independence

we are all so different.

we listen to different music,
like eating different foods,
believe in different gods,

or no gods at all.

we love different people,
cry at different times,
speak different languages.

the only thing any of us have in common is that we are all alive,
living under the american flag,
free.

because of that flag,
we can be different.

we can dance to different songs,
appreciate different cultures,
practice different religions.

we can love who we choose,
feel both happy and sad,
speak and be heard.

we are all so different,
which makes us all the same;

and we only take one day a year to notice it.

our streets are filled with prejudice and pride,
americans hating americans
for the things that make us so.

we should be embracing our differences,
not creating violence over them.

it is our differences that made us free.

we dared to be different,
vowed to live harmoniously,
versus monotonously.

that spirit should intoxicate our air all year round,
not just on july fourth.

we should breathe perseverance,
adopt the mindset of our founding fathers once more.

we come alive as americans on the fourth of july,
celebrating our beautifully diverse nation,
as one.

we have always been one,
and it's time we started to recognize it.

bella ray

happy eleventh birthday to my little sister today :)

my dear isabella,
where do i begin?

i love you so much,
but not enough comes out from within.

it's been my job to protect you,
and i've really tried my best,

but you tend to get yourself into scrapes
that almost always result in a mess.

i taught you to bike,
you taught me what mattered;

that not every life
is so hard to shatter.

you've seen my laugh and cry,
and i've witnessed the same for you,

glad to be the one you come to
when you're unsure what to do.

you may be small,
and you may be annoying,

and the day i leave this house
i may be rejoicing,

but when you're home late from school,
or somewhere i can't see,

i worry,
and wonder where my baby sister might be.

you have been mine since the day you were born,

through movie nights, food fights,
and sisterly scorn.

our favorite ed sheeran
constantly reminds you and me,

that the worst things in life come free to us,
but i think the best do too.

i'm unbelievably lucky to have a sister like you,

and even more blessed to share our birthday too.

i love you, bel,
that's the bottom line.

you live up to your middle name-
you're my ray of sunshine.

faith

words have always been there.

pushing against the lips of bullies on the playground,
crawling across the whitespace of a computer screen,
lurking in the shadows of moments unwoken;

but not all words have been seen as hurtful.

the bible's stories are holy,
its words preached, practiced, believed,
by everyone.

it is not touched or
altered, only hailed and
followed.

the bible tells of jesus and his disciples.

it tells us tales of triumph and defeat,
demonstrates in the simplest of ways,
how faith conquers all.

the bible teaches us about evil,
that to be true to our creator,
we must hinder ourselves.

sins,
it calls the acts of hindrance.
ungodly sins.

in the bible's eyes,

homosexuality is disgusting.
abortion is murder.
pre-marital sex is adultery against god.

in the bible's eyes,

love is circumstantial.
rape is a responsibility.
your choices about your body are at the liberty of the lord.

these words have been cloaked and concealed by priests,
continuously spoken without knowing how much pain they cause
with each new breath.

god loved jesus enough to give him two lives.

how can we say he created every man equally,
that he loves every man equally,

when we, as god's disciples,
pick and choose which of those men are worthy of the catholic church?

what gives us the right
to go against god's morals?

what gives us the right
to deny a man a life lived in faith
when another man got to live it twice?

jesus died and rose again because he was a leader.

the people listened to him, believed in him,
because he had good things to say.

let us rise again.

ti amo

today i find myself in a peculiar position;
to put love into words of my own jurisdiction.

love has been brandished with kisses and flowers,
weathered by roller coasters of emotional endowers;

love has been beaten by misguided hands,
made phony and cliché by movies and white sands;

love has been dreamed of by girls in long dresses,
has been toyed with and tried at by men grasping for their tresses;

love has taken many forms in the past,
today it finds new ones, sometimes scarier than the last.

no matter what we do, love still carries on,
sometimes it seems as if love is the only thing not gone.

much like hope, love holds us to the ground,
carries us and leads us while our spirits nearly drown.

its hands may be slight, its gaze pale and soft,
we often don't see it til it's flown aloft.

it's a beautiful thing, to catch love before its flight,
even more breathtaking to hold it all your life.

don't worry about finding the perfect prince charming;
love is already next to you; in family's blessing.

this valentine's day, wear your heart on your sleeve;
and open it to those who really do need

your laugh,
your smile,
your chocolate-chip cookies,

your nightly read-alouds,
your warm embrace,
your hand-knitted booties,

you.

love is always near,
behind all those closed doors;

there are people who love you;
who are forever yours.

kaleidoscope

mlk jr, we've got work to do.


he was a dawn.

a new beginning,
a flourish of colors,
mixing into one.

in his eyes,
black and white turned gray;
colors blended,

without control.

his art seemed beauty to some,

other simply couldn't understand.

their minds were too clean-cut,
they saw only in black and white.

he wasn't color-blind,
like so many of them were.

he painted pictures of what life could be like,
illustrated the definitions of peace and harmony
through florid speeches.

his words seemed decadent to some,

others still could not understand.

their ears only heard the whistle of a bullet
in all those ornate sentences.

they had to stop him
for they feared he might actually
make a difference.

they were afraid
of the change he held in his hands.

they thought they'd stopped him.

they thought it was one man's dream,
                             one man's vision,
                             one man's choice.

he was a dawn.

he was the first to blur the lines,
the first to paint a world
withut discrimination.

that painting has yet to be finished.

he left his brushes wet
and his easel clean
that april day.

