Stories and poetry from an overly-curious traveler. Stories shape the way I see the world, and I want to share my stories with you.
Hello all,
Thank you for your encouragement and support for my writing. I wrote and published a book of poetry recently.
Please check it out on Barnes and Noble or Amazon 🙂
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-house-of-empty-spaces-julie-sequoia-webb/1142852123
With gratitude,
Julie
I lost you
Before I even knew who you were
The memory is not real
But shaped by years without
The reality is a blur
Filled with doubt
The first pain I felt
The first blow I was dealt
Was grief
Disbelief
Who would you be today?
How different would my life be
If you had grown older loving me
You were my protector
My security
My father figure
You made everything better
With your presence
Sitting in your wood-paneled station wagon
I was too young to know what happened
I was left alone, without an explanation
Only an absence, an imagination
I imagined that you could see me
From somewhere out there
A child’s rationale of death, inconceivably
I imagined you knew all the bad things
Everything I had done
That you could see from the sky
Nothing now escaped your eyes
I couldn’t explain grief until I was older
Until I had words for these things
The feelings that loss brings
Grief comes at strange times
On the airplane, in checkout lines
At the DMV, when I’m empty
20 years later in therapy
It sneaks up on me
Maybe I grieve you all the time
Yet you are only a memory
A photograph I keep with me
A frog that jumps across my path
And I imagine that you see me
After all these years you laugh
Since you’re not here
I can make you anything I want
My loss grows flowers
I feel your love in the present
You want to cancel debt
But you haven’t fixed the problem yet
Will you take away the sports centers
The luxurious salary of tenured professors
The constant updates and new computers
Our debt piles up
While campuses expand
Education inflation
Loans on demand
What does an 18-year-old know of debt
Their brain hasn’t formed yet
Tricking kids into an expensive education
Before they’ve got the information
Can you cancel the problem without a solution
Will you also forgive the exorbitant institution?
Erase the debt, erase the problems
It’s easier to erase them than to solve them
How will we change the education system
For we must change, everything is different
What we now pay doesn’t get us what we want
An education no longer pays the bills
Our debt stays with us until we write our wills
A student comes out with no opportunity
For what do we pay this enormous fee?
When it’s all on the internet for free
Perhaps college should teach financial security
Critical thinking skills could come in handy
How can you cancel debt without reducing the cost
It seems the point has been lost
Wipe the slate clean
For the American dream
You’re forgiveness doesn’t mean a thing
When the colleges are still charging
More than we can pay
Another student takes a loan every day
Just to get through
Without a thought of what this will do
You’ll never to be able to buy a house someday
But all of this we won’t say
A mountain of debt
An unsustainable way
To grow up
To start a future
Does college really pay?
We are paying till the day we die
We can kiss the college dream goodbye
The universities are getting rich in front of our eyes
Do you see what our debt buys?
A stuck generation
Don’t cancel the debt
Cancel the lies
Make the colleges pay the bill
For they are participating in the problem still
Getting fat checks from wealthy alumni
Dedicating buildings, while the rest of us stand by
First make the cost go down
Address the hole we have not stopped digging yet
Until then we will continue to drown
In student debt
Everybody is watching me
Eyes in my walls
Holes poked through
An inner view
At once I realize
I’m being watched
I weigh the cost
I’m aware of the eyes
And don’t know what to do
Seeing my inside
When I’m alone
Vulnerable at home
I replay all my actions
All that has already happened
The eyes don’t go away
How long has it been this way
An intrusion of privacy
An anonymous view
A subtle crime
That will go unpunished
The discomfort is mine
And then I wake up with a start
Replaying my surveillance
In my waking state
I realize my fate
I’m being watched at any rate
Awake or asleep
Privacy is a luxury
My nightmare is that everyone can see
I’ll no longer be alone
I’m being watched through my walls
I’m being watched in my home,
I’m being watched by strangers
By my computer, my phone
I’m being watched by myself
At every moment
But who is the watcher?
Are the eyes my own?
