It is Now

The sky burns blood red, the ground black as coal. When the water that once nourished the land becomes poison it will mark the end of man.
Buildings will fall as leaves to the wind. The cries of mankind will be covered only by the collapsing of the land. The gods are watching hearts filled with hope their creation may find a way.
Greed must fall away. Love may win. Without change it will soon be the end. Children will never again know peace, plenty or feeling of full. The tables are turning , the wheels already in motion. Will we stand idly by and hasten the end?
If you could see the pain, desolation, despair, the void , loss , sadness to come maybe you would stop the wheel.
What do you choose? The time is now.
Light the fire or love one another?
When burning flesh fills the air, when blood taints the sky, when the ocean burns and rivers blackened dry, when cities crumble , wealth dissolves, children scream, and old men die, when the curtain falls it will be too late to ask why.

Love

There was a time everything I loved was destroyed . So I learned to love everything , even the destruction .

Toxic Relationship

What is it like living in a toxic relationship? It is having the one thing you turn to for salvation be the one thing that destroys you completely . It is living in fear, anger, depression, and occasionally elation .

What many people do not understand is toxic relationships make you feel weak. They drain you , literally sucking the very life from your soul. So why do people stay? Because they want to believe it is fixable. They feel it is something within them that needs to be better. If they can only try a little harder.

But sadly the relationship is living in a hurricane that never blows away. The eye of the storm? The eye is sweet bliss, stillness, sunshine, the thing that keeps you holding on believing maybe ,just maybe, the storm has passed. It never does though. It stays calm just long enough to build more to destroy. Destroy it will.

Your self esteem becomes dependant on who they tell you you are. Depression becomes your life partner . Darkness wraps it's arms around every aspect of your life keeping you waiting for the light that is the eye of the storm. So why, why do they stay?

For each it is different. Some forget they have their own light. They don't need the eye of the storm to see beauty but much like Plato's cave they never venture out to see the beauty beyond the walls of the hell in which they live. Others believe that is all there is in life, pain, loneliness , longing for a love that never comes.

How can you help someone in a toxic relationship ? If it is you and you can see the storm in which you live know you deserve more . You need to love you. Yeah I know. "Self love" everyone talks about it but who has it and where do they get it from right?  It is literally what it says. Love yourself enough to go through the pain of letting go so you no longer hurt. Life will not be all sunshine and rainbows . You have to take the good with the bad. The difference is you do not have to be made to feel like the pain someone causes you is your fault. Ever.

You do not deserve to be lied to, cheated on , or physically and emotionally abused. Period. I hear you . "No one else will ever love me because I am broken." Yes they will. Your first real love must be your love for you. Why? Because right now you live in darkness. It is so heavy and all encompassing you can no longer see your own light. Once you find the strength to walk out of that cave you will come to see the beauty that surrounds you. You will shine. That light, the light that has kept you alive through this hell life, will grow and the right people will find you.

If you make it out , when you make it out, you must be vigilant in protecting that light. Never let the value of your life be determined by someone else's opinion of you . If you have read this through you are searching for answers. I hope this helps you find them. Please understand abuse doesn't always leave marks on your skin. The deepest cuts are very rarely visible to the world. You are worthy of love. You do not deserve to be hurt, cheated, lied to, belittled , or abused. Please , please get away from the storm.

If you need help escaping there is help available www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse or call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), available 24/7.

Twin flames

Once in a rare moon a live comes along .
A love that is so fierce , so true, so honest
The heavens open up to its beauty.

When two hearts beat in unison,
Complementing and completing the very spark of the other to create a fire that burns so deeply into their souls no trial can separate it.

If you stumble upon such a sweet divine existence respect the rarity of its being. Treasure the beauty of its existence. Marvel upon its wonder.

Few will ever feel love so deeply. Yet the few give hope to the many.

There is a live out there that runs deeper than the ocean itself. What treasure it is so see it in this world filled without.

What no one is saying

First I want to say that I understand fully there will be people who will twist and select my words. To those who choose to do this YOU are part of the problem.

