Leftovers (Shadows & Scars: Update 15)

I was going through my poetry notebook and realized I forgot to include these in the previous piece.  Perhaps they will one day be united, but for now, an addendum.

--------------------------------------------
4/14/12, Cicero, IN

2 More Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Date A Poet

1.      Baggage.  Sure, everyone has baggage, but poets immortalize it in ink and enshrine it upon paper thrones.  When the music plays, you must bend the knee.

2.      Passive-Aggressiveness.  Poets express their unspoken feelings through poetry, most of which the recipient will never see.  And even the words that are seen are so cloaked in obscurity as to make them indiscernible.  Nonetheless, the poet will live as if the recipient had seen and understood all, and resent the fact that nothing has changed.  Then the poet will write even more poetry, thus perpetuating both his passion and this destructive cycle.

a PSA with testimonial evidence from victims and specialists (Shadows & Scars: Update 14)

-------------------------------------


This one has been in the works for quite a while.  But it has been a LOT of fun to write. :-p

-------------------------------------

7/22/11, Martin, TN

11/21/11, Penn Medicine at Valley Forge waiting area

1/27/12 // 3/25/12, Cicero, IN

------------------------------------- 

"I learned a lot about poets and poetry that day and it is my contention that poets are weak shy people who will not look you in the eye. They are like Horace, scribbling spidery things in dark corners, frightened of their fathers, the law, and everything else. They are women who expect their husbands to be mind-readers. They are resentful and cruel. They spend sunny days planning dark revenges where they will punish those who wish them well." (Peter Carey, Illywhacker)

“…a poet is a queer and incompetent creature, a daydreaming ne’er-do-well, an eccentric trying to escape the business of the everyday world, a soft and coddled soul.” (Louis Untermeyer)

5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Date A Poet

1. Poetry.  As much as you may enjoy poetry, you must realize it is a farce created by poets to lure you into a deadly trap.  The gift itself is the poison, and a relationship built upon such duplicity is bound for destruction.  Consider this fair warning: whatever you are expecting, you will be disappointed. And I quote, “I’ve never met someone as complicated as you. It’s like travelling through the universe, and just when you think you’ve reached a planet where you can land, you discover a black hole instead.”
2. Family Dinners.  Poets are not the kind of guys you want to take home to meet your parents. They live almost entirely in their heads, engrossed in emotional symbols and metaphors, which means they don’t have a lot to add to dinner table discussions about the real world. Sure, it can be deceptively fascinating to read poetry, but there is no doubt it makes poor conversation.  In fact, poets write so much in hopes that they won’t be asked to speak at all.  If they do have to speak, however, it takes twice as long to formulate thoughts that aren’t even half as coherent as their written ones.
3. Happiness.  Plus, “poet” is certainly not the career choice which instills great confidence in parents wishing to ensure their daughter’s future security and well-being. And I quote, “Jason* has a job? Huh, well I’m surprised. I didn’t think he was ever going to do anything in life.”  It isn’t called the starving artist routine for nothing.  Poets don’t have a lot to offer when it comes to financial stability.
4. Reliability.  Or any kind of stability for that matter.  Poets thrive on melancholic endorphins.  They enjoy even their sadness.  While they will admit this is pretty twisted, they insist they like it that way.  Poets are dissatisfied with the status-quo, which means they are continually seeking discontentment; happiness is always their dream but when it approaches them, they find a way to escape.  And I quote, “Self-sabotage is totally your personality disorder.”  Is that really the kind of life you want to join?
5. Self-Obsession.  In fact, poets are egotistically focused on themselves.  Besides compiling their random thoughts into books and expecting people to pay hard-earned cash for the “privilege” of reading them, they generally orient their entire daily lives around self-promotion. Poets try to be self-abasing in an attempt to appear humble, when in actuality they know self-deprecation and self- aggrandizement are really twins.  They are very good at using clever disguises, though, to conceal their self-centeredness.   For example, a poet might make a list entitled “5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Date A Poet” when what he really means is “5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Date Me.” 