How do you move through the world
When the world is against you
It will not admit it out loud
But will hint of injustice
In ways that you will feel
Yet will not be able to explain
It will make you question what is true
The pain will be your pain
How do you move through the world
When you are set up for failure
When you didn’t get the same
Amount of
Time
Love
Money
And you know it
Others know it too
But will not acknowledge
At least not to you
They pray for you to
Go to college
Work harder
Change
Deal with it
College doesn’t fix broken dreams
College doesn’t sew up the seams
Of unfairness, life’s cruelty
The heaviness of humanity
Resting laboriously
On certain beings
Others will not say
Not to your face
It will be talked about
You will be talked about
Not by name
Impersonally
Theoretically
Speculatively
In offices, in meetings, in expensive rooms
With catered dinners, stuffed pockets
Fancy watches, privelge
But nobody will do anything about it
Except you
It’s up to you
The makers of the problem
Will not offer a solution
But who created the problem?
How can you blame an institution?
The individual lingers
Behind corporate names
Government agendas
Money and fame
There are too many fingers
To point
Not enough to touch
To change
Help is offered
With things expected in return
Help is not free
It is not given willingly
Some people deserve things
Others only accept what help brings
Who decides who gets help
Help is a transaction
Not a gaurentee
Success is not equally distributed
Help is not equally distributed
Despite the need
The desperate plea
Acceptance
Prayer
Pity
It’s life, it’s just hard
You’ll survive
These words run marathons
Around dispair
By people trying to care
These words are easy to say
Smooth utterances of the fortunate
The card dealing
The ones in control
The lucky ones
Things are going thier way
How do you move through the world
When you don’t have a voice
When you can’t speak
When you don’t know what to say
To get what you want
And even if you said it
Wrote it all down
It would be in the wrong language
In the wrong font
Nobody will tell you the rules
You fumble around in the dark
Looking for tools
Finding only a spark
It’s not enough
How do you move through the world
When you’re invisible
When no one sees you
When no one cares
Eyes averted
When you are painfully aware
Of the feeling
Of it being unfair
Of the meaning
Not going anywhere
Empathy is not possible
Without knowing
A society of hostile
Feelings growing
How can you fix
What you’ve never experienced
What you don’t understand
The ones who have the power
Seem to have the better hand
And you
The one who never got to
What do you have planned?
Will you be able to demand
Something different
What is a prayer
A hopeful plea for someone to care
Something or someone
That’s bigger than everything else out there
A request for help
A feeling that we are in control
Softly pulling the invisible strings
Addressed to a God we cannot know
A mysterious force
Reliquished to the void
That manages all things
A comfort in a sea of insecurities
A negotiation for our impurities
A twisting of God’s arm
Despite the selfish nature of prayer
We mean no harm
We pray for our team to win
For something to remove our sins
For a clear day
For our sickness to go away
Prayers so deep and insignificant
Almost fully prepared to repent
A universal drawing of strings
A selected day to receive blessings
What of a prayer that helps one
And harms the rest
Some of are surely cursed
While the others are blessed
I suppose we are all just trying to do our best
Maybe I don’t know how to pray
I think I believe in something
But I don’t know what to say
To get what I want
To tip the Universe’s favor my way
I’ve tried with my eyes closed
Standing still, laying down
Walking around
Even on my knees, on the ground
If my prayers are heard
Who knows, who believes
I do know how to cry and sweat and scream
I do know how to fantasize and dream
I do know how to let go
I do know how to admit that I don’t know
Who do you pray to
Is there something special I have to do
I pray to the grass, to the sun
I scream my desires to the mountain
I forget my problems when I run
When to push myself to go far away
Just to make it through another day
When I swim in the ocean
Let the music and waves move me to fun
When I finally allow myself to play
Have you ever laid in the fresh summer grass
Let the sun beat down on your face
Beads of sweat rolling down
Knowing you will burn if you stay in that place
Not caring, letting the bugs crawl on your skin
Savoring the space, taking it in
The sweet smell of flowers, the summer season
Letting the clouds and time pass
To get up and begin again
Is that a prayer?
What do you pray for
Do you wish upon a star
Send a message to sea
To help you on your journey
You tell me to will pray for me
But I don’t want your prayers
I want kindness and empathy
Can you listen without a prayer
Listen to the Universe if you dare
Don’t offer a prayer of judgement
Don’t offer a prayer to have something to say
Your prayers won’t help me anyway
Is silence a prayer
Maybe awareness is the only thing out there
Have you ever sat for hours in meditation
So long you can feel your body, your hair
So long that your become intently aware
Of energy, of feeling, of the world that’s unfair
Have you ever run in the rain
Have you ever fully embraced your pain
Have you ever loved so deeply
That you will never be the same
Have you ever loved someone different from you
Proving our silly biases untrue
What will a prayer change?