Now, for what everyone is afraid to speak out loud . This is 2016 America. As i write this the city of Charlotte has been on fire for two days. Citizens everywhere are screaming of injustice. Yet , we are more divided now than ever. Why?

I am not one to rush to judge. I gather facts from all sources and then form an informed opinion while listening and trying to understand every side of an argument. With that said , there is far too much unspoken beneath this issue.

"White privilege " has become a constant reoccurring topic through all this. Of course I have listened intently to those who claim they fear for their lives. What I have heard is simple; white people are just as frightened.

I remeber well growing up in a neighborhood that was culturally mixed and feeling the undercurrents of the previous fight for racial freedom. However, we were taught our friends were friends regardless of their skin. It was hammered into our heads to show respect for everyone. We were taught to be sensitive to the feelings of others for acts that happened long before our birth.

To this day ,my friends do not have a shade in my eyes other that the red beauty of their hearts. So why, why in this day and age are the undercurrents of white against black still so strong ?

In my search for this answer I recently read an article from a woman of color who is a Harvard graduate. First congratulations to her drive! That , for any woman, is a huge accomplishment because gender bias is still very strong in this country . She spoke of what it was like being a black woman growing up in America, the racial slurs, the opportunities earned that were treated as solely because of color . Guess what, as a white woman I experienced the same thing.

See that is what no one is saying. Racial slurs, saying a person accomplished something only because of their skin, assuming an individual is a certain way simply because of their color ,happens to white people too.

I can give specific examples that I personally lived through but it is of no point right now. What is the point ? When we see lights behind our cars we feel fear too. We don't know if the person walking up to our car will mistake us for a threat and shoot us any more than you do.

We don't know when we dial 911 for a domestic if the police will mistake us for the threat and end our lives . Racism is by definition the belief that members of each race possess characteristics or abilities speficic to that race especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race.

Let's think about that for a second. Racism is still very alive in America. Why? Because people choose to focus on what they think someone else has , does,or feels based solely on their skin. This is where people will get butthurt . It is not reverse racism to say "white privilege" . It is racism. Period. If you don't want to be judged by your skin dont judge mine. Simple . So now that we have realized equality is just that equal , let's get to the reason Charolette burns.

Our police , yes people ,your neighbors,friends, parents , sisters, and brothers that put on a uniform and go to work to serve and protect are killing innocent citizens. No I did not say a color and it's about time everyone stopped doing that too. Why? Why are they shooting first? To some extent ,it appears they fear that at the end of their work shift they will be in a pine box.

Let's face it , there is more anti blue movement in this country right now than any time in our nation's history. Fear is a powerful force. However it appears the problem delves much deeper. Is there a lack of training? Is it a lack of punishment for going above the law? Are we not screening and mentally supporting them enough? These questions need answers and solutions.

The one thing I know for certain is looting and burning a city does nothing but further the divide, give justice to injustice, and make brute force appear justified . Stop it!!!! Stop screaming it's a color thing. It is a breakdown in society and blaming any one race will not fix a dang thing.

Yes I know I'm "white" that doesn't mean I have not experienced police corruption. Experiencing police corruption does not mean I would wish death upon those who run in when everyone else runs away. When society collapses and lawlessness reigns who will you call for help ?

It is time to stop hating color, it is time to bury the hatchet of our ancestors and look at the society we have built now. Yes we have a problem. It is not a black problem . It is a society problem. It's time to take color out of the headlines and fix the problems . Period.

The quest

I can not give up
For there are shores left unseen
Foods yet to taste
And the wind on a mountainside to feel.

It is not yet goodbye
For there is a love out there waiting
Oceans to cross
And wonders to explore .

My time can not be over
For the air in my lungs still longs to sing
My feet wish to dance
My soul longs to be freed.

What torture is this then
Trapped in stagnation
A body decayed
With a mind held captive by a wondering soul?

I will not surrender
For my time has not yet come.
Then suddenly I wonder
How many have passed
With life left undone?

The must still be time,
To steal a kiss from the moon,
To taste the wine of every shape and kind
And learn to laugh in a hundred languages too.

