Christmas Ghost

Your ghost chases me
Every cold December you come.

Death you are gentle today.
Not that you could ever be
You haunt my dreams
A dead brother to grieve.

But I woke up to his voice
Reassuring that today, you have spared him
Relieved that in fact, a dream was a dream
In this reality, death was temporary.

The moon turned red last night
And in my dreams I found myself screaming once again
For help, for hope, only to hear it was too late.

Death you are kind tonight.
Though years ago you took the eldest
You have spared my sister.
I heard her voice say,
"Not today."

I will sleep in this comfort
But dream with fear
You still haunt me.

Death you are present.
And in the shadow of grief,
I find that death, you are conquered.

Christmas day, He is born.
And He is my promise.
He will die, only to rise
And,
Death you are no more.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby

To: My late brother Ramon Joel
There is no parting with you
See you later.

From Mom And Dad

It's not the child's fault
Let them break open their gifts
We are masters of our fates
And while some argue we carry our parent's burdens
I say we go where we please,
Willingly.

No one ever told me to come here
To get away from there
Or to choose love over reason.
I did it all by myself.

I always wanted to see the snow
My mother was born by the jungle,
My father from the desert
Both whom crossed rivers and terrains to get me here.

Maybe I am like them a little bit
The determination, the perseverance
The hunger to keep going, to more than survive,
To make it.

To work hard not just for my dollar
But for those who will come after me.
They made no excuses, and they left me with none for myself.
Even they, are not an excuse.

So while I whimper with longings for their sun
To melt my cold
I remember what brought me here:
Me.

And this future, this hope to do something greater
in a place that runs against me
Is perhaps the best gift they ever gave me.
The gift of being able to give something
to myself.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby

To: Mom and Dad With Love. Thank you.

Catalina

You are my paradise
Like little pieces of sea glass by the shore
Pristine like the blue waters
In you I find my escape.

You are my joy
You are my cool breeze by the night
My tiny little island
Only for you and I.

You are my fantasy
Like a make believe world
You're traced by black lines
A caricature kissed with the breath of life.

You are my holiday
A reason to celebrate
With purpose to get away
To only come down to go up again.

You are my heaven
A promise of eternal and immortal
Even in death I find life.
Your arms: my resting place.

-Noemi Garcis Rigsby

Believe, Belive

Belief.
It's as much as I can give right now.
Is it enough?
Tell me it suffices.
Because as much as I can do right now
Is to breathe
Is to believe

If all I am is surviving
Then surely believing
Is all.

Faith.
It's as much as I can give right now
I can't think, or feel, or know anything
Pain is blinding
Misery has left me bare, stripped.
And I hold on to you
With all I have left
Life, faith
Belief.

Jesus, son of God
You Are.
Please say it is enough
Please say it is Enough.
Please say It Is Enough!

...for now.

-Noemi Garcia Rigsby

I Rather Feel

For the first time, in a long time
Silence beckons me.

I don't wish to speak
Or be moved to tears
I can't say what hurts
Except that its everything.

And my only prayer
I only beg,
that please,
I may not become apathetic.

God I pray, don't let me stop feeling
Apathy, my Lord, feels like death.
Only worse than a ghost.
I am alive, but dead inside.

I feel anger,
I feel pain,
I feel betrayal,
I feel pressure,
I feel misery,
I feel grief,
I feel loneliness,
I feel homesick,
I feel helpless,
I feel lost,
I feel desperate...

And while these feelings mold themselves together
Into a mush of miserable fools
God, at least I can still feel.

And that alone, is my only comfort.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby

Of A Dream

I guess I could speak today.
I could say how angry I am.
I could let out the toxins.

But I find myself mute
At the foot of your bed

In between sheets I found others laying there instead

And its not that I'm angry that you made me a lie
Its that she came, and forced my goodbye.

And my beauty dispersed to awkwardness,
to nothingness,
to ethnic exotics
to be sold like a parrot,
like a lion,
like a statue.

Only to prove what?

That I am still the same.

Hair of fury, eyes of envy, skin of me.

-Noemi E. Garcia R.

C'est la Vie. Or Asi Es la Muerte.

I wish I had sometime more beautiful to write. I had a weird dream last night that inspired some poetry, but I can't find the words. I come in here and I try to think of reasons to smile and believe all is happy peppy and right. I come in here, and instead I find that three people have died this year. In four months, I've gone through three losses, and I wish I wish I wish it wasn't true on any counts.