There are billions of voices that must be heard
Hundreds of languages
In which prayers are offered
Certainly no one is favored
We are all trying to make it in this crazy world
Wether prayer is fact or fiction
Belief is the only thing that makes a difference
Claiming your space in this broad expanse
A belief that maybe you have a chance
If you believe it works then it is so
It doesn’t matter where your prayer will go
It doesn’t matter if it happens quick or slow
Keep praying so the world will know
You exist, you matter
Cancel America
Our cancel culture
Where we can no longer make mistakes
All errors are now public
Forever recorded with high stakes
Forcing us to be censored
Compelling us to be fake
We all must agree
Apparently, that’s the rule in 2020
We can’t have diversity
Of thought, of option
That would be considered a sin
You must say the right thing
Suppress your true feeling
Our values are virtue signaling
We are so afraid of being wrong
It’s easier just to go along
God forbid we offend someone
Say what you’re supposed to say
Ignore the obvious, the science
It’s now more important to belong
The unpopular opinion will just go away
Who gets to have a voice
And who should be silenced
A forced social execution
A quiet violence
Free speech was a milestone
But now you must make a choice
Speak freely without hesitation
Or risk losing your reputation
Whenever someone has a social platform
We dig through their closets
Looking for that one blunder
There’s got to be one
To make their career go under
Ruining lives one misstep at a time
Social shaming with no chance to rerun
Having the wrong view is a crime
The battle has been won
But by whom? Who has won?
This battle is not fun
Are there any perfect presidents?
Has any leader not made a bad decision?
Who among us has not said something dumb?
At one time we were all young
I’d like to think that we are still growing
We all are embarrassed by something we’ve said
Something we’ve done
Does every great man have a dark past?
Can we judge someone a hundred years later?
For their flaws
Erase their names from our papers
Make them pay at last
Humans have the capacity to love and hate
To build, grow, create
And to destroy, enslave, placate
Denying this is childish
We refuse to allow some to participate
As a punishment
Instead of dealing with our sad state
Cancel America
Where media is king
The only place you can say anything
Social media platforms now have the final say
Policing what we can talk about
Putting people away
How long do we pretend like this is working?
Social media has fallen into the wrong hands
It’s too complex, too big
No one understands
How to make it work best
We’ve failed the social test
Tear down all the reminders
Rename mountains and towns
Change the maps
Paint over murals
Move our history around
Dance around truths
And make it seem sound
Can history be erased?
Can we cancel all we don’t agree with?
Wipe it clean
The person who said it might be mean
But they are still here
They haven’t gone away
We can’t take away a voice
But somehow we must make them pay
The more we suppress
We fuel the flames of unrest
We must be able to have an honest
Conversation about our humanness
Our darkness
The flaws of our nation
For if we can’t be honest
If we can’t speak freely
If I’m offended by every opinion
That doesn’t suit me
How can I really listen?
Blinded by reality
We’ve become the emperor with no clothes
When we will address the actual issue
Who knows
How can we tell the truth about our history
If we can’t talk about our mistakes
Since we can’t talk about what we’ve done wrong
It has followed us all along
Cancel America
And our genocidal ways
Make all our ancestors pay
For their greed and cruelty
Double standards that haven’t quite gone away
Cancel America
Cancel our culture
False advertisement of democracy and peace
We could be honest at least
America is a vulture
That eats the poor, the less fortunate
And finds any reason to go to war
But hides it from the people
Yet we pretend that we are equal
We are happy and great
Occasionally we catch a glimpse of our fate
And we don’t like what we see
It’s like reality TV
Except it’s real
There’s no sex appeal
We can’t change by lying
We don’t learn by suppressing the truth
Let’s start by applying
What we learned in our youth
You can’t erase a mistake
We are all human
We need to have an open conversation
Acknowledge the beauty and the flaws
Acknowledge our weakness and silly laws
Hopefully, this gives us pause
To address what has gone wrong
We’ve known all along
This is just a distraction
A bad reaction
The adults have all left the room
And not a minute too soon
It’s easier to create a new problem
Then to address what we’ve failed to do
Cancel America
Cancel culture
Soon the only safe sculpture
Will be not human
In the future
It cannot take place
Can we become neutral
To save our face?
