♥
We Invented Paris - Idioteque (Radiohead cover)
”..all that I have is a river
the river is always my home..”
dandelion seeds, the carriers of bittersweet summer memories :)
(Source: funnywildlife)
See Through
We’re on our way back to school from gymnastics class
and only in Boulder, Colorado
my kids are singing John Lennon’s “imagine” at the back of the bus
when Jesse stops herself mid-verse
stretches her arm across the aisle like a sunbeam
tugs at the hem of my shirt and asks
what does hatred mean?
Jesse is five years old
anything I say she’s going to believe
but I realize I don’t know the answer
I don’t know what hatred means
I could guess and say it’s the opposite of love
I could guess and say
Jesse, hatred’s why there are nothing but white faces
on our private-school bus
But Jesse isn’t white yet
Go ahead and ask her
what color are you Jesse?
well, it looks like I’m pink
Shane thinks he’s orange
Skylar says she’s tan
Rhett says he’s see-through
See, you can see how my veins are blue
but they’re red when I bleed
and I wish there was no such thing as springtime
because I don’t trust the machines
that will one day be planting seeds in these gardens
teaching them
some people are flowers
some people are weeds
rip the weeds by their roots
ignore their screams
Tilt your own face to the sun
Take what you want
you are the chosen ones
Sitting Bull said white people are liars and thieves
I’d like to tell Jesse he was wrong
I’d like to tell her we didn’t come like a time bomb
Teeth built of bullets
Gunpowder on our breath
That this land didn’t weep when our feet
first mercilessly hit the ground
I don’t want to say we drowned and maimed the children
sliced long strips of their skin for bridal reigns
I don’t want to say the moon was slain
The constellations dispersed like shrapnel
Mother’s killed their babies
then killed themselves
when they saw our faces on the horizon
and all that we left was a trail of tears
But if I have to say that I want to say the boats stopped there
I’d want to say the eaves never saw the sails of slave ships
Never heard the sound of chain links
but Jesse think slaughterhouse
think people branded suffocating foaming at the mouth
Can you imagine what kind of pain you would have to endure
to throw yourself overboard 2000 miles out to sea
Lungs gratefully exchanging breath for saltwater
Gratefully exchanging life for death
Can you imagine being chained to your dead daughter
How many days would it take you to stop
searching her hands for lifelines
to stop searching her fingertips for reminients of sunshine
to stop searching her wrists for a pulse
for just some sign of time turning backwards
to when you just knew
people would never do things like this
and Jesse this is not just a picture of our history
not just a picture of our past
We’ve been hundreds of years
measuring the size of their hearts
by the size of our fists
Erecting our bliss on the broken backs of dark skin
The present is far from gift wrapped
Ask New Orleans
Ask mothers in the South Bronx
chasing rats out of their babies cribs
Ask the fathers of the kids
who’s lives we exchanged for cheap gas
Ask our prisons why jail bars always come in black
Ask Afghanistan
Palestine
Iraq
Ask the women in Thailand who’s cancers build our laptops
Ask the mexican man working in a field fertilized by nerve gas
Ask his daughter when she’s born without fingers
or hands to pray with
Ask me how long I could keep going with this list
God might be watching
but we are not
You are white Jesse
There are bodies dangling
from the limbs of your family tree
Our people pull people from the soil like weeds
Breathe in our story
Force yourself to hold it in your lungs
til you can hear the hymns sung beneath white sheets
‘Til you can feel your own finger on the trigger of the gun
Feel yourself fire as they shout
do not look away as bullet enters heartbeat
Now breathe out
This is where we come from
This is still where we are
Now where will we go from here
I don’t believe we’re hateful
I think mostly we’re just asleep
but the math adds up the same
We can’t call up the dead and say
Sorry, we were looking the other way
There are names and faces behind our apathy
Eulogies beneath our choices
There are voices deep as roots
thundering unquestionable truth
through the white noise
that pacifies our ears
The voices are clear
Don’t tell me we don’t hear
Don’t tell me we don’t hear
the moon being slain
the constellations dispersing like shrapnel
Don’t you think it’s time
something changed
Sarah Kay - Hand me downs
Asking Too Much
I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with.
Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you.
Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through.
Tell me what the word “home” means to you and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mothers name just by the way you describe your bed room when you were 8.
See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.
Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow?
And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms?
Or would you leave the snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek?
Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?
Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad, even if it makes your lover mad?
Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?
See, I wanna know what you think of your first name.
And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy when she spoke it for the very first time.
I want you tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind.
Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel.
Tell me—knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school.
If you were walking by a chemical plant, where smoke stacks were filling the sky with dark, black clouds, would you holler, “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud or would whisper, “That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy”?
Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me, how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?
See, I wanna know if you believe in any god, or if you believe in many gods.
Or better yet, what gods believe in you.
And for all the times you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you’ve asked come true?
And if they didn’t did you feel denied?
And if you felt denied, denied by who?
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good.
I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day a day you’re feeling bad.
I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.
If you ever reach enlightenment, will you remember how to laugh?
Have you ever been a song?
Would you think less of me if I told you I have lived my entire life a little off key and I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarized the thoughts of the people around me who have learned the wisdom of silence?
Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
And if you do I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar.
See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living. I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving.
And if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
I wanna know if you bleed sometimes from other people’s wounds.
And if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon that if you wanted to you could pop—but you never would because you’d never want it to stop.
If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear it, if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?
And lastly, let me ask you this: if you and I went for a walk, and the entire walk we didn’t talk, do you think eventually we’d kiss?
No way.
That’s askin’ too much—after all, this is only our first date.
good question..
so angels will have a place to make their way inside.
Képzelt Város - Rollei
Visit their site for the whole album, or maybe older ones as well.
I always think this one thing is gonna happen, and something else happens instead.
