Hi, my name is Beth and I am going to spend today listening to poetry online because I miss writing it.

Observing the rain

Today I want words to flow from my sporadically moving fingertips onto the screen of my falling-apart computer (I'm afraid the screen will completely detach itself in a matter of minutes), but today I'm doing nothing but observing.
People. Objects. Weather. Blank Word documents. The writing of others. Musical movements. Grades.

Observing.

Today I feel so heavy that moving isn't possible, but I want to move. It has nothing to do with this one Shakespeare essay hanging over my head, but rather with the subtle hints at my inability to do what I feel I need to do to survive.  Rather than finding myself encouraged, I'm finding myself flawed and, perhaps, childlike in my attempts to write.

October

“Why do I think October is beautiful?
It is not, is not beautiful.
But then
what is there to hold one’s interest
between the various drifts of a day’s
work, but to search out the differences
the window and grate—
but it is not, is not
beautiful.
I think your face is beautiful, the way it is
close to my face, and I think you are the real
October with your transparence and the stone
of your words as they pass, as I do not hear them.

I think your face is beautiful, the way it is
close to my face, and I think you are the real
October with your transparence and the stone
of your words as they pass, as I do not hear them.” ~October by Bill Berkson

Fascination

In an effort to get people to look into each other’s eyes more, and also to appease the mutes, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day. When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way. Late at night, I call my long distance lover, proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you. When she doesn’t respond, I know she’s used up all her words, so I slowly whisper I love you thirty-two and a third times. After that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe. ~By Jeffrey McDaniel

Here's a little prose

Writing happens at night..keep that in mind. Here's a little prose:




I've become one of those people who doesn't notice the passing of time. Friday seems so long ago when you asked. I've come and returned and gone again, only to be in the same place once more.
I forgot to decide if I wanted to say something.
Forgive me for putting you on pause while the rest of my life hit fast-forward.
...
Oh, right - here we are again.
.....
I still can't decide. May I pencil you in for a decision on a later date? It's not that you're insignificant. So many other things are crucial. We'll talk soon.
Later.
After time passes and I forget to remember to decide again.

school

I still haven't heard anything from financial aid and there are only five weeks until school starts back...less than that for GCSU. I'm putting all my eggs in one basket, here. I know God will pull through. This doubt in my mind just needs to go away...fast.


Bobby Long announced a lot of new shows for Oct-Dec. I'm pretty excited about it all. I'm hoping I can grab a bunch of kids to go from Berry...or at least a few so that I've got a ride from the middle of nowhere.

Tonight I'm going out with Joshua. :) I'm not sure which other kids are going and don't care. I'm excited about seeing this kid. I've missed him a lot. He's a counselor at a camp this summer and only gets to come home every few weekends. I do miss him terribly! So tonight we're going to Mexican and a movie at the dollar theater [that's really $1.99].

God is so good to me. :) He sings His endless love over me. He corrects me and chastens me, molding me into what I should be. He blesses me with friends that...wow. I don't even know what to say about them.

I'm so thankful that my God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He created us all and has healed so many in the past, but to know that His healing powers are still alive today gives me chills.

It's incredible to me how someone can say "you might have cancer" and yet when preliminary tests are done to make sure, there is nothing. Not one hint of anything wrong.

If you don't believe in the power of prayer, you are at a loss.


p.s. chapters 7 and 8 are both up

oohh gurrl

Chapter Five's up.

I'm going to brainstorm on chapter six so I'm not behind tomorrow! hahaha

gosh, ya know, I love it. I love writing. Even if it's a story like this...which will probably never amount to anything to anyone sitting in a publisher's office.

just sayin'.

God's blessed me beyond my wild imagination.

The Lord is gracious...

In 1 Corinthians Paul tells the church in Corinth that love never fails and doesn't stop. Love is eternal and without blemish.

In Psalm 145, David sings praises of the Lord being slow to anger, abounding in love, and good to all.


