Learn To Overcome

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."....Inspirational Quotes by Harvey Fierstein
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
---Mahatma Gandhi
These two quotes prompted me to write "This Swing This Home" because there are too many of us who have allowed the words and actions of people to define our existence.We have accepted names and slept in holes that were never dug for us because we still have not found the beauty and the unwavering determination within ourselves to resist what the world says is "normal".Learn to overcome.Learn to say enough.Learn to crawl to your destination when your legs have no more strength to carry you.Learn to bend and not break!!!

This Swing.This Home.

I wish they could see me now
Imagine the way I’m feeling right now
Wonder why there is that hint of a smile on my face
Understand why I am biting my lower lip to keep it in place
And question why am standing in an empty park
Watching this breaking swing sway into its final dance
For a long time this swing was my home
The place I run to daily when they stoned me
For a long time this was my friend
In whose chain handles I knew I would find comfort till the end
She never rejected me.
Unlike them.
She never ripped my buttons or pushed me to the ground
Instead,she made room for me to hide my nakedness
She never questioned or judged me
She just welcomed. Just accepted me
And my God how I have cried and abused her kindness
How I have struck the sand with my angry foot and torn the grass out of the earth with my bare hands
All along yelling for an answer but I knew no one would respond
I was not like them in any respect
Not in appearance, not in speech and not in thinking
I could not do the things they did or go where they did
Because everything I possessed was not in accordance with what they deemed conventional
And so they ignored me
They fought me with their hands and wounded me with their words
They mocked me with their eyes demeaned me with their tone
They threw my peculiarity in my face and expected me to pick it up and limp back into a hole
But I did not. I always came here. I always came to this swing
And here,relying on the kindness of this creaking swing I began to nurse my deep wounds
Slowly turning the ulcer into a shallow cut.
Here in this dead park, I began to answer instead of questioning
Everyday, I wiped a little bit of my tears with a piece of the cloth they had torn from my back
I turned my heartbreaking melodies into beautiful song
I did not know at first what I sang. I just did so.
Until my song drew smiles and laughter I did no know I possessed out of me
I took a close look at all the things my oppressors said were wrong with me and told myself perfection was boring anyway
I was abnormal and wrong to them but I told myself they were abnormal because they were narrow minded and could not recognize unusual beauty when it stood in front of them.
I did not just decide this, I believed it wholeheartedly until nothing else would hold true.
And so every time they ignored me, I remembered my friend who had silently provided a home and a shoulder for me
Every time they fought me with their hands and wounded me with their words
My body and spirit resisted it because I knew they were untrue and born out of fear
And I could not allow someone’s deep seated fears to mould my destiny
Every time they mocked me with their eyes and demeaned me with their tone
I looked them right back in the eye and gifted them with a genuine smile
And responded with such courtesy,understanding that it was the way to defeat their purpose
And their purpose was to break me
But I chose to bend instead. Because in that position I could always leap back up
And walk back home with a smile,a song and a piece of cloth to dust of the remnants of their contempt.

