Can't Buy Love

At the moment I am very disenfranchised by the idea of family. Everyday the list of things I believe in grows shorter and familial love has joined the ranks with hopes, dreams, romance, and faith. My family is one big melting pot of falling apart and try as I might there is no glue strong enough to bring us together or to hold us together and I guess that's just the way life goes. My sister has willingly avoided being close to anyone in our family while basking in the glory of well-to-do inlaws. And she doesn't have to worry because her love is bought and paid for and I'm sure she is self-assured that she has bought and paid for our love and can toss us to the wayside whenever the bigger fish comes up to be fried.

I'm 20 years old, not pregnant, in college, and I have a job. Both of my older sisters got pregnant in high school, float around between employment and unemployment and toss around the idea of going back to school but the best they've gone is part-time despite the fact that at each time neither of them was working. Yet my life seems to be the one thats lacking. They both have husbands, kids, some semblance of money and both get to say a big "forget you" to me or my mom whenever our requests don't suit them.

My little sister is a sixteen year high school dropout. She's sitting at an eighth grade education and it took her failing the seventh grade twice and the eighth grade once for her to get to that dropout status. Yet she's had steady boyfriends. Has a steady boyfriend now. Gets a two hundred dollar check every month from my dads social security for doing nothing. Her and her boyfriend live in an upstairs bedroom and neither of them work. But my life seems to be the one that's lacking.

I've spent a whole month waiting to see a bunch of my best friends in the whole world. People who have seen me at my worst, who were there for me before, during, and after. Who put up with me when I'm being a pain and love me when I'm not. I've been waiting to see them, counting down the days, excited beyond all reason. And the night before my sister decides to tell me via facebook that an outing with the in-laws is more important than the request her little sister had a whole month before the day. A facebook message when she knows I don't have internet access. Doesn't text me unti maybe an hour before when it's far past impossible to get a ride to see my best friend whom I haven't seen in six months because she's been abroad. Whom I won't get to see until September because we both work and live an hour and a half away from each other. A whole day I could have spent with a whole bunch of my friends wasted because I couldn't buy my sisters love.

I guess love costs a day at Hersheypark and an evening out.

Wish I was that rich.

My chest really hurts right now so I'm either heartbroken or having a heart attack. I'll send you a note either way; one just might be from heaven.

Patchwork Prayers

Bathsheeba

There was golden sun on golden skin
satisfaction of every lonely ache and whim
She was bathing on an open roof
She was beautiful, that's the honest truth


Golden skin became a golden sky
David was just a regular guy
She was life rushing through his veins
She was beautiful, she didn't need a name


David followed her wherever she went
He loved her long till he was well and spent
Still her beautiful voice called to him
and David fell to gypsy spells and loved again


(C.) She was bathing in the open air
acting like she didn't notice that David was there
but she was waiting, glowing golden just for a prince
she hasn't thought of anything since


Perched upon an old kitchen stool
David was her proud and personal fool
she sang to him in the lamplit room
Pleading with God that love would follow soon


It wasn't right but how could it be wrong
as the final chords pierced the empty night
still her song was swallowed by the traffic in a quiet town
She searched his eyes not sure to say what she found


Laughter filled the sky with the stars
David could never get quite too far
before gypsy eyes denied goodbye
Caught in the middle was that regular guy


(C.) She was bathing on an open stage
acting tame in her golden gilded cage
but she was waiting, glowing for love absent
She knew that David could not resist


(C.) She was bathing in the candle flame
Jealousy finally had a name
Bathsheeba knew how to string his heart
That yearning voice singing the perfect parts


David was just a regular guy
I can't compete with those gypsy sighs

I wrote this because I was trying to be subtle about an admittedly frivolous thought that was weighing my mind. At first I had trouble letting people see it because it didn't feel very subtle to me. I suppose it's because I'm such an awful songwriter. I can't detach myself from my work. I don't write songs about other peoples stories. I write about my stories. Every song is a little bit of Sam somewhere and so it's hard to let it go. If someone rejects the song is it the same as rejecting me? I struggle with that question a lot. However, if I don't tell my stories who will? My banner is all about leaving my mark on the world. If I want to make a mark I have to be willing to make the stamp as well and if that stamp happens to be inked with blood, sweat, tears, and maybe a few drops of coffee there; as I probably spilled coffee on the table I set the stamp on. Who better then me to wield it?

So welcome to the concert of my life.

Have fun in the amusement park of my mind.

Say hello to the stage crew of my decisions with that backstage pass to the prayers of my heart.

Subtle or not.

Besides the fact that the answer is not. Besides the fact that I'm about as subtle as a color-blind bull....

Please don't judge my grammer

<3 Patchwork Prayers

Where Do Apples Fall?

Sometimes I get scared.

I'm in college. I probably should not be in college. But I am.

Why? Why am I here?

I still can't answer that. Sometimes when I am walking around campus...it hits me.

I am here.

I'm surroundeed by Dormitories, Student Centers, Academic Buildings...and students. Girls and boys who look just like me...or not like me...we're all here.

But how many of us feel like we don't belong?

How many of us look at a bank and count the pennies in our pocket? How many of us think of our houses and see little more than a roof and some walls, not much of a home. How many of us look at our families and ask

"Why am I the first?"

"What made this so hard?"

And you look back at your past and you realize everything made it too hard.

So, why are you here?

It must be a miracle.

It is a miracle.

But what happens when miracles are only as good as they seem.

When you look around the dormitories, student centers, and academic buildings.

And you don't belong.

When you look around at the students surrounding you, the girls and boys that look like you...

And you don't belong.

You wonder, do they feel like this too?

You think "I'll find home"

but home isn't there.

You're different now,

Not better,

but try convincing anyone of that.

You can't hide how you've changed,

You can't hide your experience.

So where do you belong?

Here.

There.

Does the apple fall far from the tree.

Can you let go of home because you have to if you want to belong. Do you hide when you're at home because you can't belong...

Or do you fall back into the world that didn't want you

The world you fought to free yourself from

The world that gave you a miracle.

Where do the apples fall?