big children, small adults (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 29 2009

Can I just say,

it was unfair

to let me be

such a small adult.

love was not enough

to show me the ropes

A child’s decisions

should be questioned.

Didn’t anyone see

the child in me?

Didn’t anyone

lack enough belief?

It was obligation,

everything I did

It was preservation,

everything I hid

It was fear,

every time I ran

It was grasping

to understand

everything you couldn’t tell me

while you were so consumed

You didn’t see the child in me,

but I saw the one in you.

And I knew if I lost it,

if I let go

there’d be no one to come and get me

no one would know

what to say

and no one would realize

till much too late.

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Losing Wars (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 29 2009

It’s

the quiet ones to watch out for, the ones

that manage to slip by you disturbing nothing

too much,

but everything just enough, before you know it,

you’ve lost things

you didn’t even know could be taken away.

no one

fights the demons

disguised so simply.

this

is how wars are lost.

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Hard to mend (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 15 2009

I told her to be careful of the dreams she weaves,
and all the things she makes herself believe

He said nothing when she said she felt
Nothing like this before with someone else
He let her spin and weave the fantasy
That made him more than he would ever be
Too many girls take love from a kiss
In which no trace of love exists

You should have seen the way she looked at him
But dreams come true less than they end

She wrote him letters
And she called his phone
He never answered and she felt alone
It really didn’t take that long to see
The guy she loved wasn’t reality
Too many girls lay down with men
To wake and find how quick dreams end

He let her cry, he let her curse his name
She let him know nothing would feel the same
Too many hearts aren’t broken by men themselves
But by girls who dreamed them into something else

I told her dreams unraveled can be used again
But it turns out that dreams are hard to mend.

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Nothing left- the final step (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 15 2009

You stand, stripped, looking at the mirror
your lack of reflection proves your disappearance
you are a million things,
and nothing

everything you took off
is now wrapped around your ankles,
tight-
like shackles
you can’t put anything back, nothing fits anymore

You wait for someone to take you,
but there’s nothing left to take.

You move, slowly, weighted,
towards sleep
but you don’t even know which way to go
your compass broke

You have no convictions-
sounds like a death sentence.

faith drips from your skin,
making puddles beside love-belief
it will all evaporate
like trust
disappointment had you purge enough
to be rid of hope
and reconciliation

You search for something,
words-
that mean nothing and change nothing
you try them,
taste them,
throw them out.

The depths of you are vacant now, aren’t they?

It’s dangerous, not to mention unattractive
to stand the way you do,
waiting
spilled open
aimless

I have nothing left to say to you.

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Bring The Fighter Back (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 15 2009

Bring the fighter back,
You’ve been under attack for too long.
Letting go-
you let too much get gone.
Sometimes you wonder just where it went wrong.

You look in the mirror
and all you see
is who you used to be,
want to be,
will never be.

You can’t get free of the things
that keep breaking you down -
the things you let tear you right to the ground

Well,
Stop.

Bring the fighter back.
You’ve it all go slack.
You need to stop letting things kick your ass,
And start kicking back.

You feel lost,
At a loss,
Never enough,
Like giving up

Bring the fighter back.
You’re back and forth,
You’re up and down,
On and off the right track,
Never feeling found,
Where you stand never seeming sound.

You’re buried.
And wanting.
Stop mourning.
Start pushing.

Because the battles we fight on the inside
are the ones that effect our day-to-day lives.

Find a way to put your vices down.
It’s time to GET UP
And stop sitting around.
Find the things you’re missing.
Be done with envy and wishing.

Stop whispering excuses,
And screaming out blame.

Bring the fighter back,
And get back in the game.

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The “Hard” Collection (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Jul 28 2009

Hardest session (with reflection):

It’s hard to stop
seeing
a shattered person
it’s hard
to know
how to feel

I spent too long believing

everything came
too soon
or too late

I’m angry half the time I pray

these are deeper cuts
then I ever knew
and there’s no one to bear witness
as it all bleeds through

what was lost
wasn’t even real

the bitterness of disappointment
makes me purge
myself
of the like

only to realize
I am made of much less
than I imagined

but that does little
to surprise me now.

Hardest lesson:

Everything
is too much to entrust
(but it took being crushed)

I held on,
being pushed away
I was shut out,
and I just prayed
I was put down,
but just loved too much

I gave all there was
I gave myself up

And the shock
depleted my reserves,
tainted every place you were

I’d convinced myself if I gave it all,
I’d get everything in return
and so came the hardest lesson
I ever had to learn

Broke so much I got set free:

I cried
I prayed
I tried
I stayed

I’m done.

Words are never enough:

You say you love
But words are never enough
Especially after hurting so much

You say you feel
But you have yet to prove it
Hurry up
You’re going to lose it

I can only want for so long
And I’ve been wanting so long

I can’t function like this
I think, deep down,
You like you can wreck me

Whatever

Break my heart
Over and over
Break my spirit
Chip my shoulder

You don’t want me to hate you
But it’s getting to where
I wish we never met
I wish I couldn’t care

The part of the vows no one wants to talk about:

I can’t get your hands
To make me feel loved

We all know love’s not enough
But does it take so much
Of other things
To justify
these rings?

Why does it still hurt?

I’m so sick
of the play by play
who hurt who how
point is:
it got this way.

I don’t have much else to say
that you can understand
just grasping for
truth you can stomach

And how did this
go so wrong?
We can fight about it
all night long
till
you get mad
I cry
is this the homestretch
or the long goodbye?

When does it all fall back together?
When does “it’s over” sound worse than forever?

