Tag: vagabond prophet

vagabondprophet:

Discarded

To dive headlong

Into the ravine

The vee cut neckline

Plunging into the bosom

Of mother nature herself

To die of despair

A pendulum in the air

To swallow handfuls of madness

To dull the crowding sadness

All of these deaths I abhor

But cruelest yet

Is that you ignore

Not a glance, whisper, or touch.

Discarded

Like coupons from a store

You no longer frequent.

Solitary Refinement Chapter 26

Dear Joshua                                         April 15th 2018

    I hear what you’re saying and I appreciate that you’re concerned about my safety and that you want to help me take care of the other things dear to my heart. I really do. I just can’t do that though, I can’t talk to anybody about Kal or Trevor and if I know Liz at all if I trouble her with legal garbage than any chance I have of mending things is gone for sure. I just have to hope that at some point the last drop of water will flow under the bridge and she will miss me enough to come by with the kids. With Kal and Trevor though that’s a whole different animal. Let me put this plainly, if I complain that Trevor has threatened me and that I feel threatened by Kal I may be killed. Trevor has friends in high places so I can’t really trust any of the authorities I may complain to, and even if I complain about Kal I don’t want to have that conversation with Trevor when he says something like, “So I heard you don’t think I can keep you safe, well let’s see how who you do on your own.” It’s just, it’s all bad. Thanks for trying to help but this is one of those things that rests squarely on my shoulders.

Yesterday I accidentally broke the tip off of a knife in my cooking class when I was trying to filet a fish and I bent the blade too far trying to get between the skin and the meat. The teacher told me to put the knife in the garbage and get another. I nodded, and pocketed it.

Joshua, please understand me. That was the most terrifying moment of my existence. Not proposing to Liz worried she would say no, not the complicated births of our children, not all the times I had to skulk back home and tell her I was out of work again. This was even more terrifying than that time we were hiking and I slipped on some gravel and almost tumbled down a cliffside, or the time I was driving my car and got hit by a snow plow.

It was a simple enough thing to do that I’m sure nobody noticed, but it was like in that moment I made the decision that I will kill somebody if I think I need to. Like I’m a murderer at heart just waiting for a life to take and nobody else knows it yet. Having finally passed that check mark of morality, that under the right circumstances I’ve decided I will stab somebody to death, I really didn’t feel good about myself in that moment but I also felt like I kind of had to. I also felt a strange sense of power that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. The means and resolve to kill is not something that sits well with me but I need to get back to my family one day and that means I need to survive prison. I tried to stay under the radar, I tried not to make enemies but I have them anyways.

I didn’t worry about Kal sleeping beneath me as much last night while I lay there with my white knuckled  grip on the knives plastic grip. I actually slept a bit myself. My God did I need that. You don’t have kids so I can’t compare my exhaustion to you with even that. When your tired taking care of kids it’s a happy kind of tired. Yeah your sweaty and dirty from playing with them at the park and cleaning up after them in every imaginable way, but it’s your children and you’d do anything for them. The weariness that comes with fearing for your life is so completely different, always checking over your shoulder. Every time I’m standing outside and I feel the wind on my neck I’m filled with dread that I’ll turn around to see Kal pushing me down to do something horrible. Relentless panic is a horrible thing and I hope you never experience it. Maybe animals really can smell fear.

    Do you think anybody else here feels the way I do?

Thirty Two

Thirty Two years old

And he’s really gone.

Body beautifully adorned

And underground.

What now life?

What will you do now?

Will you strike me down

Or make me endure this?

Future I can’t see

Evasive and ever changing,

The past never changes

But tortures every moment.

The present sharpens

And blunts me

In equal measure,

Useless for every task at hand.

How will I scrape

Out an existence,

If grief sands me down

To a featureless stone.

Blunt and sharp in equal measure,

Useless for every task at hand.

– Vagabond Prophet

vagabondprophet:

Sleight of Hand

There’s a lot of broken people

Across the sea,

But there’s a lot broken people here too

You don’t have to go

across the sea

To be useful to me.

Don’t wait for a sign

No water divine

It’s as simple as a coat

For a shivering man

There’s no secret trick

No sleight of hand

Just a bit of bread

For an outstretched hand

All your brilliance and might

Can not win this fight

You just have to do something right

A rickety shack could he everything

To a man without a home

An old blanket could be everything

To a child with nothing but a stone

Don’t wait for a sign

No water divine

It’s as simple as a coat

For a shivering man

There’s no secret trick

No sleight of hand

Just a bit of bread

For an outstretched hand

– Vagabond Prophet

– Another song folks, let me know if you like the songs and should keep them coming.

Cleft Heart

vagabondprophet:


Early October when the bomb went off,

Tearing us apart.

A brother here, a sister there.

Scattered across the globe.

Like the shock had made

Roots suddenly disappear.

Wandering to find them again.

Something to anchor me to life,

And something to pretend

That none of this ever happened.

It was like walking under a tree

Green burning bright

Like a star in the night.

Until it drops its snow

Right down your back

And your spine inverts itself.

The snow no colder than

The snowball fight earlier.

But never expected.

I never expected any of this

I trusted you,

I loved you.

But after you left,

We didn’t talk for months.

You didn’t understand that.

How could you think,

Nothing would change between us?

When you tore my heart right out.

I was a child,

Not a liver,

I’m not that resilient!

Are you stupid?

Or can you just think

That wishfully?

Couldn’t you have thought wishfully,

About her too?

Build her up in your mind.

Something better than she was,

Instead of leaving me all alone with her,

The only boy around.

We were six!

Then just three,

Only boy was me.

Brothers dug for oil,

Money for their toil.

We all got new family.

Pretend it’s normal

This prefix ‘step’ for everybody.

A monosyllabic word for ignorance.

Did you have stinging nettles

In the corners of your mind,

Shrouding your secrets from yourself?

I didn’t know what a man was!

How could I instantly become?

I guess you didn’t know either.

I found a new father,

He’s never let me down.

He’s unshakable.

Yeah we talk now,

About the weather,

And the price of gas.

But it will never be the same,

I can’t think that wishfully.

I won’t struggle to get as close.

You used to hold me close,

Just to be near me,

I treasure the memory.

It was twelve years ago you left,

Twelve years with a cleft heart.

When you changed the definition of home.

I’m trying to be eloquent now,

But all I can think of,

Is just how much it hurt.

– Vagabond Prophet

Go To Sleep

I watched you enter the world

I helped you learn to walk,

Timing your hair growth

And listening to you talk.

You love to dance and spin,

You love to bounce and giggle,

And when I give you paper

With a pen you like to squiggle.

The weariness

I know I’ll miss,

The exhaustion

Of pure bliss.

But right now darling

Take your beautiful head,

Lay it down to sleep

It is time for bed.

You vacuum of my patience

You pixie with such charm,

Don’t come out of bed

Or I will sound the alarm.

With the fury of

A thousand suns,

I’ll keep you in there

With blankets by the tonnes.

You beg for things

That you don’t even want,

In the evening hours

You taunt taunt taunt!

You know I love you

Honey, girl of mine,

But right now I just need you

To

GO

TO

SLEEP!!!

– Vagabond Prophet

Harmony


I need more music

I’ve got rhythm in my veins

And a heart that pumps

Not blood but a beat.

To create something

To be consumed by the ears,

To bring into life

Meaningful sound.

My heart beats

In polyrhythms,

And my feet journey

To find the melody.

So you be the woodwinds

And I’ll be the strings,

I’ll learn you first by ear,

And then by heart.

– Vagabond Prophet