"Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment."
Napoleon Bonaparte The Age of Poe,ns
Taylor Sanders AgelO
Have you ever felt pain? Not the pain of a thorn, Not the pain of a fall, Or the pain of a broken leg. Not the pain of a skid, Not the pain of a smack, Or the pain of a sickness. Not the pain of a bump, Not the pain of a burn, It's the pain of being apart, This pain comes from the heart. Age 11
I once knew the devil, The devil most don't see. He was gentle, kind, and caring. The devil wore a mask. He cried at night in his sleep. The devil has an Angel she protects him from his dreams. Age12
I feel loneness in my heart And no strength in my bones. Sweat from the fear, And cries from the pain. When I needed safety, there was no shield to hide me. I was afraid for the knife to Reach my wrist, For my mind is never at rest. Black covers over my eyes Haven't kept me from the dark side Choices that hurt me But there is a ray of sunlight above me And hands clutching me tight Freeing me from lonely chains. Age13
My Angel, did you come from above? Did you know Jesus? Do you forgive my sins? My Angel, Have you seen happiness? Have you seen sadness? Have you seen the rich? And the poor? Have you listened to the prayers? Have you felt faith? Have you seen the good? And the bad? My Angel, What about my life? Have you heard the anger? Have you watched the violence? Were you scared? Angel of mine, Have you listened? Have you seen? Have you cried? Age14
It's raining in my head, Thoughts of you are drowning me I can't help when I scream your name in my sleep, I hold your complexion on the surface of memory, To visit when the pain creeps up on me. It's raining in my head. I'm all alone. I cry myself to sleep. I wake up with tear in my eyes. These dreams are filled with my fears, your lies. I just want to let it all go. I can't keep going with the flow. I'm tired of the hurts that lurks inside. I'm tired of the demons that tear down my pride. I want these cold tears to leave me dry. I want to hold you again. I want to kiss your lips one more time. With this love, I hold hope And last night I cried for the last time. I'll stand with strength and have patience. One of these days, the rain will stop. The tears will end, and I'll hold you again. Age 15
The only time I don't cry, I'm thinking of suicide. But I know deep inside, I have too much pride. It wouldn't matter much, forgotten in six months. What's the point in living, when you're only gonna die? What's the point in smiling, when you're only gonna cry? What's the point in loving, When it'll only be fake. What's the point in giving, When you know they're gonna take. What's the point in fixing, When it's only gonna break. Broken hearts. Broken lies. Broken tears. Broken cries. Broken promises. All built on a broken past. Welcome to my house. Age16
There is a place I search for, up here, above the mass A place where I can be what I have always dreamed of. I stand tall, Searching for what my heart desires. What my soul longs for. The sunlight. To simply BREATHE! I just want to close my eyes, and see the air through the feeling of breath. Close my eyes, and not feel tears. To hold my head high, without the tension of thought Pulling at every depth in my mind. To SCREAM with JOY! Any Joy. Somejoy. One feeling of joy. Is depression a state of willing agony I allow myself to soak? No. I live to be happy. I live to love, to be loved, to feel love. Too feel the Universe, hear the Universe, see the Universe In you, any of you. I look amongst the stone walls for one simple window to peer from. An opportunity to see someone, for someone to see me. Know me. Love me for who I am. Age 17
I pour my soul away, into hands that begin to decay. I let my tears fall heavily into a lake gone dry. I throw my heart at you. The daggers, they protrude. I tell you only truth, in turn you let it manipulate your attitude. Your behavior is killing me. My feelings are boiling. Soon you will be gone, and my life empty of all. All I look forward to with wake The dawn of each life grasping moment The thunder is roaring. My wings are ready for soaring. But my heart, soul, and mind have been left behind. Incomplete. Pushing delete. Erase. Escape. Does this mean anything? A wondering soul with the heart of a storm. A whispering dream told in a discouraging tone. A gorgeous feeling, Plummeting towards deceit. A longing wish, as a star fades. The sky isn't falling, but the ground is caving in. Age18
Watching through a dirty glass window: Something I can't help but see-I don't fit in. I'm not like any of them. Straight up told I wasn't intelligent But that I know I truly am. You won't find me staring obsessively into a mirror, or going insane trying to find something to wear. You won't find me conforming to society, or feeding into what I know to be ignorance. I won't hold my tongue because you feel a power over me ... your respect is all I see. I respect you, if you respect me. With that mutual agreement, I find what truth is in this world. I don't see knowledge in an I.Q. test, but rather a means for you to degrade me. I see knowledge in the eyes that venture out to learn, and on return, teach their neighbor. I don't see power as a badge, but rather something that lives within your soul. The power to give, to heal, to teach, to love, to admire, to accept. The power to be what they said you couldn't. The power to speak, to think, to listen, to understand. The power to be, to evolve, to become. The power to see past the reflection on your dirty glass window. The power to be more than another ghetto statistic. Age19
The feeling of My toes in the sand. The wind in my hair. Rain on my face. · The sun in my eyes. Snow on my tongue. Your lips touching mine.
