He is your blood.

Cars are just cars
and not people going home.
Trees are just trees
not strong beings
reaching for God.
Mountains are part
of the road to get
to the place
where you eat and sleep.
Just a landscape
not living things.

How do you process the suicide
of the one person
you never found beauty in?
You are quiet,
reassure your mother
it was okay
to call you at work.
Explain.
Shake.
You let one or two
tears fall for him.
He's your blood.
You stop and shake.
And resolve to keep working
And sob
and explain, sobbing, to your boss
and run, sobbing, out of the office.
You scream at his ghost
on the way to your house
where you
eat, sleep, watch movies.
And you plead with your Father
to keep hands on your father
please don't let him...
...just please,
just help him to...
...please, just...

You thought you'd be relieved
when he did it.
You knew.
You saw his heart.
You thought you'd be sad.
He is your blood.
You never thought
you'd feel a first
real fear
for your father.
I don't know how
but please just
make him love.
Make him feel nothing but love.

After all harliquin dreams
have come true
silence echoes
like the loudest
blood in your ears
because you or someone
put a pin from the past
in a shiny balloon.
Birds don't care if you listen and look
but one unwelcome gesture
and you've lost them forever.
Birds are beautiful but scared
because they are small
with fragile bones.
Some dogs always return
even beaten dogs.
We're not all basically alone.

You are beautiful
but perforated
and a dot connecter
is coupling those
diminuitive holes,
beauty-filled
by blood and tears,
to make a destroyed vein
of martyrdom.
Each time, pray for
a seam to remedy
spilled blood, tears.
and bloody tears,
and sweat,
bloody sweat
but you always
rent the threads
or a new perferator
makes a pattern
in junction
with the last scar
for the next dot connector
to tear along edges.
Activity, passivity
always at the worst time
and never in conjunction.

Family Guy is not funny.
Pedophiles are not funny.
Dogs wanting beastiality is not funny.
Obeisity is not funny.
Stereotypical stupid dads are not funny.
Babies wanting to kill/harm their mothers are not funny.
Hormones raging out of control and promiscuity are not funny.
Nothing about this show is funny.

If I have to hear "Giggidy" one more time or if I get sent one more link to a clip on YouTube I am absolutely going to LOSE IT!!!!!

Leslie’s Politics (in short, kind of.)

(*Some things weren't clear, so they've been edited. Thanks!)

Disclosure: Politics and choice were never presented to me at Greater Beckley Christian School, which I attended from the first to twelfth grades. We were taught that one party was right and one party was wrong. We were taught the following:
1. Christians are Republicans.
2. Non-Christians are Democrats.
3. Homosexuals are evil.
4. Abortion is never a valid choice and the only people that “supported it” were the people who would have one.
5. The people who kill people absolutely deserve to be killed also.
6. If you don’t have a good job, you and your family don’t deserve proper healthcare.
7. Welfare is evil and for lazy people.

Because until I was eighteen, I spent just about everyday with the people telling me this and didn’t know that “thinking for yourself” existed, in November 2002 when I turned eighteen, I obviously registered myself as Republican. Since then, I am absolutely a completely different person with totally different beliefs.

My beliefs about Christianity have been completely changed. I still call myself a Christian but I am not religious. I have a relationship with my God and that is personal. It has nothing to do with anyone else in the world but me. I let my relationship and discernment help me make educated decisions about me, my life, my family, and how I will raise my daughter. I believe in a new covenant that started with Jesus and that the covenant in the Old Testament of the Bible was replaced with the new one, not just simply added to. (I will further address religion at a later date.)

The Issues that Ruffle People’s Feathers:
Abortion. I am pro-choice. I am not “pro-life” and I do not even support the phrase; that implies that supporters of choice are actually supporters of death. I could not personally ever have an abortion, but I do understand that some people believe that they are making the right decisions for themselves when they choose to end a pregnancy. It is the personal decision of the person or people involved in the conception, pregnancy, and/or upbringing of the child that has been conceived. I cannot hold other people to the same standards that I hold myself to because people are unique. Each situation is unique and each person has his/her own unique set of values, goals, etc. I cannot expect everyone to live by my values and I do not expect everyone to have the same values that I have. If someone tells me that something I decide is good for me is wrong because it goes against values that they have, I cannot respect that because they are closed-minded. I refuse to do the same and tell someone that abortion is wrong for them and wrong for everybody.

