The Bird Lady

They were hungry,
is all,
that's why they came so close,
that's why they weren't afraid,
as the bits of stale bread,
rejects by any other name
came tumbling down out of the sky
as if by God himself,
but nay a mere mortal
who took pity
on the birds,
they came in flocks
cacawing
fighting each other
for one tiny scrap of food,
that's why they came.

Night

People go to sleep,
normal people go to sleep,
some stay awake
and wait for those normal people
to wake
so they can play.

Oh morning.

Leave

After trying to come up with all the reasons why I should stay, I didn't come up with much. The answer I kept coming back to was: leave.

"And my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around dear friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn’t it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don’t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.”
Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

I asked myself if leaving was a form of running away, perhaps from a job, an apartment, a life of responsibilities. But exploring is not running away. It is looking for a reason to keep going.


"One fine day, it will be your turn. You will leave homes, cities and countries to pursue grander ambitions. You will leave friends, lovers and possibilities for the chance to roam the world and make deeper connections. You will defy your fear of change, hold your head high and do what you once thought was unthinkable: walk away. And it will be scary. At first. But what I hope you’ll find in the end is that in leaving, you don’t just find love, adventure or freedom. More than anything, you find you."  
The Staying Philosophy

My hope is that in going, I will find a reason to come back.

Whole

We've gone

our whole lives

missing parts of us,

parts we weren't aware

that we were missing.

Until

one day

we've grown into the strong

man, woman

that we strove to be,

and suddenly we're incomplete.

So we search

on buses, trains,

crowded subway platforms

for some small glimpse

of that elusive missing piece.

Not sure what we are looking for,

we keep trying,

maybe next time,

maybe somewhere

nearby

we will find it.

We don't find it,

yet we keep trying,

something in us keeps pushing,

hoping, waiting

maybe, maybe

don't give up yet.

Hello,

is it me you're looking for,

no, not I?

What is it you recognized,

maybe the same face of desperation

you wear yourself.

Like looking in a mirror,

the face of loneliness

looks like you

clothed in someone else.

Now you have two missing pieces,

and no wholes.

Replaceable

It's quiet, the kind of quiet where you hear the hum of traffic from one block over but you can't actually see it, the air is kind of still and kind of warm, it says 50 but feels colder. You know Spring is coming and that's a good sign but we are not quite there yet. Your feet echo on the pavement as you walk, they make clicking sounds and you like that, you walk hard, you always have, and some people turn their head when they hear you coming, you imagine they expect to see a guy with perhaps expensive Italian shoes and instead they behold you. But you are just as good as any man, you are as strong, as smart, as practical, maybe more so. But there are times, times when you are as feminine as any woman, times when you feel weak, you wonder why weakness is attributed to women, also known as the weaker sex, and what makes a man strong and a woman weak, but that's just the way it is. You're all woman when you get mad at your boss for having you stay late and wasting your time, sometimes so mad that you want to throttle him or stab him with a knife. Ya, not really that mad but then again you made a deal with Patrick from work that he would warn you before he shot up the place and you would do the same. Of course, there are days when you hate it so much you threaten-- in your head of course-- to quit, to just leave. You imagine them panicking saying what will we do without her, how will we survive, but of course you are replaceable, everyone is.