Grant me please goddess
A pass to return again,
Should this life suddenly come to its abrupt end.
How many times before have I made this request?
How many times more until I finish my quest?

The Ogre

The house was always clean and shiny. It sparkled through and through.

I'd leave my clothes upon the floor. Who picked them up I never knew.

Then one day the ambulance took momma away.

That was when the Ogre took over our place.

I'd laid my clothes upon the floor and that was where they stayed. Soon a huge mountain took over my space.

The dishes filled the sink. In a short time the house began to stink.

In the dark I lay one night when a rumble echoed in the shadows.

My clothes began to move. The thunderous beat of my heart in my chest muted beneath his growl. 

Beneath covers I hid my head , silently I cowerd. A rumble from his throat the words split the air ," who built this beautiful smelly lair? Speak child I smell your fear!"

My eyes peered wide at the mountain of my clothes . Silently I prayed my voice still froze.

" well " said the ogre " it's my place now. "

He turned his attention away from my room and walked to the kitchen with a thunderous boom.

"Agh huh behold the sweet smell of rot! "

With a crash and a bang he gulped down all of the food we had forgot. The dishes rattled, fine china smashed. The garbage cans turned over with a boom and a crash.

I sunk from my bed and watched through the night as the ogre pillaged everything in sight.

Soon the sun peeked through the window sills. The ogre returned to the mountain and fell. Before he closed his eyes to sleep he spoke to my frightened silhouette ," remember child this is my castle now. Don't you dare clean up a thing. I love the way it perfectly stinks."

When I was sure the mountain of clothes would no longer move, the sun full in its morning glory filled my room. I sprung from my bed and gathered the clothes. Holding my breathe and my nose , I rushed to the washer and scrubbed them straight away. Then I folded them and put them properly in there place. 

Upon passing through the kitchen I remembered his delight and quickly, quite thoroughly washed everything in sight. Daddy returned with momma that day. She beamed with delight as they escorted her to her bed. I dare not speak a word of the ogre since then .although, I will never forget the frightening things he said. 

Know I know where my soiled clothes go. I hope momma never leaves or the ogre returns again.

(C) R.M. Brandon 2016

It's gone

It doesn't hurt anymore. It's the strangest realization. When the sound of their names, a picture, or even a place that used to reach inside your chest and pull apart the pieces of your heart no longer hurts. 

It happened today. I braced for that all too familiar shatter. I expected to feel that searing burning pain from the reminder that I gave all to someone who could ultimately never give all back to me. But it never came. 

For a moment I was bewildered. Why doesn't it hurt? Then I slowly realized it doesn't hurt because I'm over it. I don't know when it happened. I'm honestly not even sure how it happened. But apparently at some point in time I came to grips with the truth. 

Truth , now there's a word I've been saying a lot lately. It's amazing how many lies people can conjure about ones life. It's almost ironic in the sense the reality of a person is bad enough why embellish it? 

I have no time for anything other than real. I have no patience for people who wish to cast stones without even knowing what sins another is truly guilty of. I've lost the desire to accommodate small minds and idle gossip. 

Judge me . Hate me. See only part of the complexity that makes the whole me. I really don't care.i now realize it is possible and actually common to love someone without ever being their first love or soulmate. It is even more possible to see yourself, flawed,imperfect, human, and to love yourself regardless. 

I've battled depression and inadequacy for as long as I can remember. I strove desperately to win the favor of everyone close to me. Like the kid in gym class who is always picked last, I've been picked last far too many times. Why? Because I didn't value myself enough to stand in the right line? Maybe . because I honestly wasn't good enough to be picked at all? I no longer care to know.

I guess this is my way of taking myself out of the line. I will never wait to be chosen again. 

If you see my book on the shelf at the local bookstore and you pick up the book next to it instead, cool. If my husband leaves tomorrow for another woman, cool. If I'm eternally a disappointment to my parents here and above,okay. If my kids grow to seek out professionals to help them deal with their hideous mother,okay. 

Why would I possibly be okay with any of those things? Because I choose me. I still see my many faults physically, emotionally, and spiritually . I choose to love myself anyway. Why? Because I am the only one who lives in my skin. I am the only one who feels the searing pain of rejection or the exiliration of success. I am the only one who has to pick me out of the line. So when they pull those cards that used to hurt I can now smile. 