Death Penalty. Jail has several purposes. Without question, jail restrains dangerous people and people that have broken the laws that this country believes are universal and worthy of being punished. They are taken from society to keep the people that are not in jail safe. Jail is also for punishment. The people in jail (generally—I am not referring to the people that are in jail unfairly) have done something wrong so they are not allowed to be out in society doing things they’d much rather be doing than being in jail. Jail is for rehabilitation. Time spent in jail is meant to help the people in there learn that they made a mistake and should probably not do it again. If we believe that criminals can be rehabilitated, then we should not take their lives. The death penalty assumes that people that have taken the life of another person are beyond rehabilitation. I am also going to add that every-day-argument that if we value the life of the murdered, why do we not value the life of the murderer? Both were children at one point, both grew up, both made decisions. Both are humans. We cannot devalue life. It is not our place. (I actually have a lot more to say about this and will link you to what I have to say when I get it up here.)

Homosexuality. Marriage, etc. Once again, it is not my place to tell a person or people what is right for them because his/her values might be different than mine. (See again: new covenant.) I am not going to say that homosexuality is right or wrong because again, each individual person is unique and has every right that I have to make his/her own decisions. What is right for me is not always right for everyone else. Again, if someone were to condemn me for my sexuality, I could not offer them my respect on that issue because I have made the decision about my own sexuality. I personally support gay marriage. I believe that if someone wants to marry someone else, nobody should have the right to stop them. We should not stop two people that love each other from making a committment that they want to make to each other. Love is beautiful no matter what color or gender it is made of and people who diminish the love of a man and a man or a woman and a woman are saturating the world with hate and ugliness. As a side note, I am choosing not to share my sexuality. Some may know and if you do, great-I trust you enough to tell you. (*edited for clarity. Apparently the first time, I wasn't so clear.)

Healthcare. This one isn’t so controversial, but plenty of people exist with the views that I was taught in my regime, er, school. I believe that we should have a system that will offer healthcare to people whose parents/guardians do not have a health plan until they are eighteen years old or until college graduation if they choose to go to college. It is not the faults of the minors if their parents/guardians do not have healthcare. Whether lack of education, lack of physical ability, hindrance of finding a job that offers a health plan—their fault or someone else’s, lack of care keeps the parent/guardian from getting some type of healthcare plan for their children should not punish the minor and force them to remain ill or hurt or keep them from getting proper care. Sometimes the parents cannot help but not have insurance and therefore cannot help their children. Sometimes parents are just apathetic about their children and while I hate to admit that happens, it does and that child has to suffer because of the apathy of someone else. I understand that we have some healthcare systems that offer underpriviledged children medical insurance (eg. CHIPS), but they are incredibly flawed as I have been able to personally see by the experiences of some people very close to me. If a mother and father get separated but do not plan on divorcing, they are both probably going to need jobs. With parents with two jobs making enough to live off of, the child is no longer qualified for CHIPS, but the person that has primary custody of the child is going to have to pay for food (because now she doesn't qualify for food stamps), random necessities, health insurance, and now a daycare service. Without an education and in states like West Virginia, she is going to have a very difficult time (if she can do it at all) that is going to allow her to afford all of that. So, no. I don't believe that we have adequate healthcare plans for children that are in situations similar and often worse than this cannot always get the healthcare that they need. My ideas are a kind of first-steps thing. Sure, socialized healthcare would be great, but Americans are too commercial and consumer driven for me to even hope for something that ideal-I'm just keeping it realistic folks. (*edited for clarity. I was too vague the first time through.)

Welfare, government aide, etc. Sometimes circumstances are beyond the individuals control and they just need help. I really don’t know how we can fix the welfare system from being cheated.

