My buddy Chris wrote an excellent article on White Guilt that I felt was worth sharing. Check it out! 

Me

Toni Morrison 

Good Morning

There are layers of anguish caked upon layers of disdain. Life didn't have to be that way but I had not yet discovered the strongest veneer for the coatings that had become so brilliant and shiny...despite the secrets of my world that laid right below the surface.

As small as a casket made for an infant, my heart shuffled and lost its lid. I didn't want to remember all of the things I had done. I knew I was broken with no room for repair. I know it's dramatic, but it felt like my life was in complete despair. The door of this house was left open one night and all of my demons fled into the dark, but new ones came in from the nearest park. The layers just piled upon me - more and more. My body was crippled, my ankles felt sore. 

I became someone else, I no longer recognized my own name. One day I couldn't leave the house, I was stuck in the door frame. I could only shed them if I left you alone. If I no longer called you, if I changed the number to my phone. If I ran far away and never returned, I will never want you in my life - I have touched you and you have left my skin burned. 

Maybe you will find me one day with the layers peeled off. With the demons all gone - I can breathe, I can cough. I can finally tell you how I actually feel. My courage will be back and my confidence you can no longer steal. When you look me in the eyes, I will trick you into thinking that I love you all the same, but my heart is an empty casket emblazoned with your name. 

The York Road

So many poems and the hardest one to write is the one that is positive, that keeps a shining light in sight. The one that cascades over many branches, The one that absorbs me into mid-day trances, I walk on the concrete with my eyes down, I only look up when a glass bottle shatters on the ground, I am traipsing along the York and what do I see? A smiling man with open arms – staring back at me. A welcomed embrace, a laugh and a chuckle, he has great delight on his face. He beckons me to come over, but sharp glass is an obstacle I face. I tiptoe past the bottle to accept what I think is a hug, his arms wrap around me and his skin feels like a rug.

My arms start to itch and I step away – realizing that the man had disappeared so suddenly that day. He was nowhere in sight after I pulled out of that hug. My body was trembling - I thought it was me he would mug.

Instead, he had left me alone after so many years of pain. He was depression chasing me – trying to take hold of the place that my soul had to gain. Trying to soak up my positivity to turn it to sadness. But he did not win, even when he thought he could have this. Even when he chucked a bottle at my face, it somehow managed to miss me and I feel like I have finally won this race. I have finally transcended what I thought I could never supplant. Remember: the world is not always filled with glass bottles…it is sometimes more cans than can’ts.

Eleanor Roosevelt