The feeling of Thunder on my ears. A cold breeze on wet flesh. The smell of water from the sky. The pavement on bare feet. The soft grass I stop to sleep. Your name drifting through my dreams.
The feeling of A nostalgic memory. A new friend. The words I love you. The joy oflaughter. The aching smiles Daring to search your eyes.
The feeling of I say I do You say it too Us trying to survive in life. The fear of mistakes. The blinded faith Getting through it with you
The feeling of Her first breath. Her first cry. Her first look upon this life. Her first laugh. My first love. A gift that last forever. Age20
Even if the rain never ends, I know the sun exists in my veins, And shines through to my soul. The Universe lives within me. Age23
Teetering on the edge of sanity My mind, a black hole of negativity Lost in a storm of animosity Day dreaming of love only found in movie scenes Missing my heart like it left my chest Missing independence Missing acceptance Just waiting for a chance to break away Astonished I haven't turned to the other side Any attempt to get away from this life The future only looks like todays reflection And a growing pit of guilt spreads like poison. My heart aches for the ones I break I'm sorry I've succumbed to being such a liar His heart sits in my lap, his? Out back in a potato sack, waiting to be buried with our vows. I wish we could live the fantasy We seem to treasure it as reality One day, we'll ALL be happily ever after For now, I hide the truth because I made the mistake of choosing the wrong future. My heart sits here at your feet. You deserve better than me. Does that make it okay for me to leave? Because I can't stay here anymore my dear husband. Age28
Our souls bloom much in the way flowers do. The planting of a seed. The cracking of a shell. Life, forcing its way to the surface, Branching out into a foreign, exotic world. Extending in growth, depending on the elements. Giving to the possibilities of life .
•Love be our nourishment. The expression of it... our sunshine.
•We are born into the arms of our Creator. Held with steady devotion. A promise for breath. From the moment our mother calms our first infant cries We understand the need for another.
•Love is as important to life as water. Shelter. Food. Love, it's a paradox. The power to feed. The power to starve. Our very existence depending on it. Love kept us alive through helpless infancy. Love kept us grounded through adolescence. Love gave us purpose as adults. Stagnant would be our species were there never a mother to give her last breath for her child to have one more.
And when it's time we leave this security, what is it we stagger upon in our journey? The ache oflonging for another. Everyone knows what it means to feel deeply outside themselves towards another's existence. Loving to a fault.
So much so we'd join them in hell, just to be by their side.
That was you.