Putting our noses into the business of other countries. If we did it, we need to fix it in the most helpful, efficient, honest, unbiased way possible. The war on terror isn’t what it says it is. It is a war on people we think are terrorists. We had no business going into the Middle East after we didn’t find weapons. We assumed a group of people were plotting against us so we went looking in their land for their hidden weapons. We should have stopped when we didn’t find them instead of trying to force the rest of the world to be like us. We can’t even do democracy right here; we have no right to believe we can make other countries do it right. We assumed that what was right for us was right for another country. We shouldn’t have done that; we have enough problems of our own. We should fix what we broke and get out of there. I know that it sounds really heartless, but we can’t just go around trying to fix everyone else unless we develop a global police or a one world government. That is a bad idea, so we should have minded our own business. Ashamedly, I admit that we cannot help Darfur. If I cannot agree with what is happening in Iraq, I cannot support stepping into another country and trying to do the same thing. I do not support genocide or anything-ocide, but I can’t have a double standard.

Bipartisan system. We are, by name, the United States of America. If that is true, then why are we encouraged to pick sides of different people that want to be the leader of the country? I do not think it is a good idea for a united country to be fought over by two different parties. And if we must have two parties, why are the different people within the parties fighting each other? Shouldn’t they be working together? If you really want a Democrat in office, why are you fighting so hard against another Democrat? Don’t you have some kind of commonality and shouldn’t you be happy if another person from your party is qualified to do the job. Hilary Clinton should have stepped down a while ago. I think her actions are childish and reaching. Her actions are making people that might actually consider voting Democrat more confused and, as my friend Amanda said, divided. She offers her country numbers and rejoices when they give them back to her. But what does our country need at this point in history? I think we need something that we seem to have had nothing of for the past eight years and that is hope. She does not offer hope to the hearts of Americans and she does not try to offer it. She loves money and posters and color and shouting. Barak Obama offers hope of peace and asks questions of the people that come to him with questions. I think he inspires action in the citizens instead of allowing the citizens to expect the president to dictate what happens. That is what should happen. The president is the leader of the country, not the ruler. The president represents the people; he/she does not order them. Selecting from different parties is a round-about way of saying “I am better than you.”

---

Voting isn’t black or white, male or female. Just because we think her husband did a good job does not mean she will do a good job. Just because he doesn’t believe in killing unborn children does not mean he will do a good job with the issues that are really important at this point in our country’s history. Just because he is black does not mean he'll enslave white people. Voting on values doesn’t work and if you vote because someone does or does not support abortion or homosexual marriage, you make an uninformed vote. Voting cannot depend on party and values; it depends on the issues that are changeable right now. Allowing yourself to check a box of someone for a single issue and not the big picture or even the main issues is irresponsible. We cannot vote values; we must vote issues.

Don’t waste your vote in November. Understand that diversity in values, color, gender, sexuality is what makes the world. Make an informed decision about the issues that need to be addressed right now. We need to be made peaceful and secure. People will always support or oppose abortion. People will always support or oppose gay marriage. We cannot always be at war. We cannot always be on the verge of depression. We cannot always be in debt. We cannot always spend $75 billion a day on the war when it should go to better use—education, alternate fuel sources, sick and dying people, inflation, the globe--because without the money, we’re depleting the globe and without the globe we’re nothing anyway and it isn’t our place to take that away from our great-great-grandchildren. We are just here for the blink of an eye. While the voting system is imperfect, your vote is still important and so is your conscience. Whether you vote for him or her or him or him, vote informed. Vote on purpose and with conviction. Don’t just check a box just because and then feel proud that at least you voted; that isn’t voting. Be passionate about these things; they do affect you personally and the people that you bring into the world after you.

*Now, for really, really short: I am super open minded and extremely tolerant.

This morning,
my eyes were transported
for twenty seconds
to a place where the carcasses
of deer and kittens,
opossum,
and expensive dogs
that line our streets
were replaced with
bodies, hearts, souls
of soldiers,
citizens,
small children.
While I was looking
for a paridise,
I learned that
what my country needs
is more of less
and some conviction
and Hope.

Sometimes, nothing makes sense in your head and all you have to go on is your heart, and in your heart you know that what this country needs is hope. So you place an X in the box beside the name of the American that inspires Hope, cross your fingers, and pray you're doing the right thing.

Good luck, West Virginians, when you're placing your votes beside me.

I can just think
reality is still
beautiful.
chaos.
Good and evil
contrast
and relate
and are sometimes
the same.
chaos
is reality
is beautiful
whether it
makes you wretch
or sigh
or flutter lashed lids
in disbelief.
Chaos causes beauty.
Reality is real
whether we partake
or dismiss.
And finding a smile,
a good smile,
and a touch,
beauty
in everything,
even tragedy
is what is
going to stop us
from being murdered.