it's our turn to paint.

all grown up

a holocaust liberator spoke at our school today. i was asked to write something for him.

they all start as children.

innocent beings with no decided future,
pure souls not yet tarnished by what is to come.

they grow older,
begin to understand life beyond our borders,
begin to wonder how we can live so differently
than a country only an ocean away.

they become watchers,
standing aside and looking on at the world
as it spins into inevitable destruction.

soon enough,
they become tired of watching.

they see strong men and women,
who fight and have fought.

they hear their stories,
some tragic, some heroic,
some an even mix of the two.

they begin to wonder
if they could have a few words
in a book with such greatness as war.

they begin to wonder
if the little kid who played with submarines
could become a navy lieutenant.

or if the kid who sailed his own paper airplanes
could become an airforce pilot.

they train,
try and prepare themselves for an expericence any person,
citizen or soldier,
would be blindsided by.

they will throw their lives on the line;
not as a sacrifice,
but as an instinct.

they will take that bullet
just to make sure,
we remember;

the best
and most beautiful things in the world,
cannot be seen or even touched,
they must be felt with the heart.

our hearts will never forget.

snow angels

one year after the newtown tragedy, and it's still so real. 

we wake, 

and it hits us.

the date, 

december fourteenth.

the feelings surge behind our eyes,

cold remembrance permanently pressed into our hearts,

bleeding grief,

remorse,

apologies.

little faces,

too small to be a memory;

why haven't they gotten bigger?

why do they remain the same;

frozen?

we know they're here in spirit,

but our emptiness does not grow fuller.

believing is not seeing,

but seeing is believing.

we open our eyes on december fourteeth,

inevitably unprepared for the horror that will recur on this day,

and we see the snow.

flakes of heaven,

falling slowly to join us on earth,

saying 'we're still here'

'right here'.

endless spirals of snow,

blanketing this bloodied world in white,

making sure we know they're okay.

we can touch them now,

catch them on our tongues,

shape them into snowmen,

watch them make this day beautiful again,

but like all winter wonderlands,

this one will melt.

our snow angels will go back to where they belong.

but we'll be okay.

we know they're okay,

that they missed us enough to come down for a visit,

that soon enough,

we'll do the same.

giving thanks

life is often referred to as a climb.

it's definitely not a walk in the park;
more like a scale up the side of a mountain.

it's definitely not a solo journey either.

there are people who have helped us along the way,
people we've helped.

sometimes they are the ones who know everything about us.

sometimes, we don't even know their names;
much less their lives,
or why they took a moment out of them to blindly benefit ours.

however,
we all have the same goal;
to get to the top of life's climb.

to see the panoramic view we've dreamed of;

the marriage of a daughter,
the first steps in what will become a home,
the birth of a child.

chances are,
you're standing on someone else's shoulders
to see that view.

chances are,
someone's standing on yours
to see it too.

chances are,
you don't know whose body
those shoulders belong to.

that's why it shouldn't be too much
to say thank you
just because.

it shouldn't be too much
to have a day to give thanks
just because we don't know.

all we know
is they've gotten us to where we are now.

i don't know whose shoulders i stand on,
or whose feet stand on mine,
but i'm thankful all the same.

because without them
both of them,
i wouldn't be where i am today.

happy thanksgiving everyone :)

trailblazers

a thank you to all of those who are serving, have served and will serve in our armed forces on this veterans' day.

each footstep is a branding
in the walk of a war veteran.

each stone we pass
each wreath we lay
each emblem we bestow

marks the end of someone's story.

they all begin the same;
with a smile,
a commitment,
an inspiration.

they all end the same;
with the haunting of a heart,
the search for a shadow,
with a tear.

it is what happens in between
that determines how much we cry
how much we wish
how much we try to remember
how much we hope to forget.

it is what happens in between,
a battle
a sacrifice,
a miracle,

that forms the path.

each soldier's journey follows a map
the exposition ;
watching that plane crash into the twin towers,

the climax;
facing those bombers on the battlefield,

the falling action;
returning home with one less brother by your side,
one less son with whom to play catch,
one less bride to walk down the aisle,

until the final words are written.

for each solider's road we follow,
another dozen are left untraveled.

for each gesture we make that tries to honor these heroes
tries to capture this precious gift they've gvien us,
that has ensured we've been kept safe all these years,

for each veteran that comes home safely,
another is lost;
another becomes one to honor.

we never asked for protection.

we never expected these sacrfices to be made.

we never considered what life would be like without them.

this veteran's day
let's take a walk in their shoes.

let's follow their path,
with their feet.

let's forge our own.

always.

in memory of aj cina, who would have been thirteen today.

only the good die young.

it's awful,
really,
how it can take an entire human life
for us to see how good we have it.

simple things,
like the way he smiled,
those are what people miss.

funny how no one seemed to notice that smile,
really, truly, notice and appreciate it,
til it was gone.

funny how we are still able to smile.

funny,
how face
after face
after face
won't get to smile
because of one little mistake.

one little thing can have the hugest effect imaginable.

that one little thing was meant to teach us,
the lucky ones.

that little thing will follow us throughout our entire lives,
always reminding us that he is watching,
and god had to take him just to remind us
life is not given.

it's earned.

he earned it, he really did.

he earned it, but it wasn't enough.

his story will be told for years to come,
as we come to heal.

his story will always be there,
always riding our backs and always,
always,
making us wish it had been one of us.

god chose him because he knew his smile would be missed.

i miss your smile, aj.

we all do.

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