Romancing_the_Dead's Xanga

Silence is a Lie

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:53:22 GMT

I spoke with innocence,
You spoke with sighs.

But it’s such a big word,
And you used it as a lie.

You left, along with your arms,
running. Scared? No, I’m blind.
You don’t believe what you hear,
Nor I what I see.
Your heart was a basket,
Which I tried to weave.
I should have known that spiders
Can only spin lies.

But it’s such a big word,
And you used it so mean.

I spoke with silence,
Watching you leave.

Original Sin

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 14:37:13 GMT

Yea though I walk
I can NOT fly
And often crawl
Or watch the wet-cement dry.

"Where is your home,
Little girl,
So fresh and green like Spring?"
Not in your arms! Not in this place!

I shall not want, but I have needs!
The greatest lie is that this is a valley -
This is a desert!
A Wasteland, barren like me.

There is no rest for the weary.
As the sun dissapears
Behind buildings like a stolen kiss,
I will relearn all of my old fears.

I shall not want
You
Shall not want
Me

After we have laid and lied,
I awake at the stroke of midnight
Open up all of the windows
And sew some wings to take my flight.

The rain falls in its gentle way -
Wet-cement as far as the eye can see.
Whispering, "Goodbye Wasteland!"
I leave this valley behind me.

Eve just ate the apple,
I left with eyes shut tight.

Love is Eternal

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 15:08:56 GMT

You know when you give your love away
It opens your heart, everything is new
And you know time will always find a way
To let your heart believe it's true

You know love is everything you say
A whisper, a word, promises you give
You feel it in the heartbeat of the day
You know this is the way love is

Amarantine (Eternal)
Amarantine (Eternal)
Amarantine (Eternal)
Love is, love is, love

You know love may sometimes make you cry
So let the tears go, they will flow away
For you know love will always let you fly
How far a heart can fly away

Amarantine (Eternal)
Amarantine (Eternal)
Amarantine (Eternal)
Love is, love is, love

You know when love's shining in your eyes
It may be the stars falling from above
And you know love is with you when you rise
For night and day belong to love

I love Enya. I needed that song today.

Love,
&arah

Patience

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 23:10:24 GMT

I need patience
           and someone strong enough
                                  to hold my breath for me
                                               until the smoke clears
I need patience
           and time to think
                            for when I'm short of breath
                                                               I tend to lie...

Light in the blackness of spring

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 23:34:33 GMT

Spring, sing!
Sing, Spring, if you can.

"What is the difference between birth and death?"
Your head in my lap, eyelids shut tight.
"I don't know; are we even alive?"

I have a voice, a mouth with lips. I scream,
Empty, torrential; I am the flood gates!

Lips not meant to kiss
Devour whole streets in one deadly sip.
I wish you'd drink deep of me.

The killing would be so much better than waiting.
Teacher, teach me, when is Spring coming?

"This city's too busy for me,"
My voice awakens you from your dreams.
You rub your eyes and promptly fall back asleep.

Nothing lush or green ever grows in this place,
Everything that sprouts up is already dying.

But he never leaves,
Like the autumn leaves
Fall.

"If death is Spring,
Then yes, darling, birth and death are the same thing."

Yet I am singing to the silence!
"I could not hear with my eyes shut."
Your voice lacks inflection.

My words return to meat and bone,
The flesh on the trees.

Loneliness reaches for me through the silence,
I feel death coming; However,
The heart holds a light death cannot extinguish.

A Tear is Worth a Thousand Words

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 23:02:53 GMT

A row of ivory,
Piano keys for teeth,
But you won't sing.

Our symphony
rises
Startling a babe from its sleep.

Your voice echoes
Stainless-steal resilient,
Until it catches up with me.

"I'm a minimalist; Spartan,"
Speaks the King of one shoe-no shirt chic.

Bach highlights crescendos,
While your arms open like the sea.

The earth shakes
Until the dew lands in the trees.
You catch my heart in your teeth.

A little girl washes her face;
No more, baby,
"Earthquakes aren't for me."

White walls painted black;
You write my name in pencil,
Not in permanent ink.

"I'd find more warmth in your black leather chair,
Than anything else in this place," I scream,

But I don't, I just think it, and the walls agree.
I am a designer rug on which you wipe your feet.

i AM drawn
                       (on the inside)
                                                    of eyelids
                                                                       and thighs

&arah

Walk on By

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:53:37 GMT

The world is our home.
Why isn't doing good our religion?

There's this guy I've seen about once a week for the past month. He's clearly homeless and is always holding up the same old falling apart, pencil-written cardboard sign: "Will work for food." I saw this man at Wal-Mart yesterday morning. My dad and I had run to buy a few things and as he put the cart back I stood there transfixed as person upon person walked or drove by. I wondered what my parents would do if I brought a homeless man over and let him mow our lawn or something so as not to hurt his pride and maybe then he'd let me feed him. I only had a couple of dollars, but I walked over and handed them to him. I told him that he'd worked enough by standing there day after day. He didn't say anything, but he did take the money. I didn't feel any sense of joy as I walked away. I wasn't stupid enough to think that tiny gesture would bring about a change that would put him on a path to getting a job and eventually owning or home or anything like that. I almost wished I hadn't done anything at all because the something I did seemed so insignificant. I realized that doing the "right thing" or the "good thing" is almost always spurred by our selfishness. We give money because it makes us feel good. We give time because it makes us feel as if because of our great, generous deed that God is smiling down upon us. We get taught that doing good things for others will bless us and so we do them. I know that God blesses those that do good things, but I also know that God sees into the hearts of man. He sees our selfish motives, but I don't think He holds back blessings. He is not vindictive, but I think what happens is much worse than not being blessed. I think that when we give from selfish motives we stop growing. We see ourselves as the savior of humanity. We start thinking that we deserve special treatment, or that we are somehow better than those around us because of all the good we do. We essentially get a big head. And the bigger our head gets, the smaller our heart becomes. I asked God how He feels watching His children starve on the streets, at their own foolish hand or at the hands of others. I could envision Him slightly shaking his head and sighing as He said "I do what I can and sometimes, most of the time, they die where they're at without ever being set free." Because it's all our choice. Sometimes it's bitterness or resentment, fear or shame that keeps us from seeing the big picture. Sometimes it makes our situation seem impossible to get out of. Sometimes our situation becomes our world view. We are trapped by our minds and sometimes we never get out.