The first death was in May. A sweet, beautiful girl from church. She was younger than me, and I watched her grow up. She died in a tragic car accident. Her death was shocking. I didn't know her enough to say I suffered, but I knew those who loved her. Some of those girls were my best friends growing up. I knew her family, and I loved her sisters. I couldn't, can't imagine their pain. I just remember feeling numb and shocked, and sad for a few days. When I think of her, I still do. It stills feels, and sounds, and seems weird that she isn't parading her beauty and smiles with her friends and family.

Then came July. My grandmother passed. I didn't see it coming. I knew she was sick, but I honestly thought she'd get better like she did last time. I prayed so hard for her. I thought, I mean I really though she'd still be OK. I thought I'd get to see her in August. Maybe get a chance to say bye. Then my dad called, he said, "the Dr.'s say there's nothing they can do for her anymore." I broke. I'm still broken for so many reasons. She would cry when I would pray for her, and she would hold me and tell me to pray on her behalf because I was closer to God. She always always asked for me, about me, sent me her love. Once when she was really sick she saw me praying by her bedside (I was in Ohio). I don't know how she got better, but she did. The last time I spoke to her, she told me this story with so much conviction; her voice was breaking holding back tears. I thought it was weird in way, but what I wouldn't have given to have her seen me again and gotten better. I still have no words. Her death is still too fresh to process, to accept, to believe.

Now its September, and two days ago my friend died. I have so many regrets. I wish I would have talked to her more in the last few years, or dropped her a line. I wish I would have told her what she meant to me, what I thought about her. I wish, I wish and now its too late. I still can't believe she's gone. I can't. I feel for her family and loved ones. A silly brain tumor that came out of nowhere took her life. She was too young, too beautiful, too smart. This shouldn't be happening to her. It just shouldn't.

And I here I am trying to arrange my thoughts in a way that makes sense. This last year was hard enough. I've had to endure three deaths alone and away from family and friends (with the exception of flying out to L.A. for my grandma, although I wish I would have been there to say good bye!). I don't feel sadness, I don't feel much at all right now actually. I've cried and cried. I've woken up now and thought "Oh right, Rosalie died," and I can't understand it. I look over my desk and remember, "Grandma is gone too." I think of the unfairness of death, and why it takes such beautiful people and think, "Zenia was taken too soon."

My body, my mind, and heart all feel too numb and raw at the same time. I don't what to make of everything, and I don't know how long it will take for me to have the words to let it out. For now, this is all I have. C'est la vie. C'est la muerte.

-Noemi

It's still fate

Life is so crazy. I mean, you never know where your going to end up. I had this friend who thought he'd marry this girl. He's in Vietnam now. She's getting married in two weeks to someone else. And we can remember the heartache for them both, and think of all the crazy things that brought their relationship to end. But in reality, it was just meant to be this way. He wasn't for her. She wasn't for him. I look at their lives once united, now running apart on different trails, and they're both excitedly happy.

She's madly in love with her fiance. She goes to bed every night thinking of him, his love, his face, and what mercy God had to give him to her. She smiles as she sleeps because tomorrow is another day less to that big day. She anxiously anxiously waits to be his misses, and no one can shake her joy.

He's filled with purpose and wonder. He goes to bed every night thinking what new thing he's learning tomorrow. He doesn't waiver or wander, but thanks God for the opportunity to fulfill his purpose. He awakes to a brand new adventure that he longed for since he was a boy. He wouldn't change his experience, because he knows its quickly changing him.

Life is so elusive. Who can really know what its doing, where its taking us. And we can sit and complain and cry about the pain and the unknown. The only thing we need to understand is that life knows better than us. The only thing we can do is trust that God knows better than we, and will bring us to that goodness.

I guess today I'm learning not to complain about the path, but ask God to help me learn from it; and not just learn from it, but learn it and know it well so that in the future I can look back and remember exactly where I came from and why.

Vita

La vida.
La vie.
Life.

She is a woman.

And like a woman, she can only give herself.

Without her, man is nothing.

God made-her, because He could not trust-him.

And it is only in her absence that we find our greatest

grief.

-Noemi E Garcia Rigsby

Silent Killer

I feel hungry for words
For noise
For anything to drown the silence you leave behind.

Its only been two days and already I want to run
Its the solace at my harbor that keeps me grounded
Its the solace that beckons me to sail

And although a ship won't take me where you are
I want it to take me
I want it to move me into seas, and life, and breath

If I can't find life in silence
Let me find it by the ocean

Don't be too long or you won't find me
And if I'm lost look by the sea.
Silence is my silent killer.