Remember Me

We stood hand in hand
Blindly swaying with our feet deeply buried in the sand
Remember you holding on so tight knowing I was your salvation
And I believing you were my ever present redemption
Do you recall that silent unforeseen wind
The one that blew in from that shattered and inglorious past
Swiftly blowing your lifeless garments away with a grin
Remember the hand that clutched your bare neck
Unrepentantly taking your breath and all life without touch
Forcing you to the sinking ground on your way to hells deck
Your pleading would not have done much
I wonder if you can still hear that small stable voice
That filled your hidden void
Mocking your every advancement
Reminding you daily of your Mephibosheth
Your crying shame
You can see my face at every turn can you not?
When the skin splitting wind blew your covering away
I, with little care for my own nakedness took off
My frail garments to cover you
Over my protesting mind, my heart gave to you anyway
These arms still remember every life draining hand it had to fight off
Every bone it has had to break, every piece of flesh that’s been ripped off
Every strand of hair I have had to loose
Every breath of strength that has left my ever weakening body for you
Every glimmer of hope I have sustained for you
Because I could not let them have you.
I could not stand aside as the finger of lies and accusation beckoned
I could not bare to see your chest heaving in tears of agony and regret
I dared not stand aside as you drowned in the burden of your shame and despair
With all your glorious flaws you were enough
Just enough for me to pick up
Not because I was able
But because my heart, without judgment, understood
And my mind, without pause remembered a place of grace
Which gave me the free gift of calling you my own
But now this wind has brought in a drought
And I, once your salvation, have become a broken house
Abandoned by all the beauty which once announced me
My new garment is now being stripped away
So I look to see if you are removing your own to cover me
But your fingers have not moved towards me
There air in me is loosing its home because the hand of defeat will not let me be
But why are you not risking a broken bone and a torn flesh so I can live
Am looking to you to tell me not to give in to voice that is forcing me into insanity
But you stand motionless, lips unmoving
Why are you not giving me blood, I have bled a river
How can you watch me die when you know I have no other healer
No do not look away now
Look at me and never forget to remember
That this blood was once yours
That this lifeless body was once yours
That this shame and nakedness was once yours
Never forget that you watched me die because your heart did not understand
Nor did you care for the sacrifice I made with these hands
I hope you never forget to remember
That you once wore these worthless shoes
Always remember
That I was once you.

A Thought On Grace

A few sundays ago, I heard a sermon that has stuck with me and given me a calmness that I was once afraid of letting myself feel.My amazingly anointed pastor preached a sermon about GRACE.God's beautiful grace. I know there are many times when we give up on ourselves because we feel God has given up on us. Please,give yourself a moment to rethink that notion because this is never the case. This is where God's grace and mercy comes in. You see grace is not a chore that you have to constantly work on in order to keep.It is a gift.A free gift that liberates us from the many chains that bind us in life.Simply put, Grace is unmerited and undeserved favor. It brings salvation no matter how wide your ocean of sin is. I believe God gave us this gift because it allows Him to forget our yesterday and opens a new window for our tomorrow.Grace restores us to God's heart and empowers us to succeed.

Anytime there is difficulty in any area of your life, have enough faith to declare grace and favor into that situation and believe me when I tell you it changes everything.This beautiful gift allows us to overcome our weaknesses and shortcomings. As we go through the deserts and storms in our life, we have to realize that our human strength is not enough to carry us through. Sometimes God will not save us from getting into the fire but he will deliver us in the fire,leaving a mark of pain so that we will not forget that it was by His grace and mercy alone that we were not consumed. At the end of the day I have come to realize that we are liberated and forever forgiven. Not because we deserve it,but because from His throne of grace God constanty dips His hand into the basin of mercy and washes us daily.

I bend down to pick up the broken pieces of my shattered window
It's dark.The strong winds blow
Am crying,bleeding ,God please no
I reach up to wipe my face
But my tears are thick,pouring like abundant grace
It is colourful, tears of crimson
It is my blood and pain begging for freedom
Please, I have been locked inside for far too long
Imprisoned by my fear,guarded by my insecurity
Betrayal is the food I am fed
Anguish has become my seat
My eternity
Haunted by long gone beautiful dreams
My sanity chased away
I bleed..I..
Please touch me kindly
I am fading so easily

Photograph

She sleeps in a bed of thorns

A shadow lurks behind these walls

She can hardly breath

A heart that says nothing at all but screams

She reaches out a hand to touch mine

An overflowing cup of anguish so divine

Invisible,and yet so palpable

In her silence she speaks louder than anyone more able

Her story can never be told

T'is a broach too cold

We will listen but will not hear

See, but it will never be clear

Touch,but never feel

A wound that may never heal

Then in a whisper she tells me to look at her

I turn with a hanging tear

And then I find it is all in there

It is all in her photograph

And in that photograph all I see is me

Me in there

All along reaching out to my own fear

Father please, don't let them drop

My tears...