You are worth being seen
despite what anyone,
even the madness inside of your mind will say.
That pain you feel —
you don't have to deny is real.
But pain is not a place we have to stay.
You get a say
in how your story gets rewritten.
So don't deny yourself
the dreams that keep you up at night.
We don't choose what happens to us
but we can decide
if we come equipped to fight —
with words as our weapons,
words written, spoken,
praised & prayed,
every last syllable gets laid
between your voice
and the choice you bare
to lay everything out into the open,
so long as you don't stop hopin'.
Believe you belong.
Because when we lose our sense of self-worth
we stop investing in our own value —
and your value exchanged
creates the cultural change
that changes stories,
even the ones stolen or lost.
Every time you hold back,
it will cost
the generation behind you.
So let your difference
be what makes a difference
& get out of your own way.
Speak everything,
everything
that you are afraid to say.
Finds me everywhere.
It's in every hope I have
and heartache I endure.
It's in every step I take forward
and each memory I try and forget.
Sometimes I wonder
if fear just wants to be my friend —
but in the end
I know I can't continue to fight
a foreshadowing of failures
or even freedom to come.
So instead I draw its shadow nearer
and surrender it back to the light.
It's there I've found
my faith is never without fear.
And the edge
is the only way
to make it to the other side.
I broke everything
when I chose to heal.
will you part in peace
or rather
in pieces
I waited
and I waited
and I even waited tables
while I waited —
but my dreams
had been sedated.
I was seeking a kind of success
that could change my family's address.
I ran in circles from myself,
dodging every other temptation
to get there quicker
by doing it like everyone else.
So I wrote to rewrite
the wrongs I had to fight,
and I spoke when no one else would
so the generations after me
knew that they could.
I even allowed myself to serve and to care
for those who exploited my heart
& treated me unfair.
I stood firmly
even when I was being held back.
I ignored the fine print
explaining how my qualifications
would always lack.
I just kept waiting —
for my chance,
for a choice,
for the acknowledgment of my voice.
I waited
and I waited
until I realized
every direction I went
would always be invaded
by them
waiting
for me
to fail.
A division that never added up.
Don't do too much,
don't speak too loud,
stay humble,
stay silent —
and you'll do us all proud.
Don't think your worth
is worthwhile,
just sit back in this season
and wait on our promise for a while.
I'm sure your time will come.
Or maybe it won't.
Just remember —
right before you start
to finally wake up:
DON'T.
Maybe I shouldn't have kept
chasing the darkness —
in order to spread light.
I didn't know how to survive
without suffering.
We supposedly always have it —
most days we convince ourselves we really don't.
The way we live,
the relationships we're in,
whether we've risen to the top
or we're starting from scratch beginning again.
From health to heartbreak,
to work and worry,
whether we look forward or behind us
the truth keeps getting a little more blurry.
We strive for independence,
reluctant to ever reach out when we need,
always giving ourselves to everyone else,
convinced our selflessness
can cover up our own inner greed.
Never enough —
we keep on choosing,
insisting any choice
will keep us from losing,
but every decision
keeps coming with another expense.
"We are doing the best we can"
becomes our greatest defense.
It's easier to forget we have free will
when we feel caged or controlled
within our own choices —
and soon the denial of our options
becomes the silencing
of our voices.
Don't look back —
you'll trip up on the past you left behind.
Run.
Don't worry about what you will find,
but rather trust —
I'll find you.
Believe again
that there's no mountain I wouldn't move
to get to you.
They couldn't take
what you weren't willing to give,
and now there's nothing left
but the little faith you kept undisclosed —
because no matter how much you praised and you prayed,
no one really knows
the depths of doubt you carried.
You tried to protect
what you did not understand,
but I see how you pleaded
every time you buried another conflict
that contradicted my love and grace.
You always held back any trace
of the hesitation you had —
but by holding your breath
you're now left gasping for a trace
of my word.
So run.
It can't be over
if it was never even real.
How much longer can you deny and suppress
the truth that you've grown accustom
to catering to their appeal?
You were willing to deny how you feel,
but my conviction is not yours to conceal.
I love you at your worst
while they elevate you at your best.
Now it's time
to run —
and let my will carry out the rest.
The unlearning
becomes an unraveling.
being used as a muse
was not a game
I played anymore.
you are worth
the risk
to rebuild
to rewrite
and to restore
a closed door
into an open room —
and the internal belief
that you are worth
leaving the 99.
you are worth fighting for.
~Dr.JIt's knowing I can't
that tempts me to lie.
It's believing you will
that keeps me willing to try.
Everything she is not
skewed the shape
you were supposed to take
hold of
in your hand.
The more she pressed
the quicker it slipped away,
stirring her unsettled mind
until sense would find its way
back to her.
"you're too much"
"you're not enough" —
the conflict
would contradict
and control
the shape she even saw herself through.
It was no full circle
or heart curved inwards at the top.
It twisted into a knot
no one could loose,
let alone
love.
There wasn't any one path she could trace
that led to this moment —
the one where she was giving up.
It was a collection, a crossing,
an interconnection of many
misguided navigations that led her here.
This is where she would stop
moving her dreams forward,
convinced the only way
to survive their demise
was to stop trying altogether.
