She floats in and out of the breeze like an opulent heartbeat…She just needs to be free…”

These days.

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot teach it how to drink. If you’re unwilling to throw caution to the wind, you may as well watch as you let your horses sink.

Grand Rapids has my body; the road has my heart.

Spread my wings just to see what becomes of me.
How is it that my hands can feel the clouds
When my feet still drag on the ground?
Kicking up soil of sweet nostalgia,
Reaching to my lips, a confectionery’s bitterness.
The truth is, I’m not sure how I’ve come to this.
When your head can feel the breeze that
The soles of your feet cannot,
The mid-space; the commonplace
Becomes shallow and vast. Too difficult to get past.
It’s where our bodies get stuck when our
Souls refuse to meet our hearts-
Or the other way around-
We cannot commit to the skies or
The sturdiness of solid ground.
So we float in this Mid-space; commonplace.
For eternity, we may never leave
When our dreams are misplaced in a world too colossal for our
eyes to seek.

The truth is… The truth is…

Some do exist who fly beyond this midway abyss.
And if you can catch them in flight
And pay attention to the astonishing sight,
You’ll see their struggle to lift above is not
Robust enough to crush their undying love for
The skies,
And their wings only pulse harder with
Fervent drive
In attempts to see their dreams materialize.

The truth is
(And I’ll whisper softly, this)
If you learn of these rarities,
You must latch tight and listen closely.
For these song birds sing to share melodies
Of hope and major chords so bright
To strengthen your own wings and
Prepare to lift you in your own flight.

Grand Rapids has my body;
The road has my heart.
Grand Rapids has my body;
The road has my heart.
The mid-space has my body;
The clouds have my heart.
Spread my wings and watch
As my world falls apart.

I touched the clouds that day. They sank down deep and weaved themselves within me. In, around and throughout my arms, circling my neck and cradling my head, and for a second, I could have sworn that I was floating. Securely wrapped in a blanket of dreariness, I closed my eyes and felt the pain seep out of my pores and into the thick fog that encompassed my body. I knew the clouds would leave me soon - weightless and vulnerable to a world ungracious, but I was fine. Because as soon as they lifted back up into the sky, they’d leak, like one hundred faucets, all of the grief that I had lent them. 

And so they did. As I raised my hands back up to meet them, they wept all of the tears that my heart had buried inside. In fact, it poured for weeks as I stood there and all around me, the buds on the trees bloomed fervently. My eyes grew wide as the weeds that we sowed sprouted into Titan Arums, giant in size. 

Then I remembered, as I stared in wonder at the beauty that surrounded my blundering feet, the simple phrase that the clouds gently whispered to me that day they came down to meet my face:

“She who embraces sadness and pain will someday appreciate the healing of spring rain.”

It’s been a while since I’ve heard the crackle and boom. 

(reflections of my heart)

Always a whip and a crash. A roar and a flash.

Summer is on it’s way. My dreams are on their way. 

May.

May.

May.

It’s not going to be easy but it’s going to be worth it.

You could watch her skin turn translucent
and her eyes sink further in
each time she made excuses
for the life she hadn’t lived.
Rehearsing phrases that reek of poison-
She melted sunshine through her lips
But what destroyed the life inside of her
was the monster inside of him.

She carried the shovel and he lead the way-
Every battle she fought in his name
dug another hole for her grave.

His sickness seeped into her bones,
She felt a numbness creeping in.
What of him that once made her feel alive
now plagued her heart with ignorance.
Between the sheets, he watched her sleep,
She knowing nothing of his crimes.
Blinded by innocence, she could not have seen
the destruction of the monster’s pride.

She carried the shovel as he lead the way
With every kiss and promise made
that girl dug out her own grave.

Well you cannot haunt her-
You cannot haunt her any longer.
You cannot resurrect the fear that you once ignited in her.

On one hand, If I closed myself off, I would lose that connection to so many of you sweet souls…it’s impossible to talk to each on of you on the phone or see you almost ever with our insanely busy lives. Sharing our thoughts and feelings on the internet-even the dumb arguments- they  all bridge that connection that we may not have ever had, otherwise. Ever since I first learned about AOL in 1999, I was mystified and drawn to the internet, knowing that I could potentially connect to so many more people that wouldn’t be possible on my own. It’s such a special relationship that we have, you who is reading this right now and I…passing around photos, commenting on little bits and pieces, sharing our hopes and dreams. I love reading about your trials and tribulations and I love writing to you. My own little electronic diary that sometimes responds.

On the other hand, I’ve lost dear friends to me who decided against this way of communication. Long friends who I have jumped through a million hoops with and for. I’ve started to lose the boundary between friends and acquaintances, private and public…fact and fiction.

I am an artist and I have to decide if my ranting and raving and general connectivity to the internet cheapens my work or enriches it.

I don’t really know anymore.

It’s all “so we went out to dinner and then I met his friends…”
And
“Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe how that movie ends!”