-Noemi Garcia Rigsby

I Finally Had it: My Rant Against the World

Ever get sick of people telling you what you should like? I feel that way a lot of the time. Come to think of it, I've been feeling that way for a few years now. First came my frustration with church and their constant advising that I shouldn't like secular music, dancing, any kind of drinking, movies, media, magazines, etc.

Later, I became frustrated with church leaders telling me how I should believe the bible, what interpretations I should like. They ordered me to love homosexuals, but to disprove of their actions and feelings and oppose anything they attempted politically. They told me to vote republican, to vote against gun control, (and my personal favorite) for stricter immigration laws, especially the kind that would kick those law breakers back to where they came from. Then, I voted for Obama. I had a good friend yell at me about my terrible evil decision (although McCain literally made me shiver).

Education liberated me. I was appalled when I began attending a church that OPPOSED education, especially the ministerial kind. So I left. Then I attempted another, and in a very indirect and subtle way they pointed out that because I was brought up Pentecostal, and had a Pentecostal degree, I might lack Biblical education, so before I could join the ranks I needed to catch up and do more homework. Ayyyy!! Last thoughts on the church: music equals worship, Bible is not open for all kinds of discussion or questions, and God likes routines and prim and proper cookie cutter things (like the Pharisees).

Moving on. I got married, and I soon learned I didn't like the right kind of music. Top 40 songs are all trash. Everything sounds the same, and the music I like is lame. He's my husband, and after a brief discussion that his music taste was also weird and out there, we compromised. He would try to like mine; I would try to like his.

Then, out of nowhere I find out, I'm not treating the earth right, and I need to be more green. I need to get myself a bike, get some hemp clothes, get into folksy style music, eat organic, become vegetarian, recycle, and my food needs to be bought from three places: Trader Joes, Whole Foods, or Raisin Cane. If fast food is what you want: Northstar. I learned high fructose corn syrup was my greatest enemy, hot dogs were just evil meat corporations out to get me, and salt was one ingredient away from being rat poison. To top it off, I watched an educational film about the evils of meat corporations, evils of vegetable & seed corporations, and the evils of corn. OH NO NOT THE CORN!! (sarcasm!)

Now I have job, and I take too much time with my customers but I give them quality service. So I shorten my time, but now my quality suffers. So pretty much give them the highest quality in the least amount of time.

So far, the only good thing I have left is California. Home. The only things I do right are cook, clean, and be Latina. Although my mom let me know a month ago I have not yet mastered ironing. My make up gets lots of compliments and my hair too. No one bugs me about my slim figure anymore (thank God!). For some reason, everything I like or do around this place is wrong, or bad, or not good enough. I feel so much pressure, but I can't cave. I tried, but I can't. I am too strong willed and self assured. I love myself too much, and I always always try to stay true to myself no matter what people try to tell me. I feel like any moment I'm going to explode. Everyone and everything keeps trying to direct how I should feel, how I should act, what I should like. They all want me to be like them. Can I just say: You're NOT Unique!! You've all fallen into the terrible pattern of ignorance where you base your choices off of what everyone is doing, what the media is telling you!! Tell me why these people (church people, hippies, hipsters, music aficionados, leaders and politicians) all seem to fall into the latest fads. They always seem to have the latest technologies (mind you ministers don't reallly need an ipad & an iphone 4). They purchase more expensive stuff for things that are especially marketed to them (like Christians with Chick- fil- A, and hippies with the green aisle at Target). Can everyone just STOP. Stop telling me who I need to be. I know who I am, and I don't need to be anyone else.

God gave me freedom not just from the law, but from this world. He gave me wisdom to discern what things are good and what things are bad. He gave me faith to believe that He is graceful, and that even if I'm imperfect He still loves me.

So world, please stop trying to slave me to your pattern of thinking. If you choose to live your life that way, I respect that. But please, respect my decisions too. Just because I eat McDonald's fries, dance to Ricky Martin, and voted Democrat does not make me less than you. When I think you're getting gypped for buying Organic soap, attempting to earn holiness through prayer (only Christ can make you holy, you can't earn it, its a free gift), being merciless to people who are struggling, and pick a boring song to listen to, I just respectfully stay silent because that is what you have chosen in the freedom Christ has granted you. And though I may deeply disagree in some things, I just pray that God will help you see that. Please trust that God will do the same with me. For now, keep your condescending, self-righteous, and strong opinions to yourself. Lead by example and love. If you keep telling me how wrong I am about something based on your opinion, I'm just going to assume that you think you have all the answers and let it go. Sorry to be harsh, but all this has been building. I feel like a shaken soda can (soda is evil too), and someone just about cracked the lid.