 *Names have not been changed in order to incriminate the guilty.  Call it “poetic justice” if you will, since poets do not respect others’ privacy.  If you get too close to a poet, your life (both the good and the bad) will end up in poetry for all to read. This is as inevitable as it is despicable.

Unexpected Inciting Incident (Shadows & Scars: Update 13)

March 1, 2012
9:50pm
Location: IA Boys' Dorm Office; Cicero, IN


Listening to: Creed, Weathered


----------------------------------------------------------------



Promises (to Myself)

I will not resort to platitudes.
I will not fake a smile, or a tear.
I will not pretend.
I will not seek revenge.
I will not take the passive role.
I will not play the victim, or the hero.
I will be myself.

Regression is the Key to Progress (Shadows & Scars: Update 12)

January 15, 2012

6:37pm

Location: IA Boys' Dorm Office; Cicero, IN

Listening to: Bradley Hathaway, A Thousand Angry Panthers

http://www.myspace.com/bradleyhathaway

-----------------------------------------

More detailed updates coming soon.  For now, some stuff I've been working on:

-----------------------------------------

She

She moves like the wind

and I am the empty arms

of a winter tree, lacking

even leaves for her to rustle

as she passes through.

-----------------------------------------

Sometimes You Need To Get A Little Dirt In Your Eyes Before You Can See Clearly

Upstairs, I have retreated

from your arrival.  Blindly,

I saw you, and saw the scales

fall from my eyes.

Now I need a moment to breathe,

to purge the poison from my veins,

ashamed of how easily I was swayed

away from you, against you.

Around the corner,

I hesitate and listen to your voice,

clear and light, piercing through

the walls of my mistakes.

My eyes are open

for the first time again.

All I see is you.

I Wrote This A Few Weeks Ago (Shadows & Scars: Update 11)

Sometime during the beginning of December
Location: Cicero, IN


In my mind, I see much more of this scene than I put into detail below.  Perhaps I will add to it later. Perhaps I will just let your imaginations fill in the gaps.


-----------------------

http://meemzzz.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=96#/d1a5ydo

The light is so soft I can hardly bear its gentle touch upon my face. The warmth is ever so inviting. Still, I cannot ignore the chill at my back, here between what has been and what could be.

Despite my discomfort, I don’t turn away. In this beauty, I could lose myself. I could find myself. I could belong. I could…

He places His hand upon my shoulder. I turn to see Him taking in the view as well. I try to read His face, but it is indiscernible. There is always a mystery in His eyes.

He turns to me, a smile of sadness and myrrh upon His face. “Come, we have work to do.”

I nod, but don’t move. I turn to gaze back upon the world just beyond my grasp. Moments slip away uncounted. Finally, I breathe, “Okay.” Still I remain unmoved.

His hand squeezes my shoulder firmly, in a way I take to mean, “If I lead you away, I can lead you back,” but could just as easily mean, “Take your last look, son of Moses.”

Either way, with that hand upon my shoulder, we turn – the warmth slipping from my face – and return to the darkness.

I want to ask Him when we will return, or if we even will. I have so many questions. But His eyes are already set ahead and I know those questions hold no answers yet.

Like A Snack, When What You Really Want Is... (Shadows & Scars: Update 10)

December 7, 2011

11:23 pm
Location: IA Boys Dorm Apt.; Cicero, IN

Listening to: Starflyer 59, Talking Voice Vs. Singing Voice 

--------------------------

Resentment is the poison we drink ourselves,

but forgiving you feels like a toxin of its own.

--------------------------

I cut the rope

that keeps me tethered between

you on the bridge above

and the great unknown below.

Except, I do know

what's below: my death

and everything after that.

--------------------------

Lay your blame on me.

I’ll take it all – deserved

and undeserved – because

I know you hurt

but I can take the pain.

--------------------------

Why is it so hard for us to do the things we really want in life?  I am unable to move forward. I keep running into walls. I try to progress, but for some reason I remain stuck. I have opportunities but they all seem stalled out. Like some barrier is preventing true meaning.