Mouths are full of gossipy has-beens and chalky what-ifs
I don’t even know what that means, because my brain can’t comprehend what to think of all this
All the chatter, catching up with old friends and
Talking
Loudly
I can’t
Fucking think
Of what
I should be
Writing

Friday evening is
No time for a writer
And her coffee

evanbartlett:

Lyric video for ‘aCross Discord’ off of my band’s (Fine Fine Titans) debut EP ‘Arms’.

Get the album:
Bandcamp - http://finefinetitans.bandcamp.com

Connect with us:
Website - http://www.finefinetitans.com
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/finefinetitans
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/finefinetitans

Lyrics ====================================

These nightmares drive me crazy
They keep my heart a fuming high
I feed the devil caffeine while he
While he bleeds my ears dry
He speaks to me of lust and love
Confuses me when he says
“Your lust will never be warm enough
To breathe your love bright red.”

Forgive me, God, 
But did you hear what he just said?
He’s backing your words of virtue but
You still hold that gun to his head.

“You’ve got it all wrong…”
Spoke the preacher of my song,
“…the devil only speaks these lies
To keep a razor tongue.
To slice open the seams of your brain,
Implant frozen embryos, 
So by the time they thaw and you recall,
The devil already has control.”

Well I can’t count the times that
That I let him direct my eyes
To the same obscurity that you
You harbor in your heart
It takes one to know one and so I’ve
I’ve spent my days apart
From the lord because the devil said,
“It takes light to know the dark.”

My favorite track from the EP…we don’t perform this live but I really wish we would. 

When the temperature dips thirty degrees
And the sun begins her threat of hibernating…
When the trees have dropped each hand,
be them yellow, red, orange or green…
When the piles of leaves keep covered
Your quietly hiding sanity…
They may call it “Seasonal Depression”
But I’ve been stuck to bad decisions.

Then I’m left
Wondering
If all that I’ve lost
Is because of me.

It’s always been this way-
As if the warmth of a Michigan August sun
Blurs my vision to the truth.
Drown ourselves in pints of booze
To cover up our summer blues.
Then autumn creeps in
Promising winds of change
And suddenly,
So abruptly,
Your head-space is rearranged.

And we’re back to these old clouds-
The grey streets dusty with scattered salt.
Our limbs exposed; the winds stripped our tinted skin
And once again, our eyes remind us of
The filthy sin we’ve been living in.

Seasonal depression?
Nah, not in Michigan.
Our flaws are just as vibrant
As our season’s changes.

It’s not that I’m nervous about the new year, in fact, quite the opposite. I’m very excited actually, because I know that our band is ready to hit the road. We have what we need…the music, the van, the drive, the support…we just have to do it.

Maybe I am a bit nervous. This is all I’ve ever wanted. This is all I’ve ever dreamt of. That little pit in my stomach is beginning to envelope my entire body and I can feel my fight or flight response closing up my throat. In this case, I need to take advantage of that. Because the adrenaline is going to keep us motivated. I have to fight AND fly. I have to hold onto the angst of my youth and utilize the wisdom of my later years to take by storm, the world…er, the van.

So many people have walked out of my life these last few years. I’d like to say that it is they who have changed, but that I can not be definitive of and I know for certain that it is me who has evolved. I’ve lost patience with anyone who is unwilling to look at the world from another point of view. My eyes have opened to hypocrisy and it’s true, I’ve become much stronger in my stance and no longer do I find it necessary to keep my mouth closed to injustice that I may see. Friends that may have once loved me for me no longer love me for who I’ve become.

So now it’s time to hit the road to find folk who are accepting. This year, my resolution is not focused on the future, it’s focused on letting go of the past so I can live the next year with a clear head and clear hope.

Here’s to the past, I’m going to celebrate the future.

I lost my faith in humanity
The moment you fell to your knees.
I believed in you.
I believed in your reasoning
and thought you’d see through the disease.
You wouldn’t know brainwashed
If you scrubbed that head of your’s, yourself.
Feed it with bullshit, keep
Filling the voids with emptiness.
I thought you cared for me.
Hell, you thought you believed in me,
but we’re impregnated with disease
And the moment my voice fluttered with disdain
For the bad taste, suddenly,
I became dead to you.
Just another lost soul in a secular swirl.
Just another sinner in your Christian world.

If the trees do not whisper truth about beauty, pain and suffering;

If the river does not speak of forward movement and evolution;

If the sky does not sing of expansion and soaring bliss-

What makes you think that your television will show you what true love is?

Tomorrow is my birthday,
November 29th.
The day we weep for our future death.
On my birthday, I always cry.
Because newborns shed tears when they exit the womb,
And I’ll be sure to laugh the day that I die.
Because this is life
One breath at a time.
This is living
One death at a time.

Lets celebrate, keep celebrating
Only a few more years until we rest.
Fire up the engines, we’re still breathing,
Only a few more tears until our time ends.

We don’t sin; we are sin.
We are born again
When we shed our autumn skin.

We don’t breathe; we are breath
And we will die each time
We look right but fail to glance left.