some my stuff..

Foundations

A few months ago I was informed by my mother of a mission trip that my family was planning to Tennessee, and a few months ago I was unaware of the wonders I have come to know so well since my arrival. This story, like any other is filled with a sense of inspiration and childlike happiness, a struggle and then an acceptance of the ending reward...but if you are reading my letters, know that this particular story is in fact not a story at all, and it is quite possibly the most moving. It is the real accountance of the two most beautiful and perhaps most important fibers in the human soul; meliority and christianity. Right now you may be asking 'what exactly is the meaning of meliority and where did it come from?' Meliority is stemmed from the Latin word [melior] which is understood in English as "better". Meliorism is the most unselfish belief that I have come across, aside from the belief in God, and what is more interesting is how I found it. It is "the belief that the world can be made better by human effort," and it is that fine doctrine that holds the utmost amount of faith in the human race, even when the world is cruel. The heart and soul of optimism and love are dependent upon it and faith in God, and these two notions are more real than the keys beneath my finger tips.
      Through the course of my 18 years on this earth, I have seen through the eyes of others what a wonderful place the world can be if God is only accepted into our hearts. I have watched on tv peoples lives succome to the great and almighty God just by the touch of their pastors hand on their persperating forehead. I have heard their stories, and watched their eyes drip like faucets onto empty floors because they have finally found whatever it is that makes them whole. Yet I never really understood. To me, these people weren't real, they were figments of some far away place that didn't exist outside my sphere of reality... maybe it was because I couldn't connect their new found wholeness to my broken pieces, my hollowed heart. I thought they were just pretending, and who knows maybe some were, but little did I know I would come to learn that it was I who had been pretending all along.
     We arrived in Tennessee on a Sunday and the humidity nearly knocked me off my feet a few steps outside the airport; I, living most of my life in west Texas was used to the dry, windy climate. Nonetheless, me, my family, and the rest of the Betenbough housing crew packed like sardines into a small white bus and drove to Williamsport, which is conveniently located about an hour outside of Nashville and headed to Narrow Gate Foundation. This particular stretch of land truly is a little piece of heaven carved into the foot hills of Tennessee; it is a glass of water in the dessert to which I can now happily say I have had the priviledge of drinking from. A few days after our arrival myself, my little brother and a few of the Narrow Gate members went on a hike to the 'High Point', a spectacle of a hill which overlooks the entire property just so I could really take in the beauty of the land, but as it turns out... as many things in life turn out... what I found was much more than just a beautiful view. I found on top of that hill, as so many young men at Narrow Gate do, a compassion and a respect for God like I have never known before. As Ken, Frank, Clayton, John Rae and myself shared our life stories, each more compelling than the last, a spark was lighted within me, and as seconds go by writing this letter, it grows bigger and brighter than the moment before. We were strangers walking up the hill, but I can say that without a doubt we were friends coming down. I have never in my life been so moved by the emotion's of others, but what I could see when I looked into their eyes, as if I peered through a window into thier souls, was love. A true, and pure, and personal, and passionate love for God. I left wishing that somehow I too could see this warm, radiating passion for the greater force in my own eyes. There was my first sip of living water, and to my surprise, I was thirstier than ever.
      Tuesday night, after the 'High Point' I lay in bed and continued to ask, when would I get what these four young men had? When would I get another taste of God? Then Wednesday came, and with it, a revelation.
      At around 11:00 p.m. I was walked into the countryside by a now good friend and vessel of the Lord named Adam, to which I am extremely thankful, and at 12:00 p.m. I came back alive. To be completely honest, it was like I was on drugs... you know, the kind that make you feel invincible and happy and energetic and free. And that is the best feeling in the world, the feeling of total and complete liberation, the knowing that the world is in reach, the beauty and awe that brings one to tears. It is wonderful, lasting and real. The best part is that it is real. A mere breeze had caressed my skin and I knew he was with me, and I think that he knew I wanted him to be. Under the stars and amidst the hundreds of fireflies, I felt the hand of God, and I am thinking now how badly, I cannot wait to touch it again.
     This trip was a mission, I was suppose to be just a helping hand that cleaned up some gardens and made the place a little prettier, yet I  leave living and renewed. I was suppose to change the "Narrow gators" lives, and now I am certain, that they have changed mine. I have watched through my own eyes how people like Bill and Stacy Spencer ( the founders of Narrow Gate) have made this world a better place to be in, how people like Ken, Frank, John Rae, Clayton, and Adam have been changed by faith and are reaching out to do the same for those around them. God has changed the outcome of so many lives through those people and words cannot begin to explain how grateful I, and so many others are, that they have chosen His path. In short, these people have made me realize that mankind is a wonderful, brilliant, and life changing species when coupled with God. At Narrow Gate, with the help of many, I started the life long journey of self discovery; I found that I am a meliorist, and a christian; I have faith in mankind and more importantly in God...and those two things are a wonderful foundation to any structure.

