Waiting To Be Saved By That Which Broke Me

You led me into your heart's room
And asked to be my groom.
I replied, "Yes, most certainly,"
But you  changed the lock after giving me the old key.
I'm turning pages,
And you're turning tables.
This fragile switching of phases
Nothing is stable.

I'm so in love, but I forgot to love myself.
I love you so very much, but you put me on the shelf.
You forgot to love me too.

While searching for your heart, I found your flaw.
While hiding to be found, I got lost.
While searching for our mountain, I found our fall.
While searching for the sun, I found the moon.
While searching for myself, I found you.

I'm so in love, but I forgot to love myself.
I love you so very much, but you put me on the shelf.
You forgot to love me too.

What a perfect disaster, messed so beautifully
Waiting to be saved by that which broke me.

Life Sucks

During my seventeen years of life, I have come to this conclusion: life sucks.  Are there good times? Sure.  Is there always hope? Of course.  Nevertheless, life sucks.  When you work as hard as you can to achieve something, you have to continue working harder to achieve the next goal.  If you look in the mirror and like what you see, get the magnified mirror because you must be missing something.  If you do not like what you see, fix your face and body, not your mindset.  The more you give, the less you receive.  This is the twisted world we now face.  Romance is a hoax.  Friendship is conditional.  Do I honestly believe any of this? I do not know, but it is how I feel.  And I know I am supposed to cover these feelings; that is one of my specialties.  But, you know what? I am sick.  I am tired.  I am done.  I have struggled and fought with perfection my entire life, and he always wins.  I always lose.  I am an optimistic giver, and the world has been built to combat and destroy all that I am made of.  I believe in God.  I believe in Grace sufficient for all things.  I scare myself with the complacent placement my heart has found itself in.  I pray about it.  I know God listens, but I need a response now.  Or so I think...this is just another trick of the cruel world, also known as the Enemy.

Be. You. Tiful.

     If you are reading this, I want to be certain that you know and truly trust that you ARE worth loving.  A week ago today, I attended a So Worth Loving party to kickoff/ fundraise for their tour. For those of you, which is most likely the majority, who do not know what on earth I am talking about, allow to shed some light on the subject.  So Worth Loving is an Atlanta (woot whoop) based life-stlye clothing brand and now movement that literally the goal is to boost self- confidence.  "Love you. Love people." Chew on that for a bit...once that is digested, I want you to apply it to your life.  It is absolutely mind- blowing how much more we get accomplished, and how much better we feel when we love ourselves.  We have to love ourselves to genuinely love and be loved.  Next time you look in a mirror, instead of saying, " If only I could lose that inner thigh," or "Ugh, I wish I had hair like so and so," say "Thank you, legs, for being healthy so I can do all that I can." or "Wow, I have a great smile!" Comparison is the thief of joy.  I am preaching to the choir, I am fully aware.  My name is Cierra Motes, and I am SO worth loving.  I am worth taking pictures because I am pretty enough.  I am worth chasing my dreams because I am not a failure.  I am worth not being afraid to feeling inadequate.  I am worth doing what makes me happy.  I am worth being pursued by an incredible guy.  I am worthy.  Do I believe all of this yes? No. But I will repeat it day in and day out until I do.  And then, I am going to spread that message.

Shall I Run, or Shall I Fall?

We take one step forward, and then we take three back.
You declared war; yes, you were the first to attack.
So, slowly close your eyes.
Take a deep breath and release.
When you open will you find,
Will you still find me?

And so, where does that leave you, leave me?
Where does that leave us?
Where do we go from here?
I never wanted all of this fuss.
I never wanted the whole world.
I never asked for all the diamonds and every pearl.
All I ever wanted was you, you to want me too.

I look up at the stars,
And I look up at the sun,
And I know who you are,
And I know you are the one,
Yes, I know what you have done,
But you are still the one.

This wasn't my sole intention,
But my sole intended otherwise.
All my certainties of your flaws
Become doubts when you look into my eyes.

Grab your long-sleeve tee
And meet me outside.
I am here for any need;
I am a safe place to confide.
Please, dear, don't fear.
It's just you and me here.
Share your secrets, your blanket, your heart.
I swear to protect, in my own,your shaking hands
As long as you do your part
And give me this dance.

Love at First Sight?

