There’s this noise I hear when I stop to listen It can sound like a whisper or a cry in the distance when listening to both there is no difference they’re still quiet and live just above the violence it’s become a reminder that there’s no such thing as silence just listen can you hear it? It gets carried away by the wind but blends into the daily sounds we hear, and I fear we tried drowning out the noise, it’s so much easier to avoid when we have a choice, these voices are trying to catch our attention, there’s paths to take, I pray you choose to listen, because there’s so much at stake, so let’s break this pattern we continue to make, you let the pills run their course, numbing this pain at the source, sweat runs from the pores flooding these sheets with regret, we constantly forget that living is not the same as breathing, there’s a beating, hearts pounding all together, do you hear them breaking? This screaming lasts forever, but falls on the deaf ear, the resounding sound that rings so clear falls to the wayside, oppression can hide in the cracks to break the foundation of a nation that backs itself with feelings rather than facts Just listen can you hear it?

I’m awaken by the first light of morning and second hand smoke in my lungs, in an empty room where above my head butterflies were hung, an empty room where pain had made itself eminent, with writing on the walls asking to let me fall, and it was evident that every word used was to help paint the story of their legacy, that room in its emptiness held the saddest poetry, and it went something like this Painting veins in hope He’d fade away and not have to feel the pain, A strained life that feels neglect and shame, needle point hope to help him cope with the demons inside each day, that tortures the mind that coincides with the lies, he writes and watches as the ink crawls on the walls that calls him the monster, It’s a reminder to the writer that he’s nothing but a goner, and with a child like penmanship he wrote, “Not all scars heal”, he had a lack of belief that the pain he continues to feel could ever find relief, he wants so badly to feel something other than cold inside, he’s felt this way for a long time and now strives just to feel nothing, because at this point it’s easier to feel nothing than something, so he numbs the nerves and blackens the veins so this coldness he feels no longer remains, he had no love, no hope, and felt the dope was his only friend, and in the end he died with those thoughts in his head, he died with those thoughts in his head It was hard to look on that wall that became his memorial, because nothing was left behind but more pain and those tortured thoughts in his mind, But for me it became a reminder of how alone someone can truly feel, and that every chance I get I need to share this love, make it real, because that next person might need to know they’re loved, and the source of this love that comes from above, share love, speak hope, wake up

There’s no place like home, for me home is back west in the green state of Oregon, home of the Oregon duck, pine trees and hippies but more importantly my family, we are a tight knit bunch, sewn together at the seam and it seemed we’d be that way for eternity, but we are hurting people, brought together from a broken past of disobedience and broken steeples, but I’ve learned to look past the glass stuck in this canvas that is our home, we’ve made it home, even after the storms of pointless injustice of fathers who didn’t love us, and a mother whose pain had become so tremendous that sometimes she’d just cry, and never tell us why, raising 5 kids on her own and facing ever storm all alone, she had become the families back bone so we wouldn’t collapse under the pressure, and she did the best she could but she doubts and isn’t sure, some days you can see it on her face, sometimes you can hear it in her quiet place, but I’m here to let you know that’s not the case, because my mom was always my hero, not only was she a mother and a father, but also Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny all together in one package, she saved us, I consider myself lucky to have a mother who loves me, and brothers and sisters that make up this family, we are broken people, but we are home, and God's been picking up the pieces and making this canvas into something beautiful, and now you can almost make out the picture, you could see it if you’d take a few steps closer, and this is the reason why it’s that much harder to say goodbye, God why me? I’m not worthy of this calling, but yet you’re still calling, and I keep answering with excuses because I’ve been feeling so useless, I’m not regretting saying that prayer “God Send Me,” I’m just scared because I didn’t expect to be leaving, leaving those I love most, there is joy but with it comes sadness because I know what I have to do and I know God is gonna see me through, but I have to leave the one place I called home, the one place where love was always shown, unknitting from this quilt that’s been sown, there’s this question in my head that keeps repeating, what does it mean to die? for me it used to be saying goodbye to loved ones, while leaving scars behind,that was when I was full of thoughts of suicide, but I made it past those lies and I’m starting to learn what it means to die, it’s putting yourself aside, while following Jesus Christ, God teach me how to die, so I can say goodbye and not cry every time I think about letting go, every time I think about that love from my own, oh God you know my love for you grows and continues to grow, but can you help me because I don’t wanna feel alone, I know I’m not but my emotions always seem to get the best of me, so father please teach me teach me, so it doesn’t hurt so much leaving, father please answer me in my grieving, but in this silence there is peace, and I don’t understand it but it’s been happening, the further I got away from that canvas I could finally see what God had been creating us to be, and in the hurt and pain there is so much beauty, leaving is worth celebrating because I’m finally understanding the purpose of that suffering, what does it mean to die? It’s putting yourself aside, while following Jesus Christ, God teach me how to die

As people we are much like the seasons, we constantly change like the leaves in autumn, to the point of busting our scale of reason, by weighing the pros and cons of the situation we’ve been placed in, we’re always striving for something better in life, but when it finally comes it crashes down like a double edge knife to pierce our hopes and fill us with strife, we continually chase after the next thing to fill this void, the bored hole in our chest that slowly eats away at our vessel, so to avoid the void we bought into the illusion of the corporate ploy that happiness is found in money or the bottom of a bottle, trying to drown out the reality of how alone we truly feel, we bought into the lies so long it’s hard to distinguish what’s real, we tossed the word love around so much it became ash at the end of our tongs, we forgot what it is to love so it became breath to waste in our lungs, our society is always running, never stopping to see the outcome of our own doing, we’ve been selling happiness and everyone’s been buying instead of trying to find the true meaning of it all, the true meaning of this life we live, we’d rather wither away day after day waiting for a way to buy that happiness, the ill chill of losing the connection of our emotions by bottling it up in this thick glass of stupid rebuttal to try and convince God we don’t need him, we’ve become poor excuses of living and a waste of God's breath that we’ve been breathing, instead of seeking the father we tried becoming the potter, even in our stupidity he still calls us sons and daughters, I know it’s been said but if I were God we’d all be dead, I don’t have the patience to see humanity through but for some reason God you always do, instead of following you we attempt to chase after something new to make a few moments of happiness we thought could see us through, it’s meaningless, without purpose, just chasing the wind