Asphalt Springs

Asphalt Springs Telling the stories so often left untold.

10/16/2025

I am not special.

I am the fractured sum of broken parts
Molded back together with the glue
Of a million shattered days.

I am not great.

I am a juxtaposed image walking around
Claiming individualism rooted in an idea
Formed from creations originally not my own.

I am not king.

I am peasant-incarnate attempting release
From shackles that rust daily as
I find a path to freedom unknown

I am no one.

I am a sum of the broken parts
Molded back together with rebellion
Wrought with yearning from a million sources

For all of my nothingness
For all my failings
For all of my attempts at greatness
That will yield nothing but passing pedestals

I am the greatest I have ever been

08/13/2025

Bring me peace by pin light
Flashlights at their weakest
Pour me celebration from a bottle
Emotions floating at their meekest
We make up every smile
Like authors paint words in our minds
Flow be damned

Every emotion is held for display
Because you don't want honesty
You fear a real sense of darkness
Far easier to fake a smile in this world
Where we grow flowers in the mud

I'm not praying for death
We're holding hands like the best of friends
Like idle brides biding idle time
Bidding midnight on morning results
Begging mourning never make morning mine

Sleep now
For moonlight beckons thee forever
Shadow,
Show our truest colors in the dark

Coarse is the grain but true is the path
A vengeful journey escaping the past

Cry out your tears of regret
So that we may find our peace
Eternal rest

Speak sporadic, my dear
Our plastic eloquence belies glass structures
Our character so fragile
As skin forgiving of poisoned punctures
Feed your arsenic kisses to children
For I am the weakness found in superficial might
A perfection of consequence
In the mistakes masquerading as happiness in the night
Cloaked perfection caked upon cheeks and lips
As we smile lies through filtered tears
Emoted falsely in empty buckets
That carry every buried crack
And human fear

The touch of pain
Where sunlight somehow feels the same
The site of the grave
Somehow it all just fades away
I just never knew the words to construct
But, verily, I knew truth from the curtain
Was that good enough
To let a semblance of progress grow within?

For f**k's sake
The sun is melting away every sheet of ice
But I just can't let the last drop evaporate
For Christ's sake
I reached out with open palms
To only watch the nails justify the hate

Where were all the answers
When the questions present unbearable weight?
Live, laugh and love the pain away
When I am the shadow that fights the light of day

But curse this flesh that collects
Demean a life that never understood the norm
Puncture the eyes that cannot look away
For I am the failure I always felt in my core

I met Shelly "West Side Ma" at Bancroft Park. She was incredibly warm and open when I asked if I could sit with her and ...
07/24/2024

I met Shelly "West Side Ma" at Bancroft Park. She was incredibly warm and open when I asked if I could sit with her and listen to her story. Hers is a story that was conveyed in fragments but could be pieced together to show a full picture displaying struggle and darkness wrapped haphazardly in an air of love and hope that carries her through what I can only imagine are incredibly hard days. She shared with me that for 20 years, home was found jumping between Colorado Springs and Michigan and many places in between. I let her speak, uninterrupted, with eye contact to know she was being heard and listened to by someone who cared but eventually had to ask "what keeps you here?". She had two words in response: "my kids". A son awaiting release from prison in December; a daughter, it would seem, struggling with things that keep her in constant contact with law enforcement; both spoken of with the same love and concern that you would hear from any mother that bursts with nurturing for their offspring, regardless of their situation. My time spent with West Side Ma was one of enlightenment, evolving perception and connection with another human being I have so little in common with on the outside but share an incredible amount in common with when everything is stripped away and all that's left is human emotion.

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Colorado Springs, CO

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