Hey love.

I started to understand yesterday.
I started to understand why you say the things you say to me. I would take away your scars if I could. I would kiss away the pain you went through if I could. I would do anything to erase that past--if only I could. My shoulders sunk with my heart when I held your hand as you talked about your vices and the details of your heartache. I didn't show it, but I wanted to cry. I wanted to hold you. I wanted you to break down. I wanted to break down with you. I wanted to be close to you. I didn't show it.
I know that feeling. I feel as though I know where you're coming from and it's all too familiar because we've seen a similar darkness that cannot be faked. And love, I get it. I get why you die everytime I give into my selfishness. I understand because I felt the same thing and you were only talking about the past. What if it was now? I would hurt so much more that I think I might not be able to handle it. I do that to you. I cause you to hurt. I'm sorry, love. I am sorry.

And what she did to you was incredibly awful. I hate that. You deserve much more. I want to be much more because you are incredible and I've never felt as taken care of as I do now.
Thank you.
Thank you for being incredible.

I don't want to hurt you. You're worth more than the pain I cause.

Your creativity, your dedication, your inspiration; it all makes me melt. You make me melt.
And I want to say goodbye to my vices because of that. Because you're worth more than that.

Oh God, lead us.

So be it.

These Thoughts.

I'm writing a novel that is requiring me to delve into my old journals.
This is what I found:

A king who has wept
and lost his stolen path
lies helpless on his
cross.

This crucifixion is
the result of
unreasonable hate.

Will he still love those
who have hated?
For unreasonable love
is strong.

This precious king cries
out in pain
to cleanse those
who have hated.

But still he says,
"I am your friend."

Service.

I'm a writer.
I can pass the whole day away just by writing
in journals
and documents;
on napkins
and the backs of receipts.
I can fade into my fiction and lose touch of reality
at the point of my pen,
at the mere touch of my keys.

Do I run?
Do I sprint away from the real events,
real emotions of my every day?
Most likely, I run.
Most likely, I fly.
Most likely,
I'm weak and don't want to even look in the face
of a truth,
in the face of my truth.
My truth that even in my strongest points,
there's something that's lost.

I write
and I lose myself
to the thoughts of my pen,
to the people,
the places,
the love that I create.
But is it really an escape,
this thing that I create?
Maybe it's an outlet,
a way to feel,
to think,
to exist,
to make a mark in this world.
I want to encourage, to stretch,
to exalt something more.
Love, its therapeutic.
It's a change, it's a movement
that I'm writing and creating and searching for.

I want to know, I want to learn
what is going on in the world
because my heart is truly seeking,
truly loving.
Darling, ignorance is not bliss.

I don't agree.
I don't agree!
I want to be in this world
because maybe instead of praying and praying,
maybe I'm the action, the answer,
the vehicle for that promise.

And maybe this is the way to die to me.
Me-
who is living, who confessed that addiction is not dead.

Oh stream of consciousness,
you truly bring me to my knees.
Your cackle, your endless tackle
makes me see how truly wretched my thoughts are.
That inside this brain of mine, the ideas i have,
i am ashamed to call mine-
sometimes.

I'm tired of logic, of rationale.
Give me emotional appeal.
I learn from it.
I thrive from it.
Please just give me the emotional appeal.

It's time to get up, time to stand up
because this is something i feel.

No, it's not about me.
It cannot be about me.
I feel most at ease when I'm helping someone else
and the blame is not on me.
I feel at peace when I'm actively involved in today,
in other people,
because love is all I can give.

Oh love, it's all i can give.

And I don't find this funny anymore.

I'm finding that

you're my favorite person to be around.

