Write Amuck

Ode to the Poet

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:50:55 -0400

(For SouthernLovinBabe and anyone who takes the time to read my writing.)

I learned haiku and limerick and rhyme.

And I learned of beats and rhythm and time.

I learned how to make a sonnet sing.

And how to give a ballad wings.

I learned the grammar don’ts and do’s.

I dreamt in Blake and Angelou.

Hughes made me shake. Poe made me shriek.

Shakespeare made my knees feel weak.

Silverstein and Seuss were pure.

Dickinson was so unsure.

Donne was brilliant. Whitman, sharp.

Eliot’s Prufrock broke my heart.

Tennyson called me to seize my fate.

“Come my friends, ‘tis not too late.”

And Frost kept me from counting sheep

With “Miles to go before I sleep.”

But my little voice, she tries to hide.

Hoping to stay trapped inside.

And go unnoticed, silently.

So to not compete with poetry.

‘Till the day I’m taken by a hearse.

I dare not utter a single verse.

And in my epitaph please say,

“This girl took poems to her grave.

So she couldn’t fail, she wouldn’t write

Completely paralyzed by fright.

So now we mourn for we’ll never hear,

The voice that loved poems so dear.

We’ll always wonder. We’ll wish we knew.

Perhaps she was a poet too.”

Yes, perhaps she was a poet too.

It Gets Better.

Wed, 08 May 2013 22:02:54 -0400

I sat alone in my bedroom. Not under the covers, but on top of them. No lights. Only darkness. And I let the music surround me. A frail, breathy accapella voice singing a lonely song. I turned it all the way up, as loud as it would go. Too loud. I sat perfectly still. And shut my eyes. Her sweet, gentle voice. So vulnerable and strong at the same time. It glided around me as I breathed it in. Filled myself up with that achy ballad. And I didn’t dare exhale.

It was almost as if she was in the room with me. Singing to me alone. A disillusioned lullaby. A forgotten swan song. And as it ended, I tightened my eyes - forcing them closed. Willing her voice to come back to me. Willing the notes to go on. Just one more verse. One final refrain. Wanting to hear that sound more than I wanted to see or dream or think or be.

That feeling. That forsaken moment. I lived that for days and nights and weeks and months and years.

That feeling. That’s what it was like to miss you.

May the 4th be with you.

Sat, 04 May 2013 18:07:41 -0400

May the 4th be with you.

Game night!!

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:51:41 -0400

Game night!!

What a shame.

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 23:03:40 -0400

This is me.

I’m middle class and white.

I’m normal and curious.

I’m smart, but mostly ordinary.

I’m artistic, but not artsy.

I have a voice, but not a megaphone.

I am found, but not quite free.

I want only uniqueness. I want only to stand out.

What a shame it is to blend in. When you could shine just as you are.

What a shame it is to blend in.

Before you know it, life is over. And all you’ll ever wish is that you hadn’t.

Just blended in.

"I’m a roller coaster that only goes up."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:53:41 -0400

“I’m a roller coaster that only goes up.”

- Augustus Waters via John Green

Everyone should have an Eleanor.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 17:14:31 -0400

Everyone should have an Eleanor.

When the perpetrators admit to hating America, Americans and Western culture yet still moved to America to receive education that they couldn't get in their Muslim home, YES you can.

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 12:50:32 -0400

Your comment doesn’t even address what I said.

I’m saying that we cannot start believing that all Muslims or all Russians or all men or all twenty-year-olds are violent terrorists because these two happen to be.

If you’re okay with making crazy assumptions about entire groups of people based on the actions/beliefs of two individuals, then you must be fine assuming all white men are terrorists since that’s who committed the Atlanta Olympic Park and the Oklahoma City bombings.

The actions of two young men are not reflective of an entire group of people. Not today. Not ever.

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:42:08 -0400

To quote a country song, “This is still the place that we...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:03:27 -0400

To quote a country song, “This is still the place that we all call home.”

The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:29:00 -0400

We’re not all bad, right? We’re not all condemned.

We shoot up classrooms of children. Bomb spectators at marathons. Open fire on movie theaters. Snipe government figures. Use the mall for target practice.

We’re not all bad, right? Some of us are the good. And on days like today, days heavy with the weight of evil, of grief, of burdens much too heavy to bear, on days like today I have to focus on the good.

In those dark, terrifying moments, we hover over the bodies of the innocent children to try to spare them from bullets rocketing through the air. We run towards the direction of the explosions, so we can help the wounded. We dive over our loved ones and offer our own bodies, our own flesh, as a shield.

Instinctively, we put others before ourselves. Even when the others are complete strangers. Some of us are the good. On days like today, we all have to see the good.

On days like today, it is not one for all. That one lost soul does not represent mankind.

And on days like today, it is most definitely all for one.

The good still exists. We are the good.