I’m beginning to feel jaded and feel like I’m living in a time where nothing we do is sufficient and right. Everything we eat is unhealthy, and living for Christ is not good enough. My soul is weary! I just want to rest in thought that God will guide me and that I am made to His image. I just want some room to breathe and be who I am, who God has shaped me to be.

So my response: I drink moderately and occasionally with family, dance with my husband when I hear a beat, watch movies and shows I like, and subscribed to Cosmo and titled it “the monthly couples activity book.”

I believe that the Bible is absolute, but the interpretations can be questioned, explored, and relevant. I love homosexuals, no I don’t want to change them, and no I don’t believe we should treat them less than human beings and vote against them. I’m sticking to Obama, I want more gun control, and I want to legalize immigrants.

I don’t think I need more education, as mine was sufficient and fine thank you. I WILL NOT worship God only to “worship music” or any music at all for that matter, and I will not follow a prim and proper routine as I plan to discuss and ask as many Bible questions as I please.

I will listen to Fallout Boy, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha and anyone else if I desire it. If it sounds good, and I like it, I will listen.

I’ll try and help the earth (because I WANT to), and I’ll eat how I continue to eat: Hispanic. I don’t care where the meat came from because I’m just grateful that I have it. I buy what I can afford, and yes I do crave McDonald’s and Jack in the Box and when I crave it, I’ll eat it. High fructose corn syrup is made from corn and it makes my bread taste delicious. So what if salt is one ingredient away from being rat poison, humans are 2% away from being monkeys. I don’t like hot dogs and pizza anyway. I’ll eat food with flavor like my momma taught me. As for corn, don’t mess with my corn tortillas, tamales, covered in mayo/cheese/& butter, bread, pudding, atole…

I’ll give my customers quality service and mom, I hate ironing, that’s why Jared does it. I’m gonna go off now and drink my homemade strawberry juice. And that’s that. I love you mom! :P

Home

My nephew is born today. Such a sweet gift from life. With the loss of my grandmother only two weeks ago, I feel as if life is trying so hard to compensate for the pain. But it's never enough is it? The same joy that fills my heart also overwhelms me with great desperation. I want to go home. I'm beginning to feel like I'm going crazy here. I still can't shake the loneliness and isolation. Friends don't come fast, neither do friendly faces. It's been almost a year, and still, I feel like everything about this place is going against me. It doesn't matter anymore though. I won't find comfort here. I know it. I can stop complaining. Now I'm just propelling myself forward and building an escape back to my most imperfect, complicated, messy, chaotic, crazy world. Why do I miss it? It gave me such great purpose. I knew and know myself here. When I'm there, I stop feeling so lost and so worthless. Right now, here, I feel like such a waste of space. I don't know myself here. I want to go back to home. Home where my hands have a job to do. Home where my purpose is clear. Home where God needs me the most. I need home as much as home needs me.

Ever Fee Like...

Saying a big f/u to life?

I feel like that today...

actually I've been feeling like that quite recently..


..okay for a while now...

I just wanna go home.

Forget you life! Forget you!!!

I'll walk tall and proud with my head held high..

And even if my shoulders should drop,

and rain flood my face...

I'll still walk, and I'll forget you.

In heaven, I'll most certainly forget you.

-Noemi

And You Still Find me Beautiful.

No matter where I go
She will reach me.
Damage.

And even though the view from here
Seems clear,
the truth is,
there is no escaping.

A plastic sheet that separates me
from you.
Me, from sanity.

Does it matter how far I run?
I will never really reach you.

I can paint over these cracks and creases
But the fact remains I'm broken,
beaten, damaged.

We'll never be the same:
Wholeness.

God let me find relief, satisfaction
in this emptiness.

God let me find beauty in this
brokenness.

Because I know,
he and I will never meet.

When wholeness heads east.
God,
find me west.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby

Thoughts of An Almost Pregnancy

So the answer, is negative. No babies yet! Talk about relief! Although, I told Jared it was positive just to be funny and never in my life have I seen such an expression on his face. He looked overwhelmed yet filled with joyful excitement. It was kind of sad to tell him I was kidding, but you know it made me realize a few things.

Jared and I go back and forth about having kids, after seeing this face, I know, I can't deprive him of children.

Secondly, for the time that seemed that we had almost created a being together, it was somewhat disappointing for it not to be true...and that's when I felt it. It was this link, for a split second, I felt like although Jared and I are married and closer than ever, there is nothing that truly links us. For a small moment I felt this powerful link between us, something that linked us for life, a link so powerful that only God could break. I came to a great realization that we are missing a very powerful link.