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Skin Tuesday, Jul 7 2009

I know crying doesn’t change a thing

I know I could have
sat somewhere else
or moved faster
spoke firmer
I could have
but I didn’t
and I can’t shake
unwelcome hands
pleading face

you can’t say
” I love you”
“come back soon”
when I’m running out of the room
when I said to stop

what about me said
I didn’t mean it?

or are you
too hard up
too assuming
too confused

I could do worse
and I could do better
than this
than tears in the car
professional phone call
coffee at the mall

this is
brush the dirt off your shoulder
kind of thing
and didn’t I show you my child
my ring?

I don’t know why you even tried
or why
I didn’t
exit quicker
why I cried

my skin’s thicker.

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Collection Calls (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, May 26 2009

“All I’ve got is what’s in my head
Please don’t go,
I’ve been trying to reach you through this phone” – Harvard

Collection Calls

I hope you
burned those letters
and poems.
I hope the words filled the air
from ink to smoke
from solid pen-on-paper honesty
to vapors of things
not free
just changed
just mistaken
for the kind of thing
that a good night’s sleep and a shower
can wash away.

I hope you burned them
and I hope it hurt you
to know you turned it all into ash
to know what you had,
could still have
if you’d just been able to hold on…

I tried to write the words
on your skin
on your lips
your cheek
your forehead
your neck

I guess they never took
I guess you never let them sit
I guess the ones
I pressed to your chest
were the first ones dismissed

and yes
I’m angry
and I will be
until I’m done
grieving this
and I’ll grieve it
as long as it hurts
and everytime you
half ass
an attempt
to normalize this
you magnify it

You can ignore this
as much as you want,
it doesn’t make it disappear.
I hope you burned
all the paper evidence
and still twinge
when you remember.

How long are you going to pretend
nothing happened
nothing mattered?

It’s the dumbest carousel we’re on right now
but I’m not leaving
till you finally make the jump
and say something
one way or the other
I don’t care anymore
what comes out of your mouth

just that
you pick the words you know you mean the most
and stick to them,
place them
on my head,
rain them down

I’m so thirsty for anything you offer,
I’ll drink whatever you’ve got
and if you finally pour out the real stuff
I promise
I’ll stop.

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Debtor (by Rebecca Chasteen) Sunday, May 24 2009

(1/31 to 5/25 2001)

O My God,
You overwhelm me.
This is more that I’ll ever deserve.
What a heavenly gift!
I could never earn such joy.

You are consistently
the sunlight that
warms and fills me
after savage storms destroy me
and leave me
ransacked,
cold
and incomplete.

I’ve allowed so many
clouds
to devour
your complete essence;
I began to believe in darkness
as reality.
Then there is no happiness,
there is no free-
only chains of pain and yesterdays,
bad dreams and restlessness that won’t go away.

But the darkness lies.
And it’s hidden the truth from these bloodshot eyes.

I’ve come to understand this:
You are my only peace,
true motivation,
chance at beauty,
and inspiration.

And even as I flounder and fall,
vainly cry out and call,
run everywhere but home,
and wonder why I’m so alone,
You never move from me.

Even as I move from myself,
even after I’ve ignored You,
You never refuse to help.

I’m constantly
rediscovering
Your Divinity.
And I’ll gladly be
forever
a debtor.
For I’m full to the top,
And my cup runneth over.

“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Psalm 23:5

This is probably my favorite of the older poems from this time period. It was the completion of a section of a journey; it was the mountain I’d been climbing for so long with so many tears and words and months.

The beginning stanza always makes me uncomfortable, it’s so unabashedly praise-full. It’s no small feat to be in that place. I’m not really a “Praise Jesus!” with her hands in the hair kind of girl. That’s just not my style. But there are times that I am a face toward the sky, palms facing up or resting on my heart, silent tears down my face kind of “O My God” and that’s what this is.

This is resting at the top of that mountain, love and peace and purpose shaking my soul. This is the understanding of “us”, God and me. The love, the relationship. God is still the “sunlight that warms and fills me after savage storms destroy me”. God is still my freedom. God is still my beauty, motivation, inspiration. God is still my perfect parent- covering me, understanding me, guiding, waiting, pulling, forgiving. I say nothing of love here specifically, but this is love: grace, warmth, presence, patience, light; arms that never close. That is my God, as God has always been, and always will be.

It is this love, the acceptance of this love that changes people. Nothing will change you like accepting this kind of love. From there, anything is truly possible. Full to the top with this kind of thing makes a person brave with belief. Makes a person willing to take part in daily miracles because they can now see how many opportunities there are.

And the misconception here, the reason I think so many times we aren’t accepting this love, is because we feel we can’t earn it. But the reason we can’t earn it is not because we don’t deserve it, it’s because it’s not up for the earning. It is there, always, from the beginning. It is there for the taking, as soon as we allow ourselves to take it. The idea that we are not worthy is not of love. It’s not of God. Nothing about God supports that line of thinking. Don’t believe that. Don’t believe anyone, any thing that makes you think you need to be anything other than what you are to have love. Those are lies. And we all know the master of lies. Don’t buy his crap. He’ll sell you anything that will keep you down. Satan is a loser. His darkness is an already defeated lie. Don’t waste time on it. Just take love. Open, free, encompassing, love. Take it. Break and break and break until there’s room for it. And keep breaking if you have to. I know I do.

Everything else will come. Just take love.

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I’m Still Really Sorry (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, May 23 2009

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a poem of regret.

I’m Still Really Sorry

It is the most lingering
regret:
not a boy,
not a yes
or no-
misplaced,
not a credit card-
overused,
not even
angry words at my father
the day before my wedding,
or overzealous
Jesus-talk
with friend
on the phone one night

No,
it’s that
8 year old
rallying her little
lunch bunch crew
to leave out one girl-
to reject every
effort she made at friendship
that whole year.
And to decide too late
to apologize,
to include,
because Stephanie Odom
had already moved.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/23/AprilPADChallengeDay23.aspx

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