Today was sunburnt skin
A man balanced rocks by the seashore in impossible poses
and she dropped a dollar in his tin
We wandered barefoot on the concrete walls above sunbathers
and basked in the newness of British Columbia air
listening to foreign tongues stilt and slip away from us on every side,
wafting in on silent breezes and out again
We gathered fresh fruit in a farmer's market
blueberries and raspberries, melons and peaches
and filled our bellies by the light of the setting sun on the grass by the bay
we watched the boats weigh anchor
and yachts of partygoers motor to and fro
until our limbs prickled with cold
forcing us to run back to the van to keep warm
Writing by candlelight
we made poetry of our night on the north shore
where the waters sparkled like fireworks with the city lights
and we watched the moon hang low and full on the horizon
the harvest moon
lulled us to sleep

It has come time for endings
It has come time for goodbyes
With careful, slow moves I cut myself from the tapestry
I unbraid and leave frayed edges swollen and stinging
I work despite the dull ache of my muscles
The tearing of some ephemeral skin
I weep and the salty tears sting
I crawl and my wounds scream
I gather my pieces
and cast off the limbs that refuse to come clean
Only what I can carry
heart, liver, lungs
my backbone drags behind through the dust
I am streamlined, next to nothing
The golden arrow of my spirit nearly naked, translucent
I pull dreams back in upon myself
gossamer intentions flutter
like the fragile netting of spider's webs
that have been strung to the far reaches of heaven
and will recess into the womb of my creation
to be rebuilt anew

Glenn and Joe
Pull off their shoes
Compare soles
Rubber to leather
Discuss the best
floor for
softshoe
Dancing with
bad knees
Put back Bud Lights
Keep jukebox
time on the bar
Sing along
Glenn and Joe
Comparing soles
Discuss
softshoe but
Hardshoe
themselves
into the
floor


From the book "Being" by Amber Jade
Copyright 2000 Amber Jade

Don’t get too close, boy
I am not the daytime girl you read about in magazines
I am more apt to be afraid
I am scorching and careless of you
These are not streetlights shining through my skin
This is me, so bright and shameless
coming through the cracks
and I am not asking for repair
Don't turn your back on me, boy
I am not the late night girl
you fantasize about in picture shows
I am more apt to be brave
I am rocking the boat
These arms are weak with swimming
but I am not worse for the wear
and I am not looking for saving

From the book "Being" by Amber Jade
Copyright 2000 Amber Jade

My dear ones…

We don’t know what we’re doing. Isn't it time to just admit it?

You, me, all of us... just... like... duuuuhhhh.

We give each other doctorate degrees for learning a lot about what other people who equally don't know what they are doing think.

We judge each other, calling people we don't like "stupid", when we don't even really know why we're alive, or what life is, or what the point of all of this is... if there is any.

We can get to the moon and we can push our children to score high in tests we invented based on arbitrary metrics, but we can't overcome the urge to eat the brownie, we can't keep our hearts from slamming and our palms from sweating when we step up to a podium in front of a room of peers, and we can't resist judging people based on appearance even when we think we can.

We don't understand our own minds, and we can't choose our own choices even when we think we do. 

What happens when we embrace the truth?

Don’t feign indifference, ease, confidence, perfection.
Nobody has it.
Instagram is a liar.
There’s no power in the Emperor’s Clothes.


Embrace your weakness, your fear, 
the overwhelming rage and pain and failure of your daily struggle and identity. 


Lean into your broken heart and listen to its cry for help. 


Open your eyes on the human mess left crushed under the weight of invisible urges, habits and thoughts and cultural expectations. 


Grit your teeth against the taste of how you unknowingly invited this into you, and crushed yourself in order to earn a place in the armpit of an undeserving culture of imitation and lack of fulfillment. 


Seek the scrape of your fists on the walls and the bruising of your knees on the rock bottom of your isolation, guilt, shame, and regret. 


Never brace yourself for the inevitable fall.


Never stall before your arrival at that point of no return, but bring it forever closer to the light, closer to your beating heart, and closer to the surface. 


Bring your sensitivity into sharp relief, dive into your irritation and desire to change something, anything, and light a flame under your utter resolve to break free. 


There is nothing that fuels the evolution of the human race more than a complete conscious refusal to accept less than joy, less than connection, less than communion, less than truth, less than love. 

And you deserve all of it.


Bring that point of breaking forward until it is hot and raw and bleeding on your kitchen table. 


Don't avoid it, burying it under layers of memory, repression, ignorance. 


This hot red poker in your side is your ticket to motion, piercing through the veils of complacency, an ignition switch launching you toward the being that you came to BE. 


The pain is a gift, wanting to throw you into action, to force you to release all the ties that bind and the baggage that suffocates you, and to cast off all chains as you rise into the unknown, kicking and screaming in every direction, as you fight for the gulp of fresh air you, my dear one, deserved since the first breath you took. 


You didn't come here to slowly drown in the whirlpool of complacency. 


You came here to learn to live fully and authentically. 


You came here to breathe, sharp and clean and possessively, drawing in that aliveness you long for in a sweet and tonic soprano of light, and exhaling the great great confusion of disappointing years of dissonance.


You are the cauldron, the epicenter of the machine of transformation, and the zero point between what is and what can be. 


You are the event horizon.


Choose, choose, and choose again, even when there seems no choice, to raise that rocky bottom of everything you fear until it is up so close that you no longer have to fall through the depths to reach it. 


Raise it up until you stand on it every day, and say:


Today I will only go forward into the unknown, and rise higher.


