My Child: Epiphany
One thing that we often miss about the human experience is that each individual is responsible for their individual emotions and actions. Much has been written, and certainly, we have a justice system dependent on the truth that humans are responsible for their own actions. How do we view emotions, though? Perhaps, the greatest lie we have allowed in society is that the other person is responsible for how I feel. We design our personalities around irresponsibility for our emotions and moods. Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust, wrote that the only thing a person can’t take from you is your ability to choose your own way. It is an indisputable fact that I was abused throughout my entire childhood. It is also an indisputable fact that only I am responsible for how I choose to respond to the abuse. This poem is what I believe to be the appropriate response: I am responsible for my emotions and moods, meaning I am responsible for saving myself.
There is no savior on the horizon because the savior was with you the entire time. You are the savior, don’t give away your power.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” -Viktor E. Frankl
My child in pain you cried out for help.
Your need from their abuse, you did not induce.
Those who could have helped.
Were not capable of holding you.
My child you cried in the dark
My child you chose to get back up.
My child, you applied the salve.
My child you held yourself.
My child you chose to be.
Accept the power in those moments.
Accept destiny in your own voice.
My child you are grown now,
And you protect yourself.
Vulnerability is okay,
Love is acceptable,
Breathe the air and feel life.
Your wounds will hurt, but they do not define you.
My child
Drift no more
Sails repaired.
Hull patched.
You need no savior,
For on that floor, you saved yourself.
My Child: The Wound
The last year has been filled with a lot of change for me and I have most definitely struggled to manage the pain from these changes in this season of my life. Last night I was going through workbooks and psychology on healing when I realized that the majority of my life has been spent learning why other people act the way they do and trying to adjust to navigating them. The technical term is people pleasing, which is a trait I am well aware I have: people pleasing protected me from the multiple waves of abuse I suffered as a child. Last night, for perhaps the first time, I went on to do a little research on why I react to life the way I do. I did not get far before the thoughts flowed and a filled out three pages of my reactions to life, why I react the way I do, and what significant event from my childhood is the trigger for those reactions. In therapy, I refer to these moments as epiphanies, because they are so deeply profound to me and are pivot points in my personality. I finish off my marathon self-therapy session and go to bed having a vivid dream about reconciliation and acceptance. This morning I woke up and after a few hours felt two poems growing inside me. I haven’t edited these poems -in any significant way, they are raw, and emotional, and are directed at me as a child. The goal of this website is to provide a platform for not only myself to express who I am, but for others who are suffering to find the courage to seek acceptance within themselves. There is an act of underdefined courage in facing abuse and choosing to define the abuse rather than the abuse defining you. Hopefully, through my words, anyone reading this can also find the courage that they always had and harness it for themselves.
In pain my child cried out,
Someone help, me?
Someone soothe, me?
Someone hold, me?
Alone in the night.
In the dark my child cried
No one held him!
No one soothed him!
No one helped him!
Tears staining the hardwood floor.
Wounded as a tiger gashed in the side:
My child grew.
Fearful of all around him
Wary of those who would be close:
Lest they disappear when needed
Hating himself.
My child, now a man
Drifting listlessly amongst the sea.
Sails tattered and battered.
Hull pierced and taking on water.
No savior on the horizon.
I See You
It’s been a while since I’ve posted (lots of life changes). This is the first version of this poem about love had, love lost, and love to be had.
Everyone wants to be seen, always take that extra moment to see them for who they are and not who you want them to be or who they were.
I see you,
Beautiful in your dress,
Like so few,
Twirling on the front porch,
As you do,
Smiling radiantly.
I see you,
Eyes full of hope.
I see you,
Hiding within yourself,
You withdrew,
Unsure of threats all around,
The anger inside you a' brew,
Smile faded.
I see you,
Eyes filled with pain.
I see you,
Fighting against it all,
Giving to life it's just do,
Trying not to succumb,
Wanting someone to pursue.
Smiling.
I see you,
Eyes filled with determination
I see you:
Worthy of love,
Affection abounding
Dreams turned to reality,
Protected from all that would harm.
Surrounded by care.
I see you,
A shining star safe in the night sky.
Slaves to a Wisp
I wrote this poem in 2009 and edited it in 2023. This particular poem I am not going to give much explanation for. Instead it is intended for the reader to derive their own meaning and purpose from this words.
The air was cold.
A dismal grey
Lit the way:
Birds sang mellow song.
And the wind stood still,
In meadows dying
No life was near.
But as the ‘morrow shone bright
And caressed by celestial rays,
The air warmed to the touch,
Birds sang their glorious songs,
And green meadows danced in the wind,
As rays of gold lit the day:
Life was near.
With a clap like a cannon!