Today for the first time in forever , it doesn't hurt to be me. It doesn't hurt to be reminded of all who were chosen instead of me. From here and forever I choose to simply walk away from anyone or anything that doesn't see value in me, 

I'm a Bad human

Yesterday I hated myself. 

I guess we all have those days. You know the days I mean, the days where our best isn't even close to good, the ones where everything falls apart in our hands and it seems more like we are the ones shredding it instead of holding the pieces together. It all started the night, or more accurately early morning, before. 

 

School is once again returning to my chaotic household which of course means the struggle to get the kids away from their summer schedule and back into functioning with the rest of the world. In retrospect the rest of the world might be doing it wrong but I will delve into that later. Back to the wee morning hours. My 14 and 11 year olds were wide awake at 3am . Not just wide awake but slamming cabinets, T.V. Blaring , stadium voice awake. Of course my 19 year old decided to stay home and subsequently had to be up for work at 4 am and their dad would need to be up by 6:30 for work. After the 10th warning since 11pm to get their buts to bed some kind of demon possessed my body. 

Maybe it wasn't actually a demon but at the very least it was not a version of myself I can be proud of. Having disconnected the internet roughly around midnight I figured they would surrender to boredom and sleep. Oh no, not my kids. That apparently became a challenge to them. "Let's see how much we can pisss mom off to prove she should never disconnect us from our digital world." . I'm not really sure why I took this challenge so badly. Maybe the fact that for months sleep has been broken and disconnected due to severe physical pain, maybe because I was demonically possessed , maybe I just briefly lost myself, regardless I became the mom equivalent to a sailor somewhere around 3:30 am. 

TV plugs went flying, obscenities spewed forth from my mouth to the likes of which I firmly believe might have become a new language in and of itself, they sulked off to bed. Unfortunately for them the possession had taken firm effect on me and I vowed they would never dare to challenge me again. What an idiot I can be.

Fast forward to the ripe time of 9am . Kids were rudely awakened from their beds as I barked at them, get your shoes on and your buts outside you have 5 minutes. Groggy, confused, and obviously shocked they arrive in the front yard in under 5 minutes. The torture begins. Being as life has brutalized us pretty consistently for a number of years now the stack of things needing attention and one day I will fix that is of course mountainous, today that was going to change. Mind you, I really do love my kids, I live for them, try to give them everything I can not to spoil them but to mold them into thinkers and doers, so eventually they may go out into the world and become the best part of it like they already are to me. But yesterday I showed them no mercy. 

They began their morning stacking wood, a lot of wood. Then they cut weeds , monsterous, taller than me weeds, the way I was taught , with scissors and a meat cleaver. By this time the sun was high and hot , their faces red and tired. Progress said the demon. A break for lunch and water . Then back out the door to clean a shed, pick up trash, move the weeds they had cut to the burn pile. All in all they took it pretty well. For some reason this just made me madder at them. By this point I'm on my 5th cup of coffee and second round of meds just to be able to move, the pain is intense but The demon is channeling all the pain and exhaustion into teaching these dang kids what a hard days work is like. 

Finally I Sucumb to my own need to just stop moving and send them on a walk. Give us all time to calm down and maybe they will appreciate not being locked in their rooms tethered to electronic devices for a change. Yet again, not my kids. No the oldest pitches a fit because apparently her cell phone ran out of time. Do your chores get cell time, I do your chores you get no cell time. Ok you little punks , says the demon, take the youngest's phone it's on a one year plan and is only usable for calling texting. Haha! Screams the demon you still get no internet! And then, "I haven't seen my phone for two weeks." 