"Powder your nose, paint your toes. Line your lips and keep ‘em closed. Cross your legs, dot..."

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 20:24:16 -0400

“Powder your nose, paint your toes.
Line your lips and keep ‘em closed.
Cross your legs, dot your I’s,
And never let ‘em see you cry.”

- Miranda Lambert, “Mama’s Broken Heart”

the paper dahls

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:30:00 -0400

the paper dahls:

Showing some love for one of my favorite Atlanta girls and fellow blogger.

Follow thepaperdahls for fashion, hilarity and brilliance.

"On Epic Love She looked out her window and said “Speak from the heart.” So I read her my lines. I..."

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 21:42:17 -0400

“

On Epic Love

She looked out her window and said “Speak from the heart.”
So I read her my lines. I told her my part.
I said “I’m not broken.” I said “I’m not lost.
I’ve not yet been trampled. But believe me, I’ve fought.”

And her eyes didn’t blink as she started to speak.
“I hear your voice quiver. Your smile is so weak.
You pull at your hair. You tug at your ears.
You sit on your hands and you laugh through the tears.”

“What do you feel when the silence gets loud?
What do you fear? What rains from your cloud?”
And I repeated those words. Without making a sound.
Caught up somewhere between stoic and proud.

How do you explain what it feels like to break?
When your body is hollow from a pain you can’t shake.
When you wake from your nightmare to find that it’s real.
How do you begin to explain how that feels?

And so she repeated, “Speak from the heart.”
And I nodded and chuckled. “So where do I start?”
I told her our story. It was love. It was right.
I told her our troubles. Every treacherous fight.

I told her you broke me. I thought I was gone.
And day-by-day passed and I could not move on.
And years have gone by and you follow me still.
Haunting my dreams and my thoughts and my will.

How do you go from love to regret?
I wanted you so; now I’d die to forget.
Your love was a curse. A sore. A disease.
I’m infected with you. How I long to be free.

And what she said next, caught me off guard.
“Do you not see just how lucky you are?
We all spend our lives in search of a spark.
A moment to light up a lifetime of dark.”

“Your love was a firework. Your love was a flare -
Bursting with fury and heat through the air.
And of course in a moment, all that remained
Was the echoes of passion and smoke, but no flame.”

“And now you feel hollow. And now you’re alone.
But the beauty is that you went to the show.
You saw your world light up. You felt your heart fly.
You heard the explosion as you lit up the sky.”

“Your love, it was beautiful. Your love, it was true.
And the pain that it caused even time can’t undo.
But don’t wish for a moment to leave it behind.
Because that love that has cursed you, I can’t wait to find.”

”

- write amuck

Root, root, root for the home team. (at Turner Field)

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 16:46:39 -0400

Root, root, root for the home team. (at Turner Field)

Was blind, but now I'm free.

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:20:24 -0400

Growing up, on the Saturday before Easter, I’d sleep with sponge rollers in my soft, blonde hair. It was awful. Like having rocks for pillows.

My mom would let me pick out a new dress from Penney’s or Uptons to wear on Easter Sunday. Sometimes a matching bonnet. Other times an oversized bow. My favorite Easter dress was a white fluffy number with a full skirt decorated with purple ribbons. There were tiny jingle bells tied into the inside hem, so I jingled softly when I walked.

We’d take photos on the front porch before going to Sunday service. It was always one of my favorite times to be at church. We sang hymns you didn’t hear the rest of the year. Lord of the Dance. The Easter Song. Morning Has Broken. Because He Lives. The church was filled with white lilies and decked in rich purple tapestries.

There was always a warmth to Easter. The sunlight poured through the stained glass windows. And even if you didn’t make it to church all year, you were there on Easter Sunday.

That’s because it’s a day for redemption.

Because a year’s gone by and we’ve screwed up. We’ve done wrong. We’re failed and flawed. And on that day, on Easter Sunday, we’re reminded that we’re free.

And so we wear white and we wake up early and we slick back our hair and shine our shoes and we pile into church. And as we sing those hymns, as the organ plays and the choir sings, we let the sweet notes of grace and glory wash over us.

It’s a beautiful feeling. When the burdens fall from your shoulders, the shackles from your ankles. When the weight you’ve been carrying is lifted gently away.

Easter reminds us how beautiful it is. To be forgiven. To be loved. To be set free. Forever.

"Some days I’m a writer. Some days I’m a dreamer. But on the rare days that I’m..."

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 22:29:57 -0400

“Some days I’m a writer.
Some days I’m a dreamer.
But on the rare days that I’m both,
That’s it. That’s when it’s magical.”

- writeamuck

aseaofquotes: Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns This....

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 21:05:34 -0400

aseaofquotes:

Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

This. THIS is what you can do with words. This.

Hymn #145. Happy Easter.

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 10:45:37 -0400

Hymn #145. Happy Easter.

This sucks.

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:08:00 -0400

This sucks.