Her daddy ate fast
with black hands
and a black face
pushing coal dust
into his soft, red mouth
past teeth that were big and white
a little into her
leaf-filled blond hair.
He left smiling eyes
each morning
to hide underground
and hold the earth up
on his red shoulders.
And he stopped that
coal mining after eight
dirty long years to
work on top of the earth
and still somehow hold it up.
His little smile-eyed girl
learned the difference
between dark and light
and went left
while he hammered ever right.
And she wants to be proud
but those mountains are our bones
and that coal is our marrow

A pretty blond girl
raised on Air Force bases
and a strong, hard-working man
raised in bars by unkind faces
had a baby squid
who watched with dinner plate eyes
her father digesting
Fox News at dinner
saying "What if we
don't want to cross
the 'Racial Divide'?"
His fathers killed
the pretty blond's fathers
in the streets of New York
because Italian
didn't like Irish
until she was so pretty.
And the squid girl
cut potatoes while
her mouth was closed
wondering at such faith
in this clumsy
president they love so much.

Humans are pollution.

I see cancer everywhere.
What happened to the sounds
of echoing laughter of
children playing?
And ffp-ffp of jump rope contests
on the hard ground?
Now the sounds
we hear on our playgrounds
are a series of blips, beeps
from the digital boxes
powered by batteries
that will leak acid
into our landfills
and carcenogize our ground.
We're all victims villians
of our History
and our Now of careless waste,
of chemical trash.
We drink after each other
and taste the lipstick
of the human moster before.
It tastes like whales
and baby seals
and oil
and garbage.
We fear a disease
that has gotten so
out of control
that we can't prevent it.
We could have then, but
We're lazy bastards.
I don't point my dry fingers
because I am part
of Mother Earth's ache.
I pollute her purity with fuel
and carelessly disposed of trash
not thinking or not caring
because I am human.
My race wants to own
and doesn't respect.
And I think of one lost puzzle piece
and wonder if what little change I make
will really avert the integrity
of the cancerous picture.
I drive down the country road
in my gasoline powered Toyota
to work in a building
stuffed with hundreds of computers
and see the running cow
and sob at the image of me
stopping that joyful cow
and taking a bite from her flesh
or chase a clueless hen
and gnaw her breast
stopping her contented clucking.
Weep and gag and lament
that I have a part in this--
almost like I condone it.
Mother Earth suffers delivery pains
day after day to produce for us
what we stomp, spit, take for granted.
And our children roll tiny eyes
at respectfulness and good.
Everything is accepted, "okay."
"That's just how she is."
And we pollute what is good and pure,
tangible or not--all is full of cancer.

We sing we're waiting,
Waiting for the World to Change.
If we're all waiting,
nothing will change!
Nothing's going to change our world.
We'll smoke and spill everything
until Mother finally exhausts
of being so forgiving
and loving unconditionally
and watching us kill her
and the babies she gives life;
she'll spin so fast
that we fly off of her face
and are burned to ash
and nothingness
in her atmosphere,
past that hole we made
in her ozone.
And she'll coooool down.

The globe is warm
because we're making her angry.

People work for money
for happiness,
work for money for happiness
work for money for happiness
work for money for happiness
so they can finally stop working
when they finally get happy.
The lethal corperate cycle.
They'll die before happiness
if that's what
they're working for.
I have money so I can buy this.
I have money so I can buy that.
I have money so I can buy more.
Owning things is invented.
It is not natural.
We don't live with animals.
We don't live with land.
We don't live with anything.
We own a pet.
We own a plot.
That is mine.
It has my name on it.
It has my number on it.
I'm your number.
I'm yours.
I'm owned.
I own because I'm owned.
We don't live; we do.
Pride leads to lust
leads to envy
leads to wrath
and greed
lead to gluttony,
leads to sloth.
And humans are doomed, oomed.

I grow by understanding.
Father and mother wait at home
for grandbabies.
Money gently sways people,
but I am not people.
I can't grow 'cause
I don't understand.
How love and love and love
co-o-exist.
Or how to resist one thing
and bloss-ossom another,
how I have lived 39 years
but am only 23.
Tug-of-war me and
I'll help both sides.