There’s something about going deep into nature that reminds me – I can let go. I don’t have to hold on so tightly to all the things I want. I don’t have to know.
This journey is slow
I zigzag across the river, falling deeper into nature, not seeing a soul
The desolate wilderness makes me feel fear but also whole
I’m reminded that I’m so very vulnerable
I have so little control
I choose a path and try my best to follow
But it’s hard to know what to do
When the path is no longer working for you
Do I keep going and try to see it through
Or turn around and find something else to pursue
I suppose I must take my cue
From my inherent feeling
The universal dealings
That I don’t understand
I’d like to think there’s a plan
The more time I spend thinking
The less time I spend listening
I dig my head in the sand
I’m completely alone, on my path
But the butterflies dance around me
The silence settles, the leaves chime in
Allowing my awareness to expand
To be in solitude is not a punishment
But an opportunity to understand
That everything changes
Including the scape of the land
Life is a kalescope
Shaken by someone’s elses hand
The colors and patterns may not suit me
But they will reform
Changing patterns is the norm
I struggle uphill
Yet the struggle is inside still
I trudge up a mountain and wonder how
I’ll get through what I’m going through now
Despite the sweat, confusion, and tears
This journey could take years
I choose to be happy now
Despite my insistent fears
Knowing it will all workout somehow
I stop and take in the sounds of nature
The wind, birds, running water
And keep trudging, just a little softer
I climb, higher and higher
My outlook becomes a little brighter
Your mind is a traitor that has betrayed you
It has left behind a body
But stolen your personality
Your ability to have a conversation
Your presence is here
Although not really
We all pretend like you are the same
What you have created still stands
Surrounded by your family
Reminiscing about who you used to be
Your wisdom and generosity
I found you a different person
Robbed of your energy
Greif with a side of dementia
To remember again
To be reminded again
Just to go back into that far away world
The fuzzy place of your childhood
A false memory that does no good
You look at me with blank eyes
Not seeing me
And ask where your soul is
Where he is
What can I say
Nothing I say can make it better
I don’t want to remind you
You know he is not here
Your heart breaks over and over
Every time you ask
There are no words for this
I’ll hold your hand through the fear
I’ll stay by your side during the loss
There’s an empty chair
And empty bed
Empty after sixty nine years
A house full, but empty at the same time
A table with the centerpiece missing
A room devoid of pictures and light
You can feel that something is different
But can’t place it, can’t explain it
There’s a void next to you every night
The walls have shifted
A desolate wilderness is left behind
You are alone in the desert
An arid land with no reprieve
Trying to find him
You are looking for water
He was your oasis
And has dried up, disappeared
The world has turned upside down
You don’t know where your place is
Your spirit left with him
Your love of so long
I can see it in your eyes
You have already gone
Control the women, they’re too emotional
To make decisions for themselves
You want to think for us all?
It’s okay, we can play
Your brain is better
You can do experiments on me
Don’t value my body
You look at it scientifically
Trying to prevent me
From procreating
Constantly debating
My rights
What I should decide
It’s my choice though
I don’t want your fake hormones
They change how my hair grows
My natural patterns
My flow
Metabolism becomes slow
I don’t like how it feels
I tell you this
But the pharmaceutical company
Steals my truth
Makes you question me
And tell I’m crazy
But you don’t know my body
How I feel
You don’t know what’s happening inside
Still you try to preside
Over me
Because you’re trained medically
And you’re the expert
Try this one and that one
There’s one for everyone
Rings and pills and
Even surgical implantation
I don’t want it in my body
Focus on your own family
My chances of breast cancer
Grow exponentially
Still you tell me
I’m fine
You don’t care if I bleed
Tell me I’m dirty
I’m just a women
My breasts make me less
Capable then you
Yet we all know that’s not true
Your morally offended
But you don’t have to like what I choose
It doesn’t impact you
Still the courts debate what I can and can’t do
With my body
My vagina
The pastor tells you what is correct
What should be done
But he’s never even seen one
You’re so pro life
But that life is not mine
We think we’ve arrived
At a place in time
Where are have freedom
But apparently we still don’t have it
A book you read before Christ gives you the power to decide
What I should do with my mine
But really you only care about being right
What do you know about life?
Julie Sequoia Webb 