Growing Up

I love young people. Let me rephrase that: I love people younger than myself. I love participating in their lives and giving them direction. Helping them with their weaknesses and the shortcomings of being a young person. I truly enjoy sharing my experiences and hoping that they learn from them. I love motivating the hearts of those I speak to and strengthening them in the little ways I can.

I love my sister. I see the best of myself in her, with none of the weaknesses. I see resilience, tenacity, love and hope. She sometimes breaks, but its OK, the fractures are really minor, and I am always there to help her pic up the pieces. In fact, I see that she won't need me soon, and that makes me happy. Neither of us will ever fit into skinny jeans, but honestly, F random fads from today's pop culture. Classic beauty is something I have always values, and that is what my sister possesses - an exterior classic beauty punctuated by an interior that leaves people envious.

I love myself. I love myself, not in a narcissistic fashion, but in a healing fashion. I love that I have surpassed many of my weaknesses and now pick one, attack it and move on. I see resilience within my heart. I am saddened by the rust I see accumulating on my mind and body. This work is not for me. It traps me in a comfort that sucks the focus from me. Back to education I go, to find my inner strength again.

Forest Nights

Sometimes I have to stare
Through things in order to think.
As tears wash the color from my brown-skinned face
And drip through the firmament
Leaving islands of solitude
On my impressions.
In long winded tones and guttural thoughts
I erode foundations of self based on others
And begin that which is most laborious:

Sure it is
What it was.
If it wasn't
Then its wrong.
In the sun
Is the sky,
See the blue
Turn to night.
In denial,
In the mind
Decisions grow
In time.
The beanstalk
Isn't tall
To the giants
Blank stares.

The stars have heretofore never seemed so sweet -
Like nightingales dancing among fragrant night flowers.
Moon glow filtered through crooked tree fingers
Leaving tidal waves of love washing through the redwood eve.
I am a vagabond stealing rays of love from this infinite highway-
Shooting stars hijack my attention from this terrafirma.
The Earth is where I'm standing, and it is my humble home.
Though my days on it are numbered, my work will be paramount
To create a world that will be our monument.

Grains of sand on a dew drops fall

It's been a while since I've seen that summertime flow,
Tank tops, torn jeans and a bonfires glow.
Circumscribe a day in the sun for a burn,
But that burn pays off with a brown skin turn.

Sand seems to always be questionable friend,
She burns sometimes and ends up in your hair.
But the time she's gone, we are all thus aware
And miss her sadly with ocean ward stares.

Cuts and bruises just mean that your skin is too thin.
So when I say to the sun, "If you were my girlfriend.."
And she laughs, I can't cry
Cause its all just pretend.

Its been a while since the moon made the sea glow blue,
and the stars twinkles reflect on stranded tide pools.
Windows into a life that I might not find
Disappear once again when it 'comes high tide.

I hear giggles and chords and them oceanside birds.
A crackle and hiss and a smore's fire kiss.
Blankets underneath and blankets over top
And that ocean roar interrupts loves gaze on the rocks.

Its been a while since the dawn of the sun on horizon
Was reflected by the calm sea's gentle breezes.
Nights spent soul searching inside rewarded
By beauty in the form of a golden tear.

Love takes forms tantamount to the waves shown forth
From these beauteous breezes.
And the ocean swells past every tide to remind that love on this Earth never ceases.
All the knowledge of self in a dove, genuflect for the banner of truth far above,
Was exposed when a fish nibbled forth on a strand of that which I was created to know.

A new blog a new self

Journals are a great way to keep track of changes in self. Growth tracked in words. I have noticed that I sometimes lose touch with my own journals. The self that existed in those words ends up so different then the existent self that I don't associate with it. With a normal paper journal the solution is simple: get a new journal. Generally the journal has been filled with pictures, writings and quotes, so it is time to get a new one anyways.

Blogs are a little different. I started Strangers Talking as a way to express myself. I needed to discuss important issues within myself (through verse) in a place that I could always access. I needed to sweat the small stuff. To express a backlog of frustration, sadness, anger, etc and revisit it so that I could understand it.

Then something silly happened. People started reading it. I had always wanted my friends to read my blog, but not because I think I am a good writer (which I obviously am not), but because I wanted to give them insight into the conflict that is Pedram - the person that empathizes with too much and is constantly changing. I wanted it to lead to conversation in reality about who we are as people because, honestly, that discussion was the crux of my existence at the moment.

The need to understand my inner conflict was embodied in my need to have deep intellectual and emotional discourse. I was still so green at spirituality and religion I was not yet ready to examine it on any real level, so I turned to all I knew - passion.

Time passed. I grew. I grew. I wrote in my more and more and published what I wrote less and less. The blog took on a life of its own - fueled by hundreds of entries that were very heavily soaked in emotion.

It was too much. I am no longer that person that started that blog. The self-righteousness that is associated with so many of its words irks me. The heavy cloud of emotion weighs my soul. Hence this new creation.

A new emotional start.

The old one is still out there (under a new URL). If you want access to it, feel free to ask.