
Everything is poetry. – Ash
Everything is poetry. – Ash
Of all the possibilities in life, you were chosen to be a part of it. Think about how special that makes you. – Ash
It’s 8:15 P.M. on a Monday evening nineteen ninety-something, and my last load of laundry is two-quarters away from being done. I dig through a pile of old magazines and find one with a half-finished crossword. The hum of the dryer is soothing… hypnotic to a focused folder. Pearl Jam plays on a scratchy radio above the pop machine that never works. As a spring night hue casts in against a long wooden table of folded clothes and empty baskets reaching where I sat, a bell jingles. I’m the last one there. The sometimes friendly middle-aged attendant who’s been watching the one-channel TV eyeballs my sightline up the far wall across from me. Toward an overly huge numbered clock fixed on it. Below reads the hours of business. He silently without words offers me a delicate cycle amount of time by tapping his watch before my clean getaway ends its cycle. I nod in appreciation for the fifteen minutes and go back to my crossword tapping a half-chewed pen…
Let’s see… 6 Down, a bottle with a narrow neck…?
Coping with my anxiety is like a bike ride. It’s hard to balance. There is a chance I will fall. Sometimes I do. But, I have to keep going if I am going to learn how to ride with it. – Ash
My body was controlled by my mind for a while now. Not in a good way. As my thoughts pierced me like bullets, I fell from the wounds they created. I was allowing my happiness to die by jumping in front of the fire. As I lay to sleep… my will is bulletproof. I only had to find it again. – Ash
I found my way through struggle today. Like a tiny beam trying to seep its way past a thick wall, I made it to a much bigger light. As I lay to sleep… I feel strong. – Ash
there was a day when the grass was the perfect green
the ocean glistened in morse code
each sparkle a story of its own
as I step lightly from rock to stone
saltwater breaths dry my lips
I wet them for a taste
we all know that birds sing
listen when they do
let them play out the tides
like that day that was just for me
on that beach of memories
with a shore full of driftwood and kelp
props in a backdrop of a day in my life
when I hear a crashing wave
when a warm breeze teases my step
and when mother nature holds out her hand
I grab on and go back again
I called for you last night
it wasn’t for any of those other reasons we have
this time it was to tell you I was hurting
hurting still… only differently
differently, that poetry won’t mend
differently, that thoughts of you won’t pacify
differently, that distraction from you won’t make me forget
no, this time so different that even a superhero’s cape couldn’t save me
as I sit on the other side of a mountain of hope
I always thought you would answer my cry when it felt real to you
to whatever real means to you
I have done nothing over these years but climb that hope
over and over
thinking one day I would resurrect that real and make it come alive again
to finally know that you feel something for me
maybe that’s all my own dreams
and we know dreams are not real
one day dust will sweep over my body where it lay
marked for the rest of the world
with a sentence that I still continue to call out your name
from beneath my mountain of hope
that fell and crumbled the same day as I did
…your father
Someone asked me the other day if I was a new year’s resolution type of person. I said no. I am more of a new you resolution type of person which happens every day. Waiting a whole year to assess yourself and make changes seems a waste of time and creates pressure to not fail. We have to fail, to learn to win. We have to fall, to get back up. We have to lose to be grateful for what we already have. I continued to tell this person that I am a work in progress and it takes work each and every day and that’s the only resolution I need to keep. – Ash