There are things I need to "deal with." Shadows and scars... including the self-inflicted ones. And even when they seem behind me, still they drag me back when I try to take a step forward. They cannot be ignored. They must be faced.

Imagine: freedom.

What if we could really do what we really want to do?

*For exceptions, see Appendix 16, Section 14 (Shadows & Scars: Update 09)

November 7, 2011
10:05 pm
Location: IA Boys Dorm Apt.; Cicero, IN

Listening to: Emery, The Question 



just a few bits and pieces I was working on tonight...

--------------------

Un(limit)ed

In the morning

we are all less grand

with our suits and dresses

back in the closet

or crumpled on the floor.

Already the faces fade,

dissipating with the emotional charge

of such a fine evening.

We pack our bags, relishing

and regretting what could have been.

Perhaps the magic is in the distance,

in the unlimited possibility:

enticing as long as it remains

untested, just beyond our grasp.

--------------------

Honesty is the lie

we tell each other

to maintain the illusion

that we have nothing left to hide.

--------------------

Stretch me out across the sky,

thin enough to see

what casts this chill

across your face.

--------------------

Two Weeks (Shadows & Scars: Update 08)

October 3, 2011
9:25 pm
Location: IA Boys Dorm Apt.; Cicero, IN

Listening to: Dead Poetic, Vices




It is scary how fast time can slip by before I realize that it is gone. Hours, days, months. Years.

It has been two months since I've done any real work on Shadows & Scars. I'm always "just about ready to work on it" again. Something always comes up. Something always will. If I wait for the ideal writing conditions, I may never finish this book.

Why is it so easy for the unimportant things in life to claw their way tot he top of my list of priorities? Not that everything I've been doing is unimportant, but enough of it was.

But this is just a snapshot.

I'm sitting here, trying to remember the last time I came to the end of a year and felt like I hadn't wasted it. The years have been slipping by and I'm always "just about ready to..."

How many years have I wasted? How could I have let them slip away?  I look back and cringe at the long line of months and weeks filled with... with what?

When is the last time I've had two weeks in a row of peaceful sleep? Two weeks in a row where I haven't dreaded the quiet moments before sleep, when honesty speaks clearest?  Two weeks where I've actually lived beyond my ever-hungering emptiness?

Two weeks. Yes, I think that's a good place to start.

Bored (Shadows & Scars: Update 07)

July 27, 2011

10:14 pm

Location: The White House; Cookeville, TN

Listening to: Linkin Park, Meteora // So Long Forgotten, Things We Can See & Things We Cannot

................

[I wrote a blog about how I'm going through a phase of being bored with my own poems, especially the ones dealing with subject material that I'd rather just move past... and by the time I typed up half of it on here I got bored of that, so I got rid of it.

Writing and editing a book like this is strange because it is like spending hours upon hours talking to yourself. It can become tedious and even obnoxious quite quickly.

I spend too much time in my own head.

I'm looking forward to this weekend and the discussions therein.]

An Introduction to the Wanderer (Shadows & Scars: Update 06)

July 22, 2011

4:08 am

Location: Paris SDA Church; Paris, TN

Listening to: Showbread, Anorexia

He wanders because I wander. The Incarnation entered my world and came alongside me in my journey. Sometimes this makes me angry. Sometimes I wish He'd go back up to His throne and pull a few strings - lift this veil, or tighten the noose around my neck. Anything but the endless unknown.

But He doesn't. He just keeps walking next to me. And sometimes that is all I want: to be with Him, to follow Him anywhere, even if we wander forever through endless wastelands.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Best of You (Shadows & Scars: Update 05)

July 13, 2011

9:30 pm

Location: Lucio's house; Martin, TN

Listening to: Foo Fighters, In Your Honor

One of the interesting things about writing poetry is that you can wrestle and wrestle with a piece for months with very little progress, and then suddenly it will all start falling into place. Sometimes I feel like the poetry is writing me, instead of the other way around. Here is an example... I started working on this about three months ago, but it has only come together in the past couple weeks.