A Place

By any stretch of the imagination, I might want to travel to Africa. I might want to go to China. I might want to go to India, Australia, and Ireland. Can I go to any of them? To all of them?
At the forefront of my thoughts, I want to help the children...anywhere. I absolutely love the impact one person can have in another person's life--especially children. They are precious. They are innocent. The are incredibly susceptible to anything they see, hear, and therefore experience.
When I was in Tanzania--scratch that--
Before I went to Tanzania, I prayed and hoped that just one child would cling to me. I wanted to be moved by one of their stories; just one. What I didn't expect, though, was to be moved to tears by dozens and dozens of sweet, sweet smiles. From their attempts at English to their dances to the bruises on their faces, I melted and fell deeply in love with them. One in particular fell asleep in my arms. She had been crying and the bruises and cuts across her face suggested that she had been abused. It was then and there that I knew that I wanted to hold every one of them. I knew they needed that tangible love. I sang to her--well, over her. Amazing Grace poured from my lips as tears rolled out of her eyes. I wanted to start my life again to dedicate it to moments exactly like this one.
Without thinking, I would go back to Tanzania in an instant to find her, to hold her and sing to her as she lay safely in my arms. Now using my imagination, I want to go anywhere. Children are everywhere and that are all the same in every place.
Let me hold them. Let me use this voice that I have been given to sing sweet words, sweet melodies of love into their ears. Let me take the time to personally go to the places I see on commercials that plead for an insignificant amount of money that masks the true desperate need.
Oh, just let me love.

And beyond that, I want to write about them. I want to tell stories about them. People don't truly believe that their stories are real and that their lives are genuinely precious, desperately needy.

Accomplishments.

i love this girl.

Viewers,

please don't be alarmed by my sudden act [of ___]

sometimes: i feel disappointed in myself.

dear self,
just change.
love,
self

sometimes: i like to sit on my driveway and pretend that i can see the stars.

hush darling, darling don't you cry
tonight we're running
tomorrow we'll follow the sun

This is what comes out from time to time.

I confess in my soul that I want to be free,
but a new day comes and I still starve and shake.
I hurt myself-
who is tortured, truly tortured
and broken and bruised.
Oh God, in my weakness you use me
God, I am used.
Even though I can't see it, I want to be it.
It-
the one who stands proudly claiming I have recovered,
who's name is no longer one of a sinner.
Call me home,
take me Lord
to a place with no pain,
where there is laughter and sunshine and inside,
I am not ashamed
of confessing that I'm living a lie
that I am running to breathe.

Give me clean air,
give me clean love.
Give me a place where I feel safe.
Give me sweet, sweet indulgence that doesn't come with a price.
The price of self-torture, I confess, is a deathly vice.
God, let me sit near Your throne.
Please let me kneel near Your throne.

and love me, love me wholly and unconditionally though I'm broken and lost.
Lord, your glory was proven when you paid all costs
to the darkness we live in, to the evil we surround ourselves with.
You hurt for me,
You suffered for me,
You took every beating,
bloody crowning,
bloody torture for me.
But I was not yet alive, I was merely an idea.
You had me planned
had me pinned
even when you hung on a cross.
You knew one day I'd sit here,
in this dim cafe,
broken and lost.

So I thank you today,
I thank you tomorrow
because thank you is all i can give.
Thank you is all I have left in me to give.
To thank you is to live
and to live is to love to be satisfied in life
Your truth is my choice.
God, Your truth is my choice
I want to walk in redemption and beauty and grace
To find myself adrift in Your sea of love.
Your sea above that calls me home,
it calls me to Your throne.

Surely, surely, I see Your throne.
To touch it-to be blessed
To sit with you-beyond that
To die a righteous woman, a godly woman, a loving woman
so lovely and divine, full of wisdom and truly in line
with the power of the work of You- even farther beyond that.

and love, it makes no sense.
only that its there.
more than the yellow birds or the spring trees
and the cold, winter air.
God, I breathe.
God, I live.
God, I dare to feel Your love,
to hear Your love, to see, taste, and smell Your sweet love.
Surround me with freedom and pass me onto a place
where slavery is a figment of the past.
where bondage is fiction
and
addiction
is
dead.

I confess in my soul that addiction lives.
addiction runs wild, ridiculously wild
and rampant in this god forsaken land.
whether you're addicted to drugs
or pain
or feeling alone;
then, truly, i say to you:

please come home.