After reading 1 Corinthians 13 tonight at Ashton's house, I was truly convicted in my heart. I realized that I don't put love at the forefront of all my relationships. Just reading that one chapter convicted me to an extent that I cannot describe. I know I wrote a poem not too long ago on the same passage, but I see it in a whole different light right now.
The first few verses describe how one can have talents and be the most incredible person in a worldly sense, but if you don't love...you have nothing.

If you cannot love your enemy as it says in Matthew 5:44, you have nothing. It doesn't matter how many PhD's you have or where you went to school. Your car and clothes don't matter. Your background means nothing. How nice you are is of no consequence. If you cannot love that one person that you are trying so hard not to hate, you are nothing more than forgotten, as if you had never existed.

He loves us more than there is distance between east and west. I don't even know how to comprehend how far the east is from the west! How can I begin to comprehend His love? I hurt Him on a daily basis by allowing my flesh to overtake my life and actions, and yet He still loves me!
How can I NOT love others in an attempt to be more like Him? How can I refuse that love and refuse to pass it on to others?!

Romans 13:8 says "Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law."

Untitled Chaos

I have such good ideas sometimes but have a hard time putting them into words. Writing is my love, yet a skill I cannot master. Even at my best, I am no more than the average joe. I easily lose patience in others. If they cannot bare their hearts on a lose-leaf page of paper in some poetic paradise, I’m sorry but you mean nothing to me. I need to see the tear stains on your respected lines. Don’t think you have mastered with some overzealous confidence this language which you barely know.

“Them’s fightin’ words” or so I’ve been told.

The smear of this ink takes brutal honesty to a new and dangerous level. The pressure is too great here for the faint of word.

Day in and day out you mock my voice, but what you can’t see is the reflection of these words in my eyes. Your goggles are fogging up. I’m not your experiment, a specimen on your examination table. Your fake works and illegitimate actions strike me like a coroner’s blade, but I get up and walk away before your fingers can brace my dear cold skin for support. You aren’t strong enough to draw blood and piercing this skin will do you no good. Be careful what you say: it may not be good enough.

days like this

While walking back to my dorm this evening, I realized that the days I will remember, the memories that I will cherish, are the ones that I have made in the past few weeks. The nights that I've had and the days that have surrounded them.
It's the haze in the early morning sky that surrounds the trees and envelops the walkways. With the dew wetting my feet come the tears slipping slowly down my cheeks. It's in the light of the lamps shrouded in glowing rainbows shooting in all directions and the glare that is left in your eye when looking away. The silent strength of the trees and the perfect blue of the starry sky.

It's nights like this...when I'm walking back to my room when I realize how many memories I've made. From silly paint and switching shirt sizes to spooky darkness and our own personal "jams." Finding solace in old pictures and the warmth of a soul so close to our own fills empty hearts and mends shoes in order to make more confident steps forward.

Letting go is something I've learned to do and yet cannot master.

I tell you I hate this and myself because I find it so hard to believe how much I've come to care. This attachment runs deep, love. Time and distance make no difference to these memories that will last forever. We'll be old and gray, still wearing our band t-shirts and fiddling with phones to text each other the latest gossip.

Facebook and Twitter will be ideas of the dark, distant past and yet they will live on continuously in our minds and in our actions. The goofy faces we make have been recorded in the pictures we post and videos we record. Memory will fade with time, but our laughter, jokes, and fun will ring on for lifetimes...

It's days and nights like this that I know I cannot ever forget! Forgetting would be inconceivable...impossible.

It may not have seemed like much, but I will always remember your hands. Like you, they are beautiful to me. They hold so much and yet are willing to reveal so little.
To forget you would be to forget the lines etched in the sand from the ebb and flow of the tide.
The surface of the sand seems so smooth and inviting. An outsider would never know what is truly hidden beneath the sands of time. Taking one step closer can lead you into a whirlwind.

I step forward in anticipation and excitement...inviting.