Is it love when
you can love so many?
Is it peace when
it isn't everywhere?
Is it joy when
it is gone so quickly?
Is there a spirit
when no one can see it?
What about your spirit?
No one can see it,
so neglect it.
No one will notice.
Sell your time and wares
to buy some more.
Fill our house.
Sell yourself
on downown streets
or in corperate America.
What's the difference?
All efforts are made to
squirrel away money
to fatten your wallet.
God forbid fat
anything else
So send your girl
to get cellulute sucked
so she stands sexily
at our side--
not your wallet side.
Stand in line
at department store doors
to hand a few
dollar bills to
shining child-cheerleaders
who didn't earn a dime.
Promote celebrity superiority
by paying bills to
spend uncounted hours
watching them on TV
telling you with apathy
"That's hot."
What about your spirit?
Feed your body by
throwing grease down
your open throat.
Feed your mind
with Life 101 with Paris.
Feed your addictioins.
Feed your habits.
Feed the minutes that
tick by when you're "bored."
Your spirit is starving.
Know when Britney
fails to fasten baby's belt,
but don't know a
childhood best friend's
married name or
if HER baby
was even born.
It is okay.
Nothing exists unless
you can see it,
touch it.
Spirits stopped existing anyway.

America is a whore
on the dirty streets of countries
she doesn't belong in
lifting her skirt higher, higher
to reveal ripped stockings
inviting in only the ones with green
green cards green cash
but no one wants that dirty
(catas)
troph(e,y)

Ghosts

Travel coast to coast
trying to flee
the ghosts that haunt
you from the past
leaving them
to haunt me now.

Smoke, chemicals
make them disappear.
Guys, girls, music.
Ghosts'll never find you here.
Igmore them.
They'll go.
But I'll always keep them warm.

You Think He's Mad

You think he's mad.
Walking Thom Street
Keeping his balance
with his burdens
from Capitalist America's
Number One Superstore.
He's swatting the invisible.
You think he's mad.
Physically dodging
the intangible.
The buzzing minutes thrash his hands
instead of his jerking head
or his fleshy bosom.
You think he's mad,
but he has the right idea.
More than emotionally dodging the minutes.
To this virtuoso ,
Time is tangible,
and he's managed to avoid it
and remain a lamb.

City of Bodies

A city of bodies
all shoved together.
Elbow to elbow-
Not eye to eye.

Ignoring the touches,
the quick judging glances.
Hoping you're better
than the body next to you.

The throats are all bleeting;
the noise has no meaning.
Just to say something:
"The weather is fine."

Down in the puddle,
look up in the rain drops
Please just say something.
The weather is fine.

Hold your bag close.
Watch your umbrella.
Put checks on your list.
Touch the tips of your hair.

Avoid conversation.
Just smile and nod.
This flock must look busy-
just waiting in line.

One more minute,
you can check time again.
How much longer
till we get there?

A city of bodies
all shoved in together.
Elbow to elbow-
but not eye to eye.

Ignoring the touches,
the quick judging glances,
Hoping your better
than the body next to you.

Emily's Boots

I saw a fly
and thought I was dying-
Emily's boot heels in my brain.
She does not cry
for all my trying
but steps across my lobe again.

Everyone's a Liar.

I'm not a writer
but every scrap I have is filled
with sloppy pencil marks
and scratches of ink.
That don't mean a thing
to anyone but me.

I'm not a country girl,
but here I am
reflecting on a fishing dock
about things that mean
too much to live for.

I'm not a material girl
but I have stuff I "need"
and wear a Princess cut diamond
on my wedding finger.

I'm not a smoker,
but my eyes are stinging
and I'm not chain smoking.
It's my first pack.

I swear to you
I'm not even alive.
The blood splashing
and lungs gasping
would tell you otherwise.
Everyone's a liar.

red eared boy

There is a dead bee
beneath the red eared boy.
I am a womanish girl
and he's five inches taller than me.
With hunched posture
and hair cropped short.
Feet flat on the floor,
and a pack between his shoes.
He sits and doesn't know,
If he knows, he denies.
If heads are clocks,
his ticks, ticks, ticks
but doesn't measure time,
but everything else.
Always near.
What does he think about?