What?!!!youre telling me you don't even know where it is?! Why, just why, do you have to have these things and then don't even know where it is to use it because it's not a game or an app or a social media source?!!!!oh hello again my demonic friend. No I don't like the me I am right now. I'm mean and angry and have zero sympathy or compassion for two people who literally are my whole world. The oldest is at point break, "I had a nightmare I couldn't sleep without my boyfriend singing to me . I couldn't get over the nightmare about the house burning down." Again this me, zero compassion . We were all in the house when it burnt down it is no excuse for being tethered to the Internet 24/7 and then trying to prove why you're right when I disconnect it. Although I believe it actually came out as I don't give a shit. Of course then the youngest chimes in, "it's not her fault she burnt down the house you shouldn't have let her light the fire!" Demon possession now takes full force. I am gone. Monster me is evil and pissed. One I never to,d her to light the fire quite the opposite, two I told her on many occasions not to use accelerants to start a fire in the wood stove, three I gave up years of my life to buy and fill and take care of that home for you to burn it to the ground ,expect me to do it all over again, and now say it's my fault?!!! 

Again did not say any of those things the demon instead jumps in my truck and backs it up to my camper. Fine. You want to do everything alone you ungrateful tots I'm out. Good luck. Mind you I have maybe 10 bucks in my pocket until payday but at this point I'm just done. I'm hooking up the camper , filling what little I have in this world in it and I'm out. And then the text. My oldest half way across the state at work by now " mom will you please put $5 in my account I didn't bring lunch and I have no money." 

The demon is screaming what?!!! Do you know how many days I went without eating at work? You have a job, you have a budget, you blow your budget you go hungry. Trapped somewhere inside the real me is going you can't let the kid starve. Somewhere between all this the youngest two had finally headed to the park , I believe about the time my head rotated 360 degrees on its own. Disconnect the truck, pick up the youngest two, which reminds me I really need to have that stranger talk with them again, and head to the bank. Mind you, I had $10 to my name, I deposit $5 into his account and turn my eternally on the danger low fuel truck back to home.  Perhaps it's exhaustion, perhaps it's simply because I really do love my kids , but at some point on that short drive real me started to think. 

Back in the driveway they sprint from the truck like they're being shot at and dive into their rooms.  Considering less than 6 months ago we were all sharing a one room cabin and sifting through the ashes of our home , they relish their own private spaces. I stay outside for a bit arguing with the demon. Torture them, teach them, torture them, teach them, back and forth we argued. Finally an idea, both that will maybe just work. On a sidebar about the real me, I love taking things and making them something else. I had an idea for a fountain out of stuff laying around the yard but couldn't carry the stones because of my injury so it has just lingered, today would be different. 

Yet again I pry them out of their self imposed prison cells or the sanctity of their private space and out into the light of day all the while quietly astonished they have not yet spontaneously burst into flames . We set to work. They load the stones, cut an old tire , line the ground , lay the stones, and finally fill the tire, and set the old pump into the fountain. They look up at me expectantly. Finally I look at them as me, ok I want you guys to take a good look at that. 30 minutes ago that was a mud hole , now it is something beautiful. You made that. You are capable of doing amazing things if you just unplug and walk outside. Tired and sweaty we go in to get ready for supper and rehearsals. If I had known how much life was going to change that day I would've let them sleep all day,talk to their friends online, eat cereal at 2am.

My phone rang. My husbands mother frantic on the other end her mom was being rushed to ER they had started CpR but it didn't look good. That drive we have all made, the one we all hate, weaving in and out of traffic praying you make it in time but knowing no matter how fast you get there you are helpless. We beat the ambulance, got a quick time frame from the desk, and start calling family. Get here now. The ambulance comes through. The tubes, the compressions, the tears, the why. She was old yes but not frail. Why?

The doctor, the finality. The while I try to be there for my husband, for his mom. I feel useless and out of place. I'm a fixer, a doer, I don't do well with just existing or even with just being there. I do what I can , which never feels enough. My relationship with my husband and his family has been strained for along time, I try hard to find the strength to give them comfort. Demon me has finally grown silent. Physically, emotionally, mentally exhausted I give as much assistance as I can to calling and transporting family members, tying up loose ends, making sure my husband doesn't lose his mom from the stress of her losing hers. The kids say their goodbyes and fight through anger, sorrow, anguish. I try to hold them help them remember everything that made her such an amazing person in their lives. Somehow it just seems surreal. No amount of hugs can heal the pain of a person taken from life suddenly. 

