Revised

I posted this poem earlier, maybe a couple months ago, and I included this revision in my final project for my poetry class this term. There aren't a whole heap of differences, but I did work in almost all of the suggestions my professor made. Enjoy =)

"No More Secrets for You, Dear"

Spring break found me in several new places, this train being one.

On the way home- clickety clacking across wet tracks and miserable

Valleys steeped in beauty. Watching the hills rise and fall,

Staring at cows, deer, rabbits, gray sky--circling birds

Watching the creatures rule the sky, and descend on the earth, I

Finally see what draws them from their gray tinted freedom.

Flesh, red and warm, split and criss-crossed death

Splayed apart and steaming in the chilled air, ripped open.

No more secrets for that deer

No more secrets for you, Dear

No more hiding, no more buried heart

No more alone, no more stitched together

Rip them out, Dear, tear them out –

leave the strands here

At my feet or in my hands, I want to see you splayed apart

Break open, crack apart, show

your unhidden heart

Wild and rolling like the right hand hills

Vicious and soothing like the left hand sea.

Snip out the stitches, live as you are.

No more secrets for that deer

No more secrets for you, Dear...

Honwhaaaat?

So I've been thinking. [Every time I say/write/type/think that, This pops in my head. Disney kid? Why yes, I am]

Anyhow, I've been wondering what exactly honesty is.

If we go solely by a dictionary definition, then

2). a : fairness and straightforwardness of conduct
b : adherence to the facts : sincerity.

is what we get.

 I think the general connotation the word "honesty" gives most people is the "b" definition. Which isn't wrong, I mean yes, a part of being honest is answering truthfully. But I'm beginning to wonder if there is more to honesty than strictly sticking to the facts.

There is of course, the matter of one's actions. If you do not act out the words you speak, then I think there is a certain level of dishonesty there. And it's not fair to the people that love and trust you, and I am a fan of fair.


I am beginning to think there might be another level after that even. If we are being honest, then that means we are compelled to speak the truth. Does that mean volunteer information?


I'd be the first to admit I'm a fairly private person - it takes a while to peel my ivory layers back. And it's not that I'm being fake until you get to that point, those top layers are genuine, but not...deep. I think deep is the word I'm looking for.


So to be truly honest, does that mean that some of those layers have to disappear? [I say some because obviously not everyone should know your 'stuff'. Some people just aren't trustworthy - which saddens me].


Could it be that this is the difference between being honest and being open? That honesty is being truthful in words, thoughts, and actions - and openness is being willing to give those things to other people? Or is that giving and receiving a part of engaging in real honesty?

I thought I had a pretty good idea when I named this blog, and I was searching for other honest folks.  Now I feel like I don't actually understand enough to call it that =P
But I guess I really am seeking honesty.

I am seeking things that ring true not only in my ears, but in my heart. I am looking for Christ in the eyes of other people, I am looking for His influence in their lives.

I am looking for strangers to be honest when I ask how their day is going, I am looking for more than an automatic response.

What I want to see is wild and untamed. I guess what I really want to see is beauty.

So what is honesty?

I guess I don't really have a rock solid definition for it. But I do know truth.

Maybe that's what I'm looking for after all.

"It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deciet."
-Noel Coward

Rivers and Roads

 Rivers and Roads

By The Head and The Heart

a year from now we'll all be gone
all our friends will move away
and they're going to better places
but our friends will be gone away

nothing is as it has been
and i miss your face like hell
and i guess it's just as well
but i miss your face like hell

been talking bout the way things change
and my family lives in a different state
and if you don't know what to make of this
then we will not relate
so if you don't know what to make of this
then we will not relate

rivers and roads
rivers and roads
rivers 'til i reach you

Updates yo.

Sunday marked the end of another term for me.

That's right, I finished a whole week ahead =D [insert bragging face here]

So, if you've read some of my previous blogs, you know that I took Advanced [oolala] Poetry this term, and same as last term, I had to put together a portfolio.

The following link will direct you to the site that that portfolio is on, should the urge strike you. This term is the "Shnazzy Portfolio", and last term's is the "Fancy Portfolio"...or actually it might just be "Portfolio" I can't remember =P

This is also the site where Katt and I upload a few of our little recording adventures for the general public to 'enjoy' =P

So without further ado, I give you Mediocre poetry/music, feel free to poke about.

Thoughts from an Alkeseltzer addled mind.

I don't know if it's because of my family's YWAM history, or maybe it's just a part of my gene pool in general. My mom loves to travel, my dad loves adrenaline.

Or maybe it was something God birthed in my heart solely because it's a part of what makes me, ME.

Perhaps it's a combination of the two, like my psych teacher would explain - genetics give us that which we are predisposed to, and circumstances teach us what we would learn.

Netti, what are you even talking about?

Well thank you shoulder helper number two [I've decided to use #2 today because she is petty and was getting jealous of all the attention #1 had been receiving].

My apologies, I'm sick, and because I am sick, I am fuuull up on cold medicine.

Which makes me loopy. I pity my co-workers and maybe even a few of the children, assuming I am still under the weather tomorrow. My family has been stellar though, they always are, but I've hardly done a thing. It's frustrating and beautiful all at once.

ANYHOW. Returning to my previous pondering, I love new things. New experiences, places, people, languages, cultures, scenery, all of it. Not new as in shiny and sparkling - although I suppose that has it's place as well, but new as in new to me. I love doing things I've never experienced before.

Out of this desire to see the world and love it, I torture myself with different pictures and music and documentaries of places I'd love to see. I love hearing the different way people speak, not only the accents, but the vocabulary as well. Fascinating.

I think about that story in the Bible, about the tower of Babel, and how God split up our tongues to speak different languages. What was a punishment then, is SO beautiful to me now.

That is incredible.

I bet they didn't really care for it at the time.

Isn't that strange how perception works? I am grateful for different languages and the dimension they give this world. And that, something that I treasure, was an act of disciplining a selfish culture. Nuts.

Anyhow, that's all I got.

...And now this is awkward.  I'm just gonna go.

...Bye.