Bricks for Breaking

They say bricks build things…                                                                    

                                                                                I guess in this case, they built me.

So, here’s a brick for my father.

A brick for the perfect man who raised me.

His steely eyes only blink if they have to.

Here’s a brick for the first girl who broke my heart.

Sometimes giving someone second chance, is like giving them second bullet.
 I just prayed that the gun would jam.

Here’s a brick for my first grade teacher.

Believing I was weak because of “sticks and stones”.
At least broken bones mend.

Here’s a brick for everyone who ever said, “suck it up”.

Screw society‘s standard of strength.

                 Taking in so much air, ended up creating a painful void.

Here’s a brick for every relationship I've ever messed up.

I’ve got more than I can count.

I didn't try to do this...

Here's a brick for my fifth grade school bully.

 A brick for my well-rounded brothers.

A brick for my profane manager.

A brick for my dead grandpa.

A brick for the judgmental eyes and the death glares.

But it's the bricks that built me. 

So here's a brick for the pain.

and a brick for the breaking.

I think i speak for us all when i say, lets just hope tomorrow has less bricks.

Trees Can Be Blue

By: Hector Vance

                I liked the blue crayon.

I always liked the blue crayon.

                They would say to me, “I love your drawings, Hector,” and “you’re very good at drawings, Hector,” and “why don’t you make more drawings, Hector.” And I would smile and look at my feet, pleased with myself.

                And then they would add, “But, dear child, why don’t you find another color? The ground is not blue. People are not blue. Trees are not blue. “

                … I would shrug

“See, trees are green and sometimes yellow and when it gets cold outside, trees can even be red. But trees are not blue.”

                                “But I like blue…”

                “Yes Hector, we all have our favorite colors. But in no place that I’ve visited, can the trees be blue.”

                She would smile at my ignorance.

                                Trees can be blue

                                In the places I visit, tress can be whatever the freaking color I want them to be.

They didn’t know that when I closed my eyes I didn’t see the dark undersides of my eyelids, but instead was teleported into a new world; that each time the night came I could once again go back to the freedom of life.

That my brain was a sponge, not a filter. That I did not edit through life or sift past people, simply because they didn’t fit a mold; maybe that’s why kids are so happy…

That when I needed to clean my room, each toy would come back to life as they marched into their bins.

That doing my chores was a game.

That grownups were boring.

That each dollar was another ticket to heaven- an opportunity with endless options, weather I would get a soda, a candy or some cheap item at the dollar store.

That each night I would lie awake in my bed and dream of new worlds and soldiers and things that didn’t have boundaries or rules- but blue trees.

And I would smile at the grownup’s ignorance.

As I grew, I realized- much to my own distaste- they were right.

The darkness that enfolded my eyes, were just my eyelids. I realized that I had to filter through people and that I hated cleaning my room. And that I hated doing my chores and the grownups, they weren’t half bad.

And trees were not blue…

Here amongst adults and school and the real world the trees were not blue.

                               

                                Blue trees, can you imagine?

                                                How could I have been so ignorant?

How to Tell if You Know What Fear Is

 According to Hector Vance

                                (All real experiences, if I may add…)

o   Fear is 1% battery power

o   Fear is standing on cracking branch in a twenty foot tree

o   Fear is holding a power washer to a box of dishes and suddenly realizing that the stream has just met the curve one of the spoons.

o   Fear is your code not working, and you have absolutely no idea why.

o   Fear is your code working and you still have absolutely no idea why.

o   Fear is accidentally petting someone else’s cat on the underside of their belly, which is NOT declawed.

o   Fear is a seemingly unforgivable fight with a friend

o   Fear is walking into the territory of a freak, depressed parrot darting towards your face.

o   Fear is answering “52!”, out loud, in front of the entire class, when the teacher asks “How old do you think I am?”

(By some stroke of luck, I was exactly right. Miracles do exist, people.)

o   Fear is remembering you left the sink on, as the manager pulls up.

o   Fear is watching the years pass

o   Fear is seeing myself struggle

o   Fear is seeing a friend struggle

o   Fear is hearing the words, “Sometimes, I think about suicide.”

o   Fear is mood shifts and blood tests

o   Fear is knowing that I will have to do it all again tomorrow, and I’m not sure if I can handle that.

Why is it Bad to be a Robot? Well, the wires.

“You knew the game and played it, it kills to know that you have been defeated,
I see the wires pulling while you're breathing.
You knew you had a reason,
It killed you like diseases,
I can hear it in your voice while your speaking... you can't be treated.
Mr. know it all, had his reign and his fall,
At least that is what his brain is telling all”

“He told me I should take it in,
Listen to every word he's speaking,
The wires getting older I can hear the way they're creaking,
As they're holding him,

Well, I could see it in his jaw,
That all he ever wanted was a job,”

“Light at the beginning of the tunnel, but he tells me that I'm dreaming,
When he talks I hear his ghosts, every word they say to me,
I just pray the wires aren't coming (here to strangle me)”

“I'd say he needs medicine,
Sick of screaming let us in,
The wires got the best of him.”

                                                -Quote from Wires by The Neighborhood

“Being able to appreciate an art is sometimes just as good as being able to do an art.”

                                                                                                                                                                                -Jave Maddox