That was you to me. Before your last breath joined the sky, I'd have gladly gave you mine. How selfish I am? Willing to throw all this Away just to feel your warmth. Thoughts of you haunt me. My dreams plead for your existence. Just visit one more time. Lay with me, if only in my subconscious. Whisper into my ear how you use to, before I'd collapsed into your chest and drifted into our blissful sleep, The smell of your shirt burns in memory. 0 Even in Death. He lingers A ghost among my thoughts. I will throw myself to the gates to Heaven Or is it the fences of Hell 0 What of the life I chose to live? To leave? What will be the outcome of my chosen Morality, when it is forced to face Eternity? Did I assist demons in the days of breathing? What of my generosity, my courage, my strength? What of my greed, my envy, my fault? 0 Will his love be waiting. Will the sun rejoice when I join him in the sky. And of that sky, 0 Will you have painted it a universe for soul mates. If it is Hell I am sentenced, will you find my tainted soul. Find me where ever the torment of my suicide has placed me. 0 When you died I died too.
Lost in a sea of faces. A place for the condemned. A Hell only a broken dreamer could conjure. The possibilities of wings crumble in the sand of once proud concrete pillars. The sky is grey, havoc lives in its thunder. Tormented from one's own guilt bleeds from the eyes of the forgotten. They say Suicides go to Hell.
But such rarity are Soul Mates. Twin souls connected even in death. No veil has the strength to bind them from each other. They'd rejoice in hell, just to be by their side.
Reaching into your existence. You can hear me. I know you can see this.
My soul pleads to know that you live for our love in the valley of death, Much the way I die for you in the land of the living. Forsaken Masterpiece
I am a child of the ghetto, once a soldier of dark, forgotten streets. My de meanor haunting because I was too young for the things I'd see. Crippling thoughts surfaced about my morals and values when my body began to show the signs of a woman. My company soon treated me accordingly, knowing I'd barely reached my teens. I realized I would have to destroy my spirit, purposefully inflicting danger and pain into my life to make it in this world. Lie, cheat, steal... drugs, money, vio lence ... this was the Creator's plan for me? Did my parents expect me to maintain strength under the weight of knowing what the future statistically would bring? I was born into the middle class. My Mother's lust for money and father's addiction for controlled substances left me alone and vulnerable. People were com parable to scavenging wolves, from the little I care to remember. Year after year, I watched the level of poverty rise from the streets I walked into the skies I breathed. This was to be the life I'd lead. No time for reflection, just acceptance. I was going to endure this battle between morale and survival for the rest of my life, or so I believed. I was the reckless age of 20, facing a lifelong commitment of bringing an other person in to this world; the sudden realization that my breath no longer belongs to me came crashing into existence. The mind, heart, and soul of a mother is what I have become, pushing through the tide of these heavy waters, another fish in a stormy sea. Society rushes by, slamming my numb body up against the rocks so solid in the ground beneath it all. I've been juggling a life I was promised to lead us away from the neighborhood of broken dreams. School, work, therapy, PTSD ... welfare square, food banks, payday loans, and pawn shops all know me by name. Through it all, my eyes don't leave hers, my child, my secret savior. Her face will never feel the cold water in which her body is submerged. I won't breathe my last breath till I know she is safe on high, solid ground. My only fear is that such a stable place does not exist for us, the welfare state, the tax payer's bur den; but this is a fear I cannot accept... I cannot believe. On the day my child was born, I made an instinctive promise that my life now belonged to her. It is this maternal bond that will get me through the trials of our life. She will see the same streets but I'll teach her to water the wild flowers that manage to grow along the cracks in the concrete. I will not hide the reality of our life. I will not watch her perish into the shadows of a grimy 'hood, accepting this fate she was born into. I've spent many nights trying to explain the chaotic noises of our life to her innocent mind. I tell her that no grand symphony was promised to any of us. Yes, the neighbors are screaming, the landlord is knocking, and the roof is caving in, but little does this harsh world know, inside these filthy walls lives the ghetto's forsaken masterpiece, the heart of faith, the strength of courage, and the soul of Devine purpose. It is this belief that gets me through college. I stand tall at my crappy, part time job because I know we will soon have better opportunities, and feel secure. She is still so young and will not read this for many years but I must end this speaking to her. You are the greatest gift The Creator has ever given me. You are the reason I strive to be a better person every day. I believe it took having your life in my hands to value my own existence and I promise we're going to make it in this world.