       Love at first sight?  Hah!  I have always figured this a ridiculous notion existing only in the lame fictional love stories through which the author was not even creative enough to think of an inclination on a relationship.  This idea could not have been more wrong.  I do not know what happened, but I witnessed it.  I experienced it.  Something certainly was different about that boy I saw.  However, there were no butterflies, no fireworks, not anything in the mushy gushy category.  In fact, quite on the contrary, I could not decide whether he was utterly ignorant and I would never remotely like him as a human being, or he was that shy, awkward kid that could be the project of my often titled "social butterfly" self.  Either I would avoid him to save my nerves or break the ice, introduce him to a few other quiet types, feel good about my good deed as I went about making actual friends.  How would I find which would ring true?  Naturally, I compliment his dance moves during a group game.  After taking a few moments to either ignore me or look down (his well over 6ft stature towered over my under 5ft body) to realize I was speaking to him.  He replied with an almost confused, or amused, "thanks" and a half smile.  I had made no progress in my deciphering.  Turns out he is in my film class. Through class introductions (everyone loves those...not) it is revealed that his favorite movie is Forrest Gump and he wants to be a psyche major and build an orphanage in a third world country; I was shocked and amazed.  Was I  completely off base?  This impressiveness was altered when he slept through the rest of the class.  Not to toot my own horn, but I like to consider myself a decent people- reader.  I had been right so far about all these folks, and then, there was this guy.  The next day, as we moved from our classroom to the lecture hall, I formally introduced myself, not as if this were out of character for me.  He responded in a robotic, yet kind manner, returning the favor.  Since he has no idea  that I even have a blog, much less do I have his permission to use his name, we shall call him Landon, because, well, simply because I like that name.  Landon and I sat together that class.  After two hours, we left that classroom strangers still.  That evening, after being ditched three times and an awful and lonely ride, I was enjoying a girls' night with my R.A. group at the Voices of Lee and Newsboys concert.  I laughed, worshipped, hung out, and had a surprisingly good time.  This was only the beginning, little did I know.  Somehow, oh how I hated getting to the buses and deciding which fateful locomotive held the best possible next couple of hours of my life, I was separated once again from my group.  All I can say is, when we get out of His way, God does incredible things, even little things for the utter joy of His beloved children.  Landon was beside his roommate, Mason (keep in mind my own creating of names for security) in the back seat, I sat in front with the rad Grayson, and two girls I met in front of us.  As I climbed to my inner window seat, Landon was making rhythmical taps and beats with his hands and feet.  Of course, I informed him that I was the only white girl on a step/ dance team, and, this time, I shocked him...in a good way.  Turns out, so was he, with the exception of guys, not girls.  Then, how this happened I have yet to know, we all began singing, sometimes pretty darn well, if I may add.  Country songs, movie songs, classic songs, R&B songs, you name it, we performed it.  After running low on a music pool of things we all knew, we chilled and chatted.  Mason was speaking to the lovely female in front of me, so I attempted to scoot over so as not to interfere since Grayson did not mind.  This also moved me closer to Landon.  Once again, exactly how it happened is a blur, this ride went into morning hours, anyhow, we began talking about music.  I listened to, how does one put it, little- known music, and guess what? So did Landon.  He asked me about countless bands and I was amazed to find this guy who wore Polo ( no offense anyone) not only knew about, but liked.  Then I mentioned how the greatest show I ever went to was Needtobreathe, who was very possibly my favorite band, which for me, the indecisive girl who listens to SO much music, is a major deal even playing with the idea of favorites.  Landon's jaw literally dropped.  In the darkness I had failed to notice, which he quickly revealed, his Needtobreathe shirt he was wearing because they were his favorite band.  This continued until, unfortunately, we arrived back to that beautiful Lee University campus.  As we unloaded, foot plus height difference and all, Landon told his R.A. Josh, arguably one of the coolest people to ever walk this planet, that we were having a moment.  My heart dropped.  My life up until this moment had given little time or care to the pursuit of fairytale, emphasis on "up until this moment."  After a hug from this new, friend, I suppose we could call, I walked back to my dorm feeling more girly than I ever had.  The next day, Landon asked to sit by me in class, yes, this shy guy initiated something, and this time, nothing was strange.  We walked to our group meeting and I fell in love with every detail he told me about himself.  He was a dancer.  He was from Athens, argo, a GA Dawgs fan.  He taught ballroom dance and etiquette classes.  He was humble (this one he did not tell me; I figured it out.)  The walk from one side of campus to the other went by unnaturally quickly, and upon walking in, he was saying something about us sitting somewhere when I was summoned by my group.  I went over to them, hurting both of our feelings, and I would have certainly done that differently if I could redo.  However, I caught up with him later on the way to bowling, and this bus ride is quite frankly the best moment of my seventeen years at this present moment.  We listened to music, our music, as he shared more and more beautiful details of himself.  He even  showed pictures and videos to assist commentate.  He took a gorgeous down syndrome young lady to prom.  He genuinely loved his family.  He enjoyed deep conversations about life.  He went to Goodwill to buy long sleeve tees, which he really liked.  He goes by his middle name.  He plays basketball.  He cannot drink regular chocolate milk because his friend and he had discovered some sort of organic chocolate milk that he swears is the best ever.  His brother and my brother have the same name.  His favorite number is three.  He loves Jesus.  He jokingly asked me to marry him, took a picture of us that he sent to his home friends that "approved." My heart did not just drop.  More like it flew or was stolen.  Once again, we had so very much in common, but I could not even focus on this fact because I was so infatuated with who he was and his heart, not a shallow, obsessive infatuation like that of a starstruck fangirl.  I legitimately wanted to spend time with him and learn more about him.  It made me content.  And how he acted made me think the feeling was mutual.  The next week and a half flew by.  Schedule conflicts and other factors hindered and actually drew us apart to an extent.  Here I sit, another week after it all ended.  Upon asking for one last hug in case we never saw each other again, although there did not seem to be much confidence behind the words, Landon replied, "We will."  So that initial strange feeling, was it love at first sight?  Interest at first sight?  Dislike at first sight that completely changed in a short time period?  Or, perhaps, it was no stereotype nor known described cliche.  Perhaps Landon and I had something, created something, that was not in any of the history or fiction books.  This seems exciting, oh, it was! But there are certainly tough repercussions that follow. How does one move one, yet not let go of, the greatest experience that has potential to not totally end?  Being a girl sucks.  The waiting game, waiting to be chased and cared for my our very own Prince Charming, is so much more difficult when it is with someone you hardly know that lives, well, not next door, to say the least.  Distance leaves me more confused than ever.  Prayer upon prayer, wish upon wish, flower upon flower, star upon star, maybe, just maybe the person you fall for falls head over heels for you as well.  This is not the end to this story.  I will not let it be.  Just a quick last word of advice, ask her/ him to dance.