Pain and love and im bored at work.

What is true love with out memories of sorrow?
Let the past hold the light for the steps ahead
Heartache today for the betterment of tomorrow
But One could replace pain and love to be numb instead
For pain and love walk inches apart
Where one fades away the other is sure to start.
Choose them both simultaneously or neither will surface
But know that behind them both lies signifigant purpose.

Time to Recognize

,There are systems in place for essentially every single living thing that graces the earth. For every leaf there is an intricate highway of vessels, each one pumping life to and fro, birthing and dying all at once, organized and objectively. And inside every vessel, are more intricate processes, doing the same thing on a smaller scale. For every vessel there are cells, each one flowing along in perfect harmony, providing means for life and caring not that their work is a part of a much bigger, grander, beautiful picture. The same truth is relevant even so for the contents that lie inside each cell, of every vessel, of every leaf. The nucleus, the ribosomes, the vacuole ect. all tick and tock for the purpose of the life of a single leaf, absolutely everything else in this world, and perhaps the universe. As one finds himself in nature, (everyone should at some point in their lives find themselves in nature) intaking the subjects of the earth, whatever they may be, will he recognize the importance of it all? Will he see not just the colors of the element, but the infinite parts that make up the whole? Will he appreciate what he cannot see, as it is capable of being beautiful just the same as what he can? perhaps it is too much to ask, too heavy a concept for a simple mind, but if everyone could see the beauty I see... if everyone could lose but just one breath in awe of the details of the world one time, they would understand. They would believe in the things they cannot see, and feel the things they cannot touch. They would know there is a God, and account for the wonders he created if only it be a blade of grass. Life of the universe is full of detail, fleeting but ceaseless, wonderful, and dependent on every single speck.

Bend in The Road

    A few days in and here I am again, sitting in front of the same computer, typing on the same keys, breathing the same air. But this time the words that appear on this otherwise empty space hold some light behind them. As if before they did not, as if before this letter they were hollow and dark and ending.
This is the end of that depressing, sad, life ending, soul dying world that I have walked around in for the past months; this is the bend in the road. Things do get better, we have to believe that when the world has turned its back on us and the colors fade to gray, things will get better. Life is merely a cycle. We are essentially surrounded by endless amounts of circles with time being the catalyst of it all. The cycle of life and death, of good and bad, of summer and winter, of love and hate. The patterns that are repeated in nature are the same as those repeated in our lives, our bodies, and everything in between. Circles.
    Life, in every sense of the word is just a cycle, and when we get through those moments of despair still alive and breathing, the reward is promising, beautiful and untouched.  The end of one chapter is only the beginning of the next because really, there is no end, because every end is a new beginning and the cycles go on forever.- ( read Self Reliance, Emerson) I am a believer in infinity and I am a believer in love, does this make me an idealist? Maybe. Does this mean ever-lasting love is fathomable? Maybe. But for the past few days my life really has been 'ideal' and for some reason I cannot and will not accept an end to this journey, so what can I do but believe in the moments that make it wonderful? Each day of happiness was worth a year of pain, and in this second I am lucky to have experienced them both, and wise enough to appreciate the events that led up to this profound joy.
    So this is the part where I tell you what exactly it is that has brought a smile to my face, what has changed everything so suddenly...well, it's simple. It's pure. And it's lasting... its love. And for the first time, its real.