june 23

I.

The swimming pool was not under the ground.

It was one whose temperature was almost the days,

like all things in plain sight of a summer sun, and barely hidden by clouds.

When i felt the water reach my back,

i knew that i would sink.

it was something i decided while still indoors,

smiling at the size of the pool from a window,

and remembering instances where i once jumped in impulsively

and slammed my feet into the plastic bottom that vaguely resembled the tiny bodies of grass beneath it.

my cousins spoke above water

their voices were muffled and distorted by watered distance.

I sunk and sat like a stone.

II.

and i felt it coming too soon

like a small fire in my chest

like a stampede in my spine,

like a tear in the heart

like

un-birth.

i felt the need to breath

and i remembered how long i had been at the bottom

and rolled my tired bridal eyes to the surface

and i grew angry at how short a while I lasted

and i clenched my grown-up fists.

i tried to make-out the clouds through the dirty water,

But I could not see them, and I thought that I could cry

convincing my self i dont need so much air, and that if i could just a stay a bit longer i can learn to enjoy the distortion

and maybe i can be a fish, and maybe i dont need to see the real clouds, and maybe i can train my lungs to even be this empty

III.

and i considered how likely that You would catch me like this

when You come back.

i wondered if You would look at me with the look sometimes i see You make at me through my mother,

and would You see that i cried in the water, and be able to follow each tear with your finger as it floated around

Or would you watch my stubborn and guilty breathless body

standing at Your same perfect distance

saying to me that my eyes were meant to see the clouds.

IV.

I gave into the rise and lift after the fires spread to the tips of my sad fingers

and their hands waved at me.

I felt some million sorry’s and came up gasping

I could feel the faces of my curious cousins staring at the splashes I had made,

But I looked at the clouds and breathed You in.

You have been like foreign breath ever since, but breath nonetheless.

wont You come down?

lunch

im spent right between all the spots on your skin.

theres no life left in your knuckles i am convinced.

not even the dryness in between your fingers

could make me wish for closeness.

i considered your reluctant wells for eyes

and maybe how i could be in love with them

less than a Kings love

but still like morning night day spring summer forevers

in the past week i have probably learned more about my own behavior than i guess ever

i have spent most of my time doing the following:

painting painting painting- i have been so influenced by a Denton band known as Western Giant's song: Park. I plan on exhibiting my house to hopefully a live performace of the song on the 21 of may. this performance/exhibit will include the work of artist's Sloane Solley, Bethany Eden, Al Holt, Paul Young, and Travis Sykes along with some poetry reading because literary art is such a commonly overlooked form here. excited

riding my bicycle- i have really begun to appreciate the roads far more when they are empty..who knew i guess

constantly referring to ward schumakers blog in hopes to catch a glimpse at his latest work- yeah

because all of these things have taken up such a grand space in my head. I am more likely to pay less attention to the One who gave it all.

I am not saying that any of these things are bad. But because i have spent more time doing so without the specific recognition of how the enjoyment of all these things are possible, iget..err i dunno caught up in them to the point of where they begin to become things that though i thoroughly enjoy doing, they past the time and build nothing.

for a while, painting became a tool for catching and tending to the attentions of the viewers, i even considered how much money i could possibly sell them for, which only hurt my mind. NO! drawing, slapping painting together, combining, making

ALL of that was and is used to point to Him! art is a form of worship: Christ-given talents and a child who makes His name known with them.

it's all i can offer and i don't want to be caught using them to build my own already tumbling empire

i am learning that Christ never leaves me, i leave him. and even if it is for a short period, how can a bride choose to chase wind instead of being with a faithful husband?

thank you Lord for art! thank you Father for peace that can only be found in You and never in the creation in which You gave us.

i will use the things i enjoy to honor You and not myself, to please You and not myself.

what will have i but Yours?

none.

recently i have have been falling asleep abruptly and dont remember doing so.

just fifteen minutes ago i woke up in my bathroom (the room i am now using for studio space), on the floor with raw umber smeared on my right cheek and shoudler and my palette knife in my hand. As embarrasing as this is, i feel it's recording necessary should i develop narcolepsy.

yawwwwwwwning

I cannot stop reading poetry/ stories/ excerpts of Dubliners to the rythym of Frontier Ruckus' Springtime Terror. Leaving creative writing, my thoughts started to imitate the same pattern, so did a conversation with my friend Joshua Spires. And though it may have been in my head, so did my bike tires on the road..then the wind.

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall all be changed.

1Corinthians 15:51-53

Frontier Ruckus "Nerves of the Night Mind" live at Paste

song necks

i started beating

a little off at first,

my stubborn eyes closed,

and then i thought,

after i folded into the noise,

each sound has a life. it either glorifies You or it doesn't.

went deaf

looked down and thought i had no hands to praise You with