By the time we finally cross back through our door the sun has long set. Everyone is hungry, tired beyond comprehension , and emotionally trashed. We now have my mother in law and her two dogs in tow as well because we are worried about her being alone in such a difficult time. My youngest wanders up the hallway to retrieve his tablet from my room and the scream rises. 

Laying in the grip of the cat which up to this point had never even looked crossed eyed at a mouse that ravaged our pantry was my sons pet hamster. His best buddies best buddy. My kids have been raised to love animals, to cherish them, to honor their place in our lives as our friends. Here, in one of the hardest days of his life so far, his buddy lay dead in the arms of an animal he had cared for, the ultimate betrayal . I saw the demon cross his face, pure anguish, hate, rage. I wrapped him in my arms as tightly as I could and let him scream out his anger. Hate can not fix what has been lost it will only cause more loss.

When he calmed we placed splinter into a box and prepared him for today's farewell. The cat was given to a shelter something I loathe to do but in this situation had no other course. We were all up again well past 3am. The Internet didn't get unplugged. The kids video chatted with friends both near and far. My family remembered the many wonderful times we had with his late grandma and recanted stories that brought us all smiles and comfort. 

When I finally laid my weary body in bed again I really hated myself. I hate that yesterday I was the toxic person in my kids lives. I hate that I had lost my compassion, my love for life, my love for my family. I hate that as hard as I try to be a good person I wasn't . I'm not sure what my kids will take out of yesterday or the day their mom was replaced by the devil. I'm fairly certain instead of saving for college I should've started a therapy fund at birth for each of them. During the end of this my mom began messaging me. It's weird how she always just knows. 

At the end of that long day, I hated myself but I hugged my kids a little tighter. I remembered to tell my mom I love her. Most of all I remembered I have the power to choose who I am, the responsibility to always be the best version of me , the privilege to live life to its fullest , and the reality it will all end someday when we least expect it.  Some days I won't even like myself and that's ok. 

Moments

Life

A series of moments

Moments that make us

Moments that break us

Moments that take our breath away

Thoughts

Thoughts that change a life

Thoughts that create new life

Thoughts that transform the world in which we live

Strange 

What bizzare tragedy is the combination

A thought , a moment, a change 

The world turns upside down around our heads

That which was promised to be true is no more

Reality

What is real in a thought

What is real in a a simple perspective 

can change the very fabric of reality 

Shattered 

Or reborn 

One must decide 

If the pieces remain broken

Or if the Phoenix instead will rise

Inside

Inside each of us lives a magical place. It is filled with beauty beyond description, creatures without names, excitement, happiness, and discovery. Some of us forget that world in our youth. We listen to the voices of the world which tell us to be practical, responsible, and prudent. For those , the magic dies. Oh but the ones who refuse to let go, who visit that magical world well into adulthood and share it to the best of their ability. Those are the storytellers, the dream weavers, the few rare beings who make this world a place worth residing in. Never let the world steal your magic. 

A thousand before

Wars rage around the world, fighting over whose God is right. Men kill eachother over thoughts, ideas, soil, things that move on without their bloodshed regardless. To live a life, truly live, is to have lived a thousand lives in one. To experience a thousand sunrises, a thousand sunsets, to have kissed a thousand lips, or a tasted a thousand foods, to have thought a thousand different things, and explored a thousand different places is to live but one life. Yet how many go from birth to death never reading a thousand books? How many close their eyes in one life without ever risking a thousand loves? Life is not about excess nor is it about minuteness . It is about breathing each and every breath to its fullest. 

What glory is there to never risk regection? What comfort is there in never opening a door? Yet how many close the coffin lid and never bother to live before? Loss is the greatest sorrow, it's true. But what greater loss is there than a chance never taken, a love never lost, a battle never waged, sanity never questioned, road never explored? 

Yes I have lived a hundred lives already, some too long, some too short. I have cried a thousand tears, laughed a thousand times, and loved atleast once maybe more. My time has not yet come , but tomorrow could always be the day. I hope that I may get to live atleast 10hundred more. So ask me of my sins or judge me my mistakes. I will not blush or cowar away , those were from a life before . See as I grow I have learned to stop being afraid to open the door. I have sinned , yes I have errors, but I have lived more than once more. Perfection will not be achieved in safety alone. 