Let His Words Drain into the Gutter (Drink Every Drop, But Leave the Cup on the Table)

She stirs her coffee, slowly,
like a metaphor I can’t quite understand,
while I watch the steam rise and fade
in the morning sunlight, disappearing
like last night’s rain.

Tucking her hair behind her ear – even
her clichés are beautiful – she lifts
the cup to her lips, invites the moment in.

Her eyes are soft and brave,
but they are strangers to her smile,
as if she’d cast her pearls
at one too many less-than-great men.

I want to tell her:
Don’t sell yourself short.
You deserve to be happy.
You deserve the best.

And while I am arrogant enough
to think of walking over
and paying the bill, as if
I could cancel all her debts,
(maybe even a few of my own)

I don’t believe
that my words can be offered
from anywhere but this distance –
close enough to convey,
far enough to retain their meaning.

One Last Disguise (Shadows & Scars: Update 04)

July 6, 2011

9:31 pm

Location: Hamburg, PA

Listening to: Project 86, Songs to Burn Your Bridges By

Progress has been slow. The writing process cannot be done entirely in solitude, but sometimes you do need to disconnect from everything and throw yourself completely into the material your working with. I have had some of these moments but I need like a week or a month, lol. Alas.

Here are a few excerpts from the poems I've been working on:

"She stirs her coffee, slowly,

like a metaphor I can’t quite understand,

while I watch the steam rise and fade

in the morning sunlight, like a metaphor

I’m all too familiar with."

"You put this gasoline

in my veins,

then denied me a match.

Still, I burn."

"Ironic, how

you were so afraid

I would leave,

but you are the one

walking away."

"My own personal Nagasaki.

A Hiroshima hit to the center

of my seven-year-old universe.

Instant devastation

as the mushroom cloud rose

like a headstone over our home."

and a "finished" poem, appropriately bridging UC and S&S:

I Feel the Weight of Every Word, Double-Edged

Sometimes confessions

evolve into inquisitions,

but still I hold the mirror –

covering half your face,

reflecting half of mine.

The blade cuts both ways.

Always.

When You Pray, Close the Door (Shadows and Scars: Update 03)

Day 101: June 18, 2011

9:46 pm

Location: Hamburg, PA

Listening to: Red, End of Silence and Innocence & Instinct

I've been working on gathering all my unpublished poems and poem fragments together in one place so I can sort through them and figure out which ones will end up in this book. Once I've gone through this process, I can work on writing new material.

Most of my writings are sufficiently organized on my computer, but I had to search through a number of various folders to gather up a few wandering sheep. The search turned up a few amusing results:

• A parody of Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do" that I wrote during the summer of 2006 when I was preaching an evangelistic series in Alabama, and yes it is about preaching that summer with my fellow field school classmates. Lol, good times.
• A document/poem entitled "Now I Will Tell You What You Mean To Me"... the document, except for title and date, is empty.
• A document created at 1:18 am on August 15, 2008 and entitled "224" contained only the following:
  "110
  10
  40
  =
  
  160"
  Something isn't adding up here... lol.

Besides that, I did find some good material, too. But it is a lot to sort through, both in quantity and content. Which brings me to something I've been thinking about for a while in regards to this book: I want/need prayer support. As some would say, I want this process to be "bathed in prayer." As I mentioned last time, I expect this to be a very challenging book to work through, and I'd appreciate all the prayer support I can get.

So I'd like to have a group of people dedicated to praying for me for the next number of months (hopefully not more than a year), at least once a week. I'll leave it up to you whether you set aside a certain day/time or whatever. Let the Holy Spirit lead you as to what to pray for, and also keep reading these updates to get an idea of what I might need specific prayers for.

But here's the catch: I don't want to know if you've decided to pray for me or not. God is not calling all of you to pray for me, and I don't want you to feel pressured or obligated to pray for me or say that you're praying for me, so I don't want to know one way or the other. Keep it to yourself. :-) I trust that those of you who God is calling will pray for me and knowing that God has chosen some of you is enough encouragement for me.