The Man 5 Houses Down

       I cannot tell you his name.  He may have a wife he treat(s/ed) like royalty, a son in his spittin' image, a granddaughter whom looks forward to nothing more than a trip to his house, but I would not know.  I cannot tell you his age, though a completely grey head gives way to assumptions that he has lived a fair share of sunrises and sunsets...not a fair enough share.  I know him as the encouraging man five houses down.  Whenever I run and feel as though I cannot go on(whether in my workout or in life in general) I go by his house and he takes a pause from washing his truck to give me a smile, thumbs up, and on occasion, an encouraging word.  For seven days now, one week, I have run by that house with no such experience.  The truck is gone.  Yesterday, two American flags and two military flags were in his yard.  It is Memorial Day weekend.  Perhaps that is why they were placed there? So where is he? I suppose he must have served our country? I suppose he has saved me in multiple ways.  And I cannot tell you his name.  Did he have a good life?  Was he prepared to leave? Is he gone? Permanently? Although the phrase YOLO rides on the wrong side of my nerves, our shortage of time has been on my mind more than usual as of late- almost to a bothered state.  Death is natural.  It is not negative.  It is not the enemy.  Death is not truly what we fear.  Death marks the moment we have no more moments to do all we need to, all we want to, all we were meant to.  We are afraid of the lack of life we may or may not have accomplished when our time to meet Jesus comes.  Do not live in fear.  Let that fear be the fuel to chase your dreams, no matter how trivial they may seem.  And pray that I can take my own advice.

Masterpiece of Tangled Beauty and Beast

     We are all breaking, if not broken.  The said words are less important than the unspoken.  If I thought it'd do any good, I'd share a token, the most valuable thing I own, but poor in money, I'm rich in the unseen. But you don't care much for that; it doesn't produce a pretty penny.  As the dagger hits your heart, I see your swollen eyes soften. The three most deceiving, most healing words, said too often, but not meant enough: "I love you." But does anyone? Have we allowed sacrifice, being selfishly selfless, show us what to truly love truly means?  And so, what have we to show, to be, without passion the actual root of anything. And so, it is all about the money, the fame, the items, the name.  If only we were so driven for mankind, the kind of man would be entirely changed.  First, the soul, then the face. Coping is sin, for not in the natural, but how we choose. What's your addiction, and perhaps I will share a glimpse of mine? Oh, no! Our mutual assistant would never allow that, goes by the title pride.  Have you ever seen anything so tragic? Encountered anything so beautiful? So messy the human heart?  The epic, age-old battle between spite and love, below and above, so evident yet so convoluted.  "It's complicated." We say everything lies in the grey area, yet we are the ones who twist it.    It is simple, right and wrong. Good and bad.  To love, not to love.  We add conditions, circumstances, track records, and suddenly the picture is an abstract piece of art.  A masterpiece of tangled beauty and beast. I have no answer, no potion, no wise word, or solution.  All I know at the end of a day full of dreams and their fitting procrastination: We are a purposed creation.