Yes I will dance in the full moonlight, or maybe hide and cowar from judging sight, but I will always get up and live once more. No this heart break will not be my death or maybe even a hundred more. No solitude will not dull my mind , nor crowds overwhelm my sense of self, for I know I will live atleast once more. Each day is a gift to start a life anew. Each breath a promise to be and do what you chose to do.  So when my time finally comes and this old body goes no more . Smile when they close that coffin lid and know I lived a thousand lives before. 

~R.M. Brandon 2016~

Walking nightmare

Another sleepless night

The pain keeps me awake

The physical pain , body won't shut down

The emotional pain

The missed chances, the conversations never spoken, the memories unmade

All while trying to keep something that never existed in the first place

The family members I shut out 

Just to keep you

When you never cared to begin with

The days I could've held my children

 Instead of holding the hand of a lying man

The mistakes I made 

Trying to make you feel afraid of losing something you never cared about holding to begin with

The struggles I endured and things I gave up 

Just to make you smile 

You never smiled over anything like you did at her

The pain is my true best friend

It never goes away

Some days it's faded in the distance 

Waiting for me to forget just long enough to make the next memory hurt all the more

Another night wishing 

Hindsight is 20/20 yet when you're walking you have no idea you're blind

Another lifetime gone 

Time to start a new one, move on

I wonder when I pack my things to go

Will the pain stay 

Or will it be my best friend until my dying day

Ode to Annabel Lee

I will never be your Annabel lee

Love, true love was never meant for you and me

Accepting this truth 

Is a knife to my soul

Seething, burning accepting to let go

We loved with a love

That was never truly love

You and me

Two hearts oceans apart never meant to be

It's time to cut the tie that binds

Bid farewell to old times

Drift apart on this sea of life we may

Maybe meet again some sunny day

Saving you is drowning me

I must let go and learn to float free

For now my boat is filled with pain

Fighting to make sunshine out of rain

For our love was never love

Never meant to be 

Let's cut the ties that bind you to me

I wish you safe travels

Sunshine and better days

I wish you enough wind to carry you away

May the rain cleanse the memories away

I will fly to the sun

Just close enough to burn 

Close enough to embalm all I have learned 

Maybe one day day our paths will cross again

When love has found each of us again 

The memory won't haunt me then 

Of our love that wasn't love 

In the end

2016 r.m. Brandon

Power

What a wondrous curse is this
The human mind

Capable of shaping worlds
In its innermost working

Yet housing such horrors
As the memory of a thousand goodbyes

What miracle is its process
Storing, filing ,creating

Oh to possess the ability
To step away from its thunderous reminders

A thought can shape the world
Yet a memory can destroy the future

Shadow

There is a shadow following me 

One I cannot escape

Through twist and turn, rain and shine

The shadow remains

Fire did not cleanse it 

The sun will not wear it away

There is a shadow haunting me 

Shadow of pain remains

Back turned I feel it's stare

Burning into my soul

Forever there

There is a shadow haunting me

The shadow is her memory

No pain is great enough

No distance far enough away

The presence of the shadow always remains

Laughter it echoes in return 

Making bitter even the sweetest of moments

Kindness falls mute by its simple existence

The shadow I fear will soon win

As my will is coming to an end

Hallow it shapes the life I once loved

Replacing my heart with its darkening void

The shadow will win

I fear in the end

As I cast aside this old skin

To find my self once again

Finding myself the shadow will fade

Her memory will finally relinquish to grave

Her darkness must fall from my life's sky

Laughing at Rain 

I forget her to find myself once again

There once was a shadow that haunted me

I left her with the man who cast her into my life

Far away I hear echoes 

There is a shadow haunting his life.