Now, of course if you want to pray for me randomly for whatever reason, by all means go for it... but what I'm talking about specifically here is dedicating yourself to at least once a week until the manuscript is finished. It is a big commitment and I hope you'll take the time to ask God before deciding, because it is not for everyone. But to those of you who do decide to be a part of the official Shadows & Scars prayer group, I thank you in advance.

~Jason

P.S. In my searching through documents I also found a document I forget existed: a poetry suite entitled "A Return to Purity." This collection of poems, put together in October 2006, would eventually become Unspoken Confessions. I'm not sure when the title changed, but it was sometime between then and when I turned in UC as my final project for Advanced Creative Writing at the end of that school year. Actually, I think the idea for UC came after this collection, but that many of the poems fit so well with my plans for UC that they were transferred over. The leftovers were either discarded or saved for later... some of which will end up in S&S, and some of which still await a future project. So there is your random bit of trivia for the evening.

More (Shadows and Scars: Update 02)

(written a couple weeks ago... just now getting around to posting it)

Day 80 - May 28, 2011

8:50 am

Location: IA Boys Dorm Apt., Cicero, IN

What is Shadows & Scars? Every book has a purpose, a goal. What am I trying to accomplish? What impact will this have on my readers? On me?

How do I even begin to describe the journey upon which I am about to embark? Not even that... I began this journey years ago. The beginnings of this book were actually compiled in 2005 as a 53-page collection that I shared with a few friends. It had a different title then and a different focus, but essentially, this is the first book I ever started writing.

So in one sense, as the second installment of the DarkLight series, this is the sequel to Unspoken Confessions. In another sense, it is a prequel, and in other ways it runs parallel to UC.

Now, back to the original question: what is Shadows & Scars? Truthfully, I'm not entirely sure yet. I only know that as I return to finish this book six years later, I am going to be working through a number of experiences specifically from the past decade but also dealing with things as far back as I can remember. Through this all, I will be seeking a variety of things, including:

• release and closure
• therapy
• vindication
• forgiveness, both given and received
• answers and explanations (heh... most of which I probably won't get)
• a deeper understanding of myself
• trust

Most of all I want to trust. This is the most crucial aspect of this whole journey. I want to trust Jesus in a profoundly life-changing way. I want to trust Him when it doesn't make sense. I want to trust Him when I can't see the end. I want to trust Him, not just through the pain, but in the pain.

In fact, this starts with trust. Most people spend the majority of their lives avoiding the most painful parts of their lives. I know... I've done the same at times. But this book is specifically about going there, going to the most painful experiences of my life - times when I am the giver and times when I am the receiver.

There is a part of me that is terrified to return to those places... terrified that I will get stuck there, somewhere in the abyss, that the pain will be too much to work through... But it must begin here with trust that the darkness He calls me into is the darkness He will overcome, in fact, has already overcome, and is ready and able to lead me through.

This is going to be dark. More dark than UC. More honest. More personal. It will require more trust. But, in the end, I believe there will also be more hope.

And that is what I want to accomplish. That through trust in Jesus, we may find a hope more beautiful and powerful than we could have ever imagined.

Day One (Shadows and Scars: Update 01)

Day 1 - March 10, 2011

8:37 pm

Location: The Asian Grill, Noblesville, IN

... I guess my point is that, while I've been working on this book in one form or another since 2003 or 2004, it is demanding to be written now. And so today is officially Day One of this project. It is long overdue, or perhaps right on time.

11:58 pm

Location: IA Boys Dorm Apt., Cicero, IN

It begins with a whiteboard outline and a prayer.

May Your blessing be upon this. May You give me wisdom and guidance. May this be for Your glory and may others be blessed by my words. Mold this book, and me, according to Your will.

--------------------------

--------------------------

--------------------------

So I guess I should explain what is going on here a little bit. I'm keeping a journal specifically for this writing project to chronicle the process as well as give myself a place to work out all my thoughts. I will periodically be posting excerpts from that journal to give you all an inside look at the process. Hope you enjoy!

Shadows and Scars: Updates Coming Soon

For those of you who know what this means...

And for those of you who don't, you will soon.