The water contrasts the sand. Lines flow deep and wide, ever changing...ever present.

To forget the tides would be to forget your hands. The twitch in your thumb and deep etching of your palm. The horizontal lines that run so frightfully in opposition of the prints of your fingers. Worry and stress show in these carved lines and in the unevenness of your nails. However, there is a peace..an understanding. The softness of your fingers and hand show the deception of your outward voice and that there truly is a side that others cannot seem to find.
First perception and many after leave the world to ponder these mysteries. You are strange and often unreadable; a challenge. Your calm, cool, collected exterior is contrasted and few see this. There is a war inside you, a worry that many will never understand. The lines that inch across your hand show the pain that has ravaged your life and heart...but the top of your hand and curve of your fingers show that you are strong and unwilling for hard times to rip you through and through. While your hands are calloused and used, showing your love for many activities, they are soft, full of strength, and vulnerable. You put up a wall to hide your heart, the 'sappier' side of things. Deep down you are one of the most beautifully caring people...your heart ready to risk itself, yet you don't trust it.

As your hands show, you are the epitome of a rose...delicate on the inside, but with a defense that will knock them down, rock them down.

"Honestly" - Cartel

Old Poetry

I found all of this in one of my composition notebooks. :) The last one I was working in, if I'm not mistaken. They start on the 3rd of January 2007 and go on from there until Graduation last year. I'll separate them with a line of stars. Let me know what you think:

Everyone's around
man, there's a crowd.
survey the room, you'd almost miss it.
the feeling of fearful hurt would almost belost.
amongst the black clothing and running mascara,
the white dress and wide eyes could be forgotten.
sadness isn't desired but can't be helped
when the world seems so blissfully colorless
everything IS or ISN'T in a black and white world.

**********

No regrets, only lost possibilities,
open doors now shut to the rain,
the storm of silence and screaming.
Now, to find an escape I must run,
farther than these selfish decisions
to an open door that must be there.
Faster, farther,
in an ink well that's drying,
with the weather writhing and swirling
only to find I'm running in circles
surrounded by closed doors.
here trapped in my own lost possibilities
with no way to escape my regrets.

**********

Lord, they say that I can move these mountains.
They say that my faith is strong enough to move them.
I'm pushing, Lord, and it's just not working.
My legs are growing weary and my hands are calloused.
My body's failing me, Lord, so my faith must not be enough
to move these mountains and watch them fall into the sea.

**********

constant frowns in a sea of red faces
a camera could catch this haze
tragedy rips life to pieces,
yet blurs these faces to one
dependent on one another
and bound by experience.
hugs become a joining of hearts --
broken, shattered --
to give way to healing.
mourning is natural --
the night comes like waves.
Healing rescues with the rising of the sun
and thus the sea of faces will become clearer,
the faces more distinguished.

it's not for us to understand

**********

Night blurs the faces of many
all bound by experience
and dependent on one another.
Darkness joins shattered hearts
creating rain that heals, mends...
longing for peace.
As the first lights come
chills are blotted out by warmth,
love, comfort.

**********

be still my soul

God is so good to me!

I've been stressed beyond belief for the past week and I know that this week is going to be hard, but God has blessed me.

I find myself daily in the company of friends and strangers...and though they know it not, they are a comfort to me. I miss dearly the friends of high school and days gone by, but am anticipating so much the future, that sometimes these days pass me by without notice.

God has put people in my life to slow me down and help me to see Him. I am so in love with Him and loving them with a passion and care that is indescribable.

My friends mean so much to me. I will rock you up and down if you hurt them or say something against them. I won't have it. They mean more to me than the breath that slips carelessly from these faint lips.

Be still my soul, be still my heart. I can barely breathe...He is on my side.

Isn't that such an incredible statement? My poor body can hardly handle it. I shudder in amazement and pure weakness. He is my all. My everything.

He blesses me with the most incredible friends ever. Woahbuddy. I'm just too excited.