An Exercise in Futility

I am not an artist.
Well, not the physical kind.
When I find myself attempting
To create something from nothing,
I feel as if
It is an exercise in futility.

My drawings are dreary,
My paintings pathetic;
Even my colored pencil-work
Is mediocre at best.
It seems as if
This is an exercise in futility.

Frame my art on your wall,
Under a sheet of white,
To hide the lack of skill within.
I'll take no offense;
Lately I've seen that
I am participating in a no-good,
Yokelish exercise,

An exercise in futil-ity.

My pottery teacher asked
If we could make a cylinder.
Simply a tube, half a foot tall,
But my attempts resulted
In what could only be called
An exercise in futility.

After many failures,
Many creations of what
Can only loosely be referred to
As "cylinders,"
My rage got the better of me;
Stupid exercise in futility.

Filled with anger, I gave in,
Up I stood, to the sink I walked,
Tools in hand and dignity discarded.
I began to clean the clay off,
Letting it rinse away.
I know full well that it'll always come back;
Those tools will never be clean.
Yet it made me feel better,

That exercise in futility.

Okay To Be Angry

It's okay to be angry.
It's okay to be bitter,
To protest the injustices of the world.

It's okay to be mournful.
It's okay to be wounded,
To be beat down and worn by the world.

But remember who you are.
Remember your strength,
Your power,
Your light.

It's okay to be angry,
But it's better to forgive.
It's okay to be bitter,
But better to learn and move on.

It's okay to be mournful,
But better to accept what cannot be changed.
It's okay to be wounded,
But better to get back up, dust yourself off, and keep going.

It's okay to have dark feelings.
They're part of who we are
And part of how we grow.
But never let the darkness
Suffocate your light.

His Silence

He carries his burden in silence,
As all champions seem to do.
He doesn't cry out for aid,
And it's hard to see his wounds.

But I wonder if he can take it,
This strain he's fought so long.
I'm scared the silence will rip him apart,
And I can't bear the thought of him gone.

He doesn't know how to share
The weight on his shoulders with me.
That, or he just doesn't want to,
Though it pains me to see him bleed.

I need to tell him to just hold on,
But I don't know how to say it.
I want to tell him that he can stay strong,
But the silence, how do I break it?

My champion, my warrior,
My better half;
How do I save you?
I need us to last.

I don't have the power
To take all this torture away,
But you don't have to bear it alone;
For here I am, and here I will stay.

If all the love in the world
Were enough to help you heal,
I'd rip apart every heart I could find,
And with them your wounds I would seal.

He carries his burdens in silence.
As all champions seem to do.
But I'm here, through thick and thin,
To whisper "I love you."

Hyper Aware

Every night,
I fall asleep to my own heartbeat.
Listening to that ancient throb,
Echoing in the dark,
Amidst the cold starlight.

I breathe,
The whispering air of life
A rushing, rhythmic roar,
Soothing, invigorating,
While inside I seethe.

It's within;
Energy, pulsing and flowing.
It merges with my heartbeat,
Reaching to my fingers and toes.
Singing beneath my skin.

Every night,
I fall asleep to my own heartbeat.
So vital, yet so fragile,
It echoes in the dark:
My life-force, burning bright.