And a strike as a whip!
The wind roared in wild fury.
And meadows danced in horror,
As darkness surveyed the land wide.
Beauty was swept in a violent fit.
In a horrible mask, contained;
Imprisoned by the fury of the night,
Chained to trees wild with rage.
Lost until the tempest was dissuade,
Life coward at its feet
Left to repeat this dismal being,
Tricked by illusions of time,
Deceived by hope never received,
Wander the dreams of time past.
Prisoners to their master.
Slaves to a wisp.
-EJB
Living for the End
Are you living to get somewhere or are you alive?
Words have their own rhythm which we abandon when we focus too much on grammar and what is technically correct. The colons in this stanza are not used correctly; however, they exist to contrast and enhance the message that for many life is a race to the next point often without recognition of where they were. A colon draws a direct relationship between two points; here the colon shows that without existing for now there is no relationship with then.
Like ants they scurry across the face of the planet:
Wake up: eat.
Eat: commute to work.
Work: take a lunch.
Lunch: return to work.
Work: commute to home.
Home: eat.
Eat: Sleep
Repeat
-EJB
There is a Building
A poem about life.
I found this poem on my phone the other day and knew it was a great way to get back to poetry and writing. The simple structure of the stanzas is intended to leave the reader reflecting on the words and the imagery created in them. As with all poetry pay attention to the punctuation as they reflect the feelings you should experience throughout this poem.
There is a building:
On the far side of the sea.
I have not been there.
But I can see that building, grand.
One day,
When the call is made:
I will find that building:
On the far side of the sea.
A’non that day
I will explore,
And find all his treasure.
I will go there in peace.
No fears of mine to haunt me:
No worries left inside me:
On the far side of the sea
And when the days taunt me,
Harrow me, and fight me,
I will think of the building:
On the far side of the sea.
Now, I lay my head
Upon this pillow
My fears, washed away.
There is a building.
On the far side of the sea.
As I wake in the morning,
Look around to see,
There is no building:
On the far side of the sea
Though toils of the day burden me
I remember the sensation of that night,
Not so far gone.
When my worries,
My fears,
My dreams,
Haunted me:
On the far side of the sea.
I now look across,
And pity the loss:
My life was wrecked
On the far side of the sea.
Here now, my pity
Floats away from me
My life has now found its peace:
On the far side of the sea.
In that building:
On the far side of the sea
-EJB
Elections, Poems, and Books
Equality is more than an issue of race, it is a standard we must all strive in order to achieve. We must raise our voices, not only for ourselves but for our fellow citizen that is crushed under a system that sees only one person.
One of the biggest influences for me in 2020 is a man named Rollo May: his books have helped unleash the cascade of thoughts, ideas, and pain I internally feel for a country that has done me much good while taking from so many unlike me. Some of those are pouring out in poetry that I will perform whenever we can return to open mic night or I have the studio space built to record them. Most have been thrown into a book that I am somewhere near 60% finished with. The purpose of this writing is to give you a preview of the book as a preface to a poem that I wrote yesterday: if one of us is bound by the chains of inequality we are all bound.
Do not expect change; affect change.
We cannot afford to be purists when it comes to our original social contract. And we cannot be so naïve as to expect the Supreme Court and Legislative branch to amend this contract coherent with the needs of a society when we offer little input. Representation works only when the Representative is voicing the opinion of those they stand in for. Yet, if those voices are mute how can one expect to be represented. If that all seems confusing suffice it to say do not send a builder to erect a home without a blueprint.
Drunk on Freedom: I am the Problem
I am the problem with America
Issues of inequality:
I blame, a political party.
There is, no future without equality,
If one man is bound by society
Then we all are enslaved by insanity
Yesterday, I saw through a blurry lens.
Today, I see clearly: your fate is my fate.
I must no longer hate
This feud I must cleanse.
I will stand in the gap for you, every day I take a breath.
Not just when an election is near:
Not just when your family is visited by death
Of this I want to make myself clear.
I am the problem with America
Issues, of a, woman’s right:
I am as blind as night.
I am the problem in your life
Careless of a world, dead as an oxygen less arboretum.
Blissfully unaware of your strife;
Drunken on my freedom.
Yesterday, I was addicted to the taste of freedom
Today I no longer want my drunken state to suffocate,
To defecate;
To invalidate;
To deny, your chiefdom.
So, let me here,
Fight for freedoms you do not possess.
Let me, here, in modest verse, help to lift your fear:
Until there is no room, for even a single tear:
I am the problem with America
Encouraging hate through my silence:
Abdicating my power to a ballot,
Raising my fist in arrogant defiance
Drunken out of habit:
I am the problem with America:
No longer static.