(C) R.M Brandon 6/2016

Through the flames

We lost our home to fire a few months ago. My youngest son has a pet tortoise that is his best friend in the whole world. When the fire erupted my first thought was to get the kids to safety . Once outside my son screamed for his tortoise that was right next to where the fire started. I ran back into the house and tried to get the little guy to no avail. The heat drove me back out the door where my oldest son commented he's right by the window we can break it! The part of my mind still in shock to the reality of what was happening hesitated briefly only to relent to the tears in my sons eyes. We subsequently broke the window , I dove in and pulled the tortoise to safety. That animalistic part of me took over and I ran back into the flames . To this day I'm not sure what I was trying to rescue, my cat Johnny who we lost in the fire, our basset hound Hooter who also perished, or every mermory that clung to the fire crested walls. I ran back in and was drove back out by the smoke and sheer heat atleast a dozen times trying to salvage what I could. 

 Looking back on that fateful day 6 months ago I still try to make sense of it. If my daughter hadn't needed emergency help for burns to her hands I would not have gone to the emergency room. I would not have been treated for smoke inhalation and may have lost my life to the after effects. Something occurred to me today , what I was trying to save in that fire might actually have been myself. Not the physical me that could very well have fallen victim on that day, but the warrior me that had surrendered a long time ago. 

 They say one can only know their true strength when they let the fire wash away all that is unnecessary. There is truth in that saying. On the other side of the Flames I am grateful for all that survived. I am also grateful I stood in the flames long enough to wash away all that I no longer need. In each of us there lies a greater power, a greater calling, a greater purpose. Some are lucky enough to find that calling and pursue it without ever facing a catastrophe . Others, like me, must stand in the flames to learn just how powerful we really are. 

Moments

Moments.
There are moments when I am in control of me.
Moments when the demons fall silent.
Air exchanges freely from atmosphere to lungs, beauty radiates from every aspect of my being and the world is love.
Oh but there are other moments.
When the demons scream so loudly my voice becomes lost, the world grows gray, cold , and the walks close in stealing the air.
Suffocating madness .
The words flow through my mind stealing life. Hers, his, theirs.
What torture is this shadowed existence, head low , heavy from the weight of words .
In these moments I must quiet.
Hate,fear, memories , words , bits if hot air playing their broken record until the blackness consumes all.
The record shatters.
Flung against the very wall it created opening for the light , the air to reenter.
Inside lays the warrior patiently waiting for her moment to strike.
She will rise above the pain, words, lies, memories , shattered expectations to claim the beauty that is her own.
No more will she lay in the shadow of another person's light.

She casts away the demons , calls to those great warriors who have walked before her, and shines.

A fire of beauty all her own , no longer broken pieces of others will .

Moments pass , but it only takes one moment to change the path.

6/2016 R.M. Brandon ©

Fragments

He revolved around her like a satellite to the earth. As if her absence would leave him spinning into an  abysmal void of darkness, shinning his beacon with revolution of her presence. How unfortunate he was already the moon to another woman.

Be the one

You can not see them

 Lingering far beneath the surface 

But their presence in known

 Raging quietly in the depths

Scars never formed

The deepest cuts bleed on

Ruptured aneurisms of the soul

 Bleèding into infinity 

Silent, deadly.

Look up as you walk through that crowd

 Who is bleeding next you?

In the stillness of night

 When they lay in darkness alone

Is their soul bleeding out?

Predators smell them from miles away

 Flocking to the easy prey.

Piece by piece their will widdles away.

 Never knowing the beauty that lies deep within.

Pain becomes solace.

Numbness. 

 Hiding behind smiling masks.

Everything is fine.

 Until the bleed becomes a river .

Drowning in the waste of a misfortunate life.

Some scough, all judge, a few cry.

 Why?

It only takes one.

 One real love, one true heart, one real smile

It only takes one love to heal a soul.

 

Take off the mask.

 Be your own one.

~R.M Brandon 2016 

Just be you

Why must the caterpillar crawl into a cocoon to become a butterfly? Because to find your true beauty you must first find yourself not who the world tells you to be.Once you know who you are the whole world will see the true beauty you hide inside.

R.M Brandon 2016

Dream

If there should ever come a time you wonder if I'm okay close your eyes and remember I'm only a dream away.