Medley.

"Violence has plagued the streets of many cities, schools, countries and families. It comes in many different forms and is committed by people of all ages and colors. It has scarred the lives of many victims and continues to thrive in third world countries, urban cities, and behind closed government doors. It has claimed the lives of thousands- each a brother, mother, father, sister, friend or lover. Those who once fought against nonviolence, Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, have seemed to be long forgotten. It is my passion to fight against these injustices and promote nonviolence. I fight against violence towards women, children, and even men, for gays and lesbians. I fight against violence towards each other, at homes, in schools, and on the streets. I fight to stop the violence against racial differences, over seas, against countries, through borders, and towards the earth. I support nonviolent ways to end wars, to end poverty, and to end addiction- sources of all violence. Living in a violent area of the city has put me face to face with violence each day. I feel the pain it causes and see the faces of the people who endure it daily. To make the world perfect we must get rid of these pains, my pains, the pains of the people who are different from me, the pain of the people who we do not fully accept in society as our own, the pains of those we choose to love and those we love to hate. " (Nikita Patel, April 8th, 2008)

Violence works its way through life like a plague. It's a disease and it's spread like an epidemic- worldwide. It buds from the seed of pain and blossoms out of hatred. It's witnessed by the eyes of newborns blessings and the eyes that can see no longer. It survives in every aspect of life. It puts the dingy hue on this beautiful thing called life. Violence begets violence and the vicious cycle continues and spreads like wildfire tearing families, splitting friendships, and breaking the closest bonds between mothers and their children, fathers and their sons, and brothers and sisters alike. It's unfair to those who can barely speak for themselves, stand up and have a say, and to those whose words are not audible.
No one likes violence yet it happens in front of our faces everyday.

She sits alone in her room and drinks to her heart's content most days. She reminisces of the past and the poison spills down to ease the burn that her mind triggers through flashbacks.
It started off as a child when he would come home every night and stumble up and down the front porch steps. She would watch her cry and beg him to stop but he never did hear her. She sat in a corner and witnessed the entire thing unfold all while combing back the hair on her favorite doll's pretty plastic face all done up with makeup and smiling big. She imagined that her mother looked just like her before. Before he had his way with her. Before she was born. Still she loved her mother and was too young to understand how her face stopped smiling so big, her stringy hair started to cover the black and blue hues her face came to know so well. How the new cuts and scratches appeared in different places every morning. And how one day she just disappeared altogether. She grew up and the pieces of the puzzle came together into a huge realization. And the pain was too much for her heart to bear. So she grabbed at the bottle and it numbed her body all the way down to her soul. She had good times in college. She was the top of her class and she smiled real pretty like her doll once did. The nightmares of her childhood stayed locked away under a trap door in her mind. No one around her knew it. She educated herself well. She did everything she was supposed to. Little by little the crowd disappeared around her. Soon enough she was sitting alone in her apartment talking to herself, laughing, telling jokes. She was in denial and her demon unlocked itself and sat on the couch laughing with her secretly gutting her sides with a blunt knife. And she fell apart...The DTs took over her body and she saw things that often weren't there. The demon played tricks on her and tried to take her under. She felt comfort around others and felt that she would be okay if someone just sat there and watched her sleep like her mother used to do. Little did she know that everyone was watching her sleep one last time so that they could say a prayer, cover her and finally close the casket on another wasted life...



Every once in a while I would wonder what he was doing right now. Just every once in a while. I had come to know little by little the terror that was his world. However, I had always known that he was blood and that I had to love him and everyone else the way it was because that's the way it had been given to me. I was too young to know him as a child but from the videos he seemed like a fun kid. I have flash backs of him- every morning I would jump up and down on his bed. He would flip out the insides of his eye lids and chase me. I'd see him in the family photos and be able to pick him out in a crowd easily. I would be excited to know that he was coming to visit. Little by little the pieces came together and his world fell apart... It's two days before Christmas and it's been over a year since I've heard his name. My heart was relieved only for it to be let down again. It seems we're all playing the waiting game until we finally have to close the book on this helpless case. I wish there was something I could do to fix this but I just don't know how. No one wants to give anymore because the effort that has been given over the years has been a waste and only caused more heart ache. It sucks to see you go this way... "A waste of a life" is what she called it because that's what it is. Every day you deteriorate and as you do you shave off a little piece of our hearts. When your gone we all think you'll be at peace so we can't wait to see you go. When your gone, you'll be in peace but for the remainder of our lives- we won't. I sure won't. I'll constantly believe that I could have done something. I constantly will think of things that we could have tried to help you. I'll constantly feel a piece missing to this puzzle, this portrait, this life.
You're supposed to be something to look up to- but you're not. You're the closest thing I have to a real one- but you're the furthest away from knowing who I really am. I don't understand what is wrong with you yet I understand the reason behind what you do and why you do it. Pull yourself together because you're ruining a lot more than just your own life.
You're bringing me down as well.

Dear Santa,
Fix it & Make him want to be better.
That's all I want for Christmas...