Lord, give me the strength to do good and the humility to do it unselfishly.

&arah

Being Thus and No Other

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 17:02:48 GMT

This is a call to light and silence. "Speak!"

And I could not. "Move!"
I stood still, though you rescued my heart from the tree;
Still beating. I am dead
Then alive, but I'll burn for much less than my soul.
Maybe then you'll find pearls instead of bones.

I think purity has a lot less to do with our bodies and a lot more to do with our hearts.

Updates on My Life:

It's been awhile since I updated last. There's been a lot more drama this summer than I would have expected. Let's see... what's new in my life? Well, I'm now officially a "senior leader" at groundZero. I'm in charge of all the small bible study groups that we'll be starting up in October. I was honestly kind of surprised when Pastor Chauncey asked me to join the leadership team. I guess it's mostly because all of the older kids at groundZero are moving on with their lives to do more adult things. I really love groundZero and I'm glad I'm going to be able to help Pastor Chauncey out because I love him too. I could not ask for a better Pastor and he is such a blessing to all of us there. Besides that, school is starting September Fifth. Next week is going to be crazy. Matthew gets back Tuesday afternoon, I think, so Seth, Gillian, and I are going to meet him there. I also have to do all of my "back to school" shopping. Oh, and I have my license now, but a fat lot of good it does me when I don't have a car. This school year either has the ability to become a lot of fun, or the worst year in the history of WOLTS. (For those of you that have been there it might seem unbelievable, but it's true.) At least I have a creative writing class to look forward to.

Love and kisses,
&arah

PS Anyone that wants to read my poetry from now on can click the link at the top of the page. That's my blogger and I'm just using it for poetry from now on. Obvious exceptions include this post for example where there is a short poem after the picture. What can I say? I'm obsessed.

We kiss goodbye and never hello...

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:22:42 GMT

I. She says

I pick blue, you know like the color of a bruise?
That's the color that I choose
to wear on my sleeve tonight like a heart,
but sadder. Saturn is in my forecast sometime soon.
You're getting tired of my refrain,
but it's something we haven't quite grasped yet:
like stars or love (this disease) - it claims another victim.
It claims so much more than it ever takes.
My lips aren't blue cause of the temperature,
darling, that's not why we're dropping like flies.
You took the thorns out of my knees,
scrapped from falling in the street and then again
in my front lawn. I wasn't drunk, but I'm a good pretend.
Pretending, like imagination for the schizophrenic,
is a poisonous occupation.
If I ever fell asleep for forty years, who would wake me up?

II. He says

Love: love is a woman, they say,
with long hair that cascades like rain showers
and soft skin that always smells like the summer. She holds
the universe in her hands. Delicate but never frail,
she would never stumble like I do, like I stumble now.
Our throats are vases for her ideas:
mercy, compassion, freedom, beauty -
which she generously allows us to claim for ourselves.
Stems de-thorned, we have been desensitized;
we recognize her absence by the beating of our hearts.
How else would we know?
Maturity is our generation-now rebirth.
Who needs reincarnation with all the mistakes we make?
She rubs salt into our self-inflicted wounds to help them heal.
Her heart pours itself out upon the desert of my mind.
I have never flown over a desert like mine.

III. She says

As a last ditch attempt to get clean
I fall asleep in the grass, underneath the shade.
Somebody wake me up before it gets too late.
They'll whisper, "She's been drinking again today,
when will that girl ever learn?" Sobriety makes devils of us,
but your hands are idle and you listen too much.
Say you'll stay and wake me up
and stars will fall into my hands for us to play catch with in the dark.

"...she speaks her mind
that is a great thing
for a woman
as it is for a man
to speak his heart..."
-Saul Williams

&arah

Oh, Crystal Ball, save us all - tell me life is beautiful...

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:25:24 GMT

I was trying to put up all of my favorite pictures on my xanga photo album thing - you can check that out if you want. But, as always xanga screws you over unless you have a premium account. So, not knowing this I already have used up my 10 MB this month. As a result I'm mad at xanga again. But, you guys can check out what I do have on there. Next month I suppose I'll put some more on there. So I made a new flickr because I was disgusted with my old one and put a lot of pictures on there. Go here: Sarah-Love

My air conditioner is broken at my house and this makes me sad. I spent the night at Seth's last night because it was too hot at my house. I feel bad for my parents but I think they slept in the basement. So I hung out at Sethers' all day today and babysat his siblings. We played Wario Ware and I uploaded pictures on xanga. I hope my air conditioner gets fixed soon.

I'm planning an end of Summer bash, so keep that in mind.

Love,
&arah