She would no longer wait
or wield her worth
to wonder for a purpose
never seeming to be fulfilled.
She would make herself
as small and insignificant
as she felt —
and hope no one noticed
as they passed her by
on the way to their
promised land.
Following the hit, the high would come.
It lasted just long enough to take another deep breath
before it all came crashing back down inside.
Living in the open, susceptible to being thrown back
into the same trash I first crawled out of,
was no longer an option.
Could I keep escaping the crushing
of an enclosing heart?
It's easier to shelf those chapters,
the kind forged in the fire.
With each sentence, I held back;
suffocated by the defeating words
fear twisted and rung like a wet towel,
showering poison over my mouth.
Night after night of uncertainty
became a version of truth I did not understand.
I sharpened my defense,
knowing another battle would arise
as soon as the sun lifted
and glared its rays through my bedroom window.
Change was coming.
It was time to get up now —
to gather what little was left of my sense of worth
and rally enough courage
to rise up off my living room floor.
Dawn had broken through my second floor window
and evidence of its musk
continued to seep through the front door,
confirming what I already knew:
Change was here.
Still in the waiting,
the air caught inside of my chest,
daring me to release it.
I knew I couldn't — or rather, I wouldn't.
Not yet.
In order to release all of that pressure
meant I'd finally have to acknowledge
there was even something inside,
pressing my spirit, my voice,
and the very life I struggled to breathe
down in the first place.
I know I don't belong outside of the fire
in which I have fumed
and gathered the wood to make.
It was easier to hold it all in.
It was even expected —
to hold the very evidence of my existence,
back.
no self-help
could have
saved a story
like mine.
It took losing her own story
to learn that ripped out pages
never made her anything less.
She chased the words
until the words chased her back.
Holy Hell.
~Dr.J
I had a friend.
~Dr.J
There was a place.
~Dr.Jto face real freedom,
not the false pretenses of it,
she had to face herself.
When you lose someone you love
the loss
takes a part of you too
you are now reconfigured —
broken up into parts
of a once considered whole
you can't get back
what was never really yours
A life on loan
means the only thing we ever truly own
is our choices
love lost
may be found again but can never be undone
now the choice is no longer about letting go
for it's all
already gone
its a mere figment of imagination
keeping you holding on
the question becomes
will you part in peace
or rather
in pieces
No.
You don't get to do that.
You don't get to define the line
that boxes me in
you don't get to play the martyr or the savior —
whatever I lose you will never win
This is not your fight
not your chance to be self-righteous and prove you're right
Don't bring me into the box
you built
to cover up your own personal shame and guilt
It's not my role to rally you to see
what I struggle to myself believe
I can't keep stopping to explain
a form of expression
that does not stay in any one lane
Without you I know I may likely fail
but that risk is worth being rooted in these words:
My soul is not for sale.
Break until there's breakthrough.
Break until the breakdown
causes the cracks in our lives to be so evident
the evidence of light cannot be contained.
.jpg)
I was just here to prove you right
I'm that woman
the one you always feared I would be
the one you can cast all blame on
blemish free
mocked by a mob
who are too blind to see
the stones they carry
were meant to build the house of God
instead they proclaimed it was their job
to bury
mine instead
Hiding their chisels
behind their chest
holding their breath
until I gave up and left.
Not knowing it was always
only
a matter of time
before I would find
a stone of my own
I am a woman after all
I caused the fall
I saw our Savior first after he was resurrected
It was I who would carry Christ in my womb as a baby
I
am a woman
called
yet never to be controlled
faithful
and yet always
to be feared.
It's not a matter of if you can
Or if you should
But you must
Continue to
B U I L D
Even as you are breaking
Keep building
One layer
Laid to rest at a time
For when you build from within
You stand rooted no matter how powerful
the wind of opposition will sway
Even as you feel tossed out and disregarded as rubble
Make monuments out of what's been tarnished and torn.
There is never damage too deep
That can keep
Any part of you from being pieced
back together again whole
Build through the pain
Build even through the heart ache
Build because you were created to
And build believing even though you fall
you can never truly break.
You have nothing else to prove
when you realize
the greatest thing you can ever lose
is your way.
I've been ashamed
you'd see me for who I really am
someone who only thinks they can
but who fails to confront comfort closing in
who waits and waits and waits
always withholding her words from within
I've been afraid
you'd know my name
so I'd hide behind someone else's
Truth is,
I've shaken every time I've stepped onto a stage
Even now,
I'm wishing someone else's voice were filling this page
It's knowing I can't
that tempts me to lie
It's believing you will
that keeps me willing to try
Quieted —
they tried to keep her quiet again
serving up her silence
on a tray they would feed their ego from
there was always a line between
their virtue and her voice
the rules were already written
and she wasn't allowed to write outside of the lines
she was allowed to assume a voice
so long as it represented their own
she would be given a mic
if only she realized it was given on loan
her tone must be tame enough to never taunt
any idea, story or thought
that isn't aligned with what they taught
So she just quieted down
sticking to the script
like they said
a page without a passage
a pen without lead
she would just
stay within the lane they leftover
as they stepped over
her words
and her worth
in order to keep their own