I will accept nothing less. 


This very moment is the point of no return, and every moment thereafter. 


I will not wait to make the change I know I must make. 


I will not waste my life drowning and waving for help. 


I will save me.


I will rise.

I am a fish who has learned to fly
I am forever changed
Let go your teeth
I cannot take you on my back
Your gills would only dry and crack
and it looks so far down from up there
The summer sun you idolize
would only burn
if you get too close
and the clouds are not sufficient rain for fins
you must have wings for sky things
let go
let go and swim
some things were meant to be so
I am weary of bringing hail and leaves for you to see
and the soot shores that turn my feathers black
are spent and will fall away beneath me
I will not be held any longer by time and tide
I am not of sea, but made of flight
so turn eye and tail
return to the deep
I am the pearl you cannot keep

After one sweaty summer show in a park, I was approached by one of my loyal fans.

Let’s call him Sam.

Sam was one of those fans an artist dreams about having: supportive, active, an ambassador of your message. He had bought several large boxes of my CDs to give away to friends and family the Christmas before, and singlehandedly paid my rent that month. He was a good guy with a heart of gold.

Sam’s brother-in-law, let’s call him Jim, had recently become estranged from Sam’s sister.

Jim was a good guy, too. But, Jim had a very, very bad problem.

It was a sad, but all-too-familiar story: After several years of experimenting with drugs and alcohol, Jim had developed a devastating addiction to heroin.

Heroin? How? It was unclear to Jim how he got there. There was no decisive moment, no single misstep to blame for what came next. Everyone else seemed to have a better perspective on his fall from grace than he did. It felt like one day he was walking through his life, perhaps a little stumble here and there, and the next he was sliding slowly down an icy hill, picking up speed, until a rocky bottom came up at him faster than he could figure out what happened.

He hit the ground with a resounding clunk.

Jim's wife left him. He lost custody of his children, and then lost visitation rights. He lost his job, his home, his friends, and his health. His collarbone jutted out of his T-shirt, and his arms and toes were bruised and speckled with needle marks. If things didn’t turn around, he knew, he could soon lose his life. 
​
Jim’s existence was spiraling completely out of control, but no matter what he tried, he couldn’t seem to stop it. A series of failures and slights along the way were blows that took chunks out of his soul. He had lost all faith in himself.

It seemed like the whole world had forgotten him. A black cloud of inescapable darkness had him tightly in its grip. 

But, then... a tiny ray of light broke through.

​Unexpectedly, Sam dropped by, and handed Jim the only Christmas gift he would receive that year, the “Breathe” CD. It was a brief and slightly awkward visit, but the gesture of kindness echoed through Jim's frail frame.

"Breathe" wasn’t the kind of music Jim would normally listen to, but life at the shelter was both painfully lonely and painfully overcrowded, and today he just needed a little peace. So, he placed the CD into his portable CD player (one of the few possessions he hadn't sold to pay for his addiction, yet) put his headphones on, and lay back on the squeaky cot with his eyes closed, hoping to escape his harsh reality, if only for a moment.

What was this about? He flipped the CD case open and pulled out the insert. 

The song was called “Sober.” One simple word that, for so long, had seemed impossible to live.

“Hold on. Trust that solace finds you still…Trust your soul to miracles.”

​He scoffed at the words. 

​Yeah, right.

Then, one line hung in the air, “We still hold everything, and the grace to make a stand.”

For the first time in over a year, Jim felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe he was still worth something. Maybe there was a chance to prove it. If not to everyone else, then at least to himself. The possibility felt both terrifying and electrifying. It overwhelmed him and he found himself in tears, listening to the song on repeat, over and over.


Jim cried for what seemed like hours, then picked himself up, and made a decision that would change everything.

A month later, Jim asked Sam to thank me for changing his life, for writing the song and giving him the message that he still had time to change his life for the better. He was too shy to thank me himself.

After sharing the story, Sam left. I sat a long time contemplating what I'd heard. I was shocked, honored, and overwhelmed. 

I hadn’t written the song about actually getting sober. "Sober" was a metaphor for completely different subject, a story about a friend of mine, the abuse she suffered in her relationships, and the illogical decisions we humans make in pursuit of connection.

​Jim's interpretation of "Sober" was completely his own. And so was his triumph.

As a young artist, of course I tended to get all wrapped up in what I had to say, thinking my message was Important, with a capital “I”. I wrote to change the world for the better, but when it happened, it wasn't how I expected, and I certainly didn't deserve a single ounce of credit.

I was immensely humbled in that moment, and learned something I’ve held onto since then... 

It is in our nature to evolve, to grow, to be resilient, and to become better versions of ourselves. All we need is a reason to let go of the anchor of our perceived  limitations, so we can reach out and grasp who we really are.

I have a feeling you will be in the library
Book in hand, half in some other world
You will always smile predictably and perfectly when you look up and see me observing you from afar in the dust-lingering quiet
You'll close your book, and ask me "What?"
And blink
And I will say "Oh, nothing..."
You will wait awkwardly, but warmly, for me to turn on my heel
Before you resume


"What" is that I don't want a library of love
With hearts locked away in intellectual discourse
Straightened up in a proper binding of intellect and reason
I am vermin
I am hungry for destruction
For the mingling of tails and claws
Fur and teeth and writhing
And ripping your pretty words to shreds


I don't think it will be long before you realize you don't love me
That warm smile reads:
I am fascinating because
You are frightened of me
and...
You just don't know it yet


Copyright 2020 Amber Jade