See, I realized now why my mom and dad stayed together for so long despite their hardships. When a life is created out of you, this incredible feeling sweeps over you, not just physically, but soulfully, that you are forevermore linked by the body and life of a child; that no matter what you do, will always always always be one of each. In one single life, the link of two beings is forever present and alive. Although marriage brings you together, it can’t intertwine you, it cannot force you to become one; it cannot force you to stay.

However, a child is you, and him. I realized a child is the product of two souls completely intertwining; becoming one is not about sex, but about fruit. Sex, in all the beauty and wonder that it is can never make you one person with your lover, but the fruit of that love is a single, ONE, whole being. “Becoming one” is about the end result.

This thought just boggled my mind because I would have never ever felt what I feel, and get what its all about unless I would have almost had a child. This whole thing is just so powerful. I can’t understand how anyone can willingly have sex, conceive, and despise the best part.

Marriage. It’s not all about sex, never thought it was.
Becoming one. Not all about sex either.
Life. That’s what God made all of this for. For a precious, miraculous, little life.
Love. Finally! A living, breathing testament to great love that exists between two people.

Can’t you see? The we ARE love. We are that ONE. Life and Love are one in the same. Just like God is love, He is also life. And this is how we are all His children. We are a product of his love becoming one with life!

God, as if you couldn't get any better!

My precious darling, you are years and years away from being in my arms, and already, in one tiny scare, you have taught me such a wondrous life lesson, probably the best yet. Whenever it is your time to come, I shall call you love. Alma. Our Soul! <3

Big Question

So life has been great, yet crazy lately. Where to start? Well Jared is going out on the road for two weeks and I'm so going to miss him. He is such a great help, and he rarely ever complains.My job is getting easier as I get used to taking more and more calls. And my sister is soon having her baby. Now for that I can't wait.

On to sad news, I think my parents may be splitting up, this time for reals.However, I don't really feel like talking about that right now. There is so much in my head. So much I need to get out. I think I'll come back tomorrow and fill in some holes.

I leave you with one biggie: I'm late. I am really late. And I'm waking up and usually falling asleep to nausea. Going to the doc tomorrow. My fingers are crossed for stress, but if God wants then He wants. Ay ay ay...I'll let you know how it goes..

YouDon'tKnow

Don't you know that my life has always been a little more than complicated?

It's this erratic, chaotic mess I know
The one thing that has ever made sense
It's the one thing I'm trying to make sense of
The one that begs of all my senses

I can't let you see,
Let any of you see
The salt that drains out slowly

Salt is my proof that I am alive
My only proof that I still feel,
But the thing that proves I'm still broken

Darling, you don't know
You don't know all the burdens I still hold

Darling, darling you don't know
I find my beauty in the mess.

Darling, you don't know
You Don't Know,
It's the bleeding that lets me breathe.

And you'll never know what it's like to daily choke
To hope each day that there's still hope

My darling, you will never know
What it was like to write these lines
To breathe, to bleed, to cry
To for a moment, feel alive.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby

Photography

We're all liars
Photographing the world the way we want to see it

But when the film runs out
And its time to develop

We'll find all truth exposed
Even the things we tried to cover

Even the light bulbs we tried to make suns
The final product where we hide.

The exposure won't lie

We're all liars with cameras for eyes.
We're all liars until the day we die.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby

Puzzle Pieces

She said I always befriended the broken
And she said one day I'd marry a piece.
Perhaps that was true, but I knew where to find the rest
And glue him back together again.

But I'm sad today,
Because she's in grievances
Thought she'd marry a whole
But now there's a hole
And he's missing some pieces.

It's true what she said
I attract the broken mess
Then she should have known better
Because I attracted her too
And today, she is broken in two.

She walked in on him trying to find a piece
His puzzle had fallen from the top of tree
And she woke up to life, yet still in denial
She put the branches up for a trial.

But nothing will rule in her favor
She knocked down the tree with her waiver
Bid him goodbye, bid him adieu
He went to find what was long overdue.

And now I know two more who are broken
If only she knew the words she had spoken
They came too soon and now its too late
I have two more puzzles to put together again.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby

Terminemos

Muda
Diminuta.
Exaltate, ya que dices que eres hombre con corazon de perro.
Caminas sobres las llamas y luego sobre
su cara.
No te importa a quien quemes mientras te crees rey
sin para.
De tu lengua salen letras seductivas matando a todos quien te oyen,
como navaja salvaje atacas.
Pero pronto llegara el aire y apagara tu llama.
Tu fin es mi empiezo.
Tu silencio es mi romance.
Aqui te espero.

-Noemi E Garcia Rigsby