Shine for Us
Hopes On A Fray Rope.
You see, there’s this band.
They sing my lullabies and make me feel safe when the monsters under my bed come out in the dark.
They play small stages; hurl their bodies across it with a passion I have seen in so few people in all of my life.
The singer, sometimes…sometimes I think he doubts himself. Sometimes it hurts to hear of those hard times this band went through.
Do you know how painful it is to hear somebody you look up to so much question themselves? To see a hero in pain.
Hero, that word is thrown around so much almost as much as the empty “I love yous” teens seem to carelessly put so much faith into after a week of knowing their “love.” But like love, it’s just one of those things you know. You see the person. And you know it.
Let me tell you; seeing a hero in pain, that’s one of the most awful feelings in the world. First, all you want to do is hug them. There’s nothing else in the world that you desire more then to wrap your arms around them, to tell them that everything will be alright. To let them know that everything will be okay. One of the worst feelings in the world is to want nothing more than to comfort somebody you know you never will be able to comfort.
That hero, he reassures me of so much almost every night. When I’m listening to his lovely voice for a moment all of my fears have vanished and I feel my heart beat again. But what about him? Maybe I worry too much, people have always told me that. My question is why is that wrong? To care, to care so much for a person that all you want to do is tell them everything is going to be okay.
Who takes his fears away? Who helps his heart beat?
I have a nickname for him. I call him Angel when nobody’s listening. I’ve never told anyone, for some strange reason I fear their responses. I fear that they’ll tell me I’m being overdramatic, that maybe he’s not as much of an angel that I want to believe. But of course he isn’t, he’s human. He bleeds like me, he cries like me. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why he is my angel, there’s no way to explain it.
They won’t leave Angel. I see the way you smile on stage, when you look down at us singing along to your verses. Do you believe in us as much as we do you? Angel, we wouldn’t leave. Don’t you see Angel? We don‘t shine if you don‘t shine.
There’s a few though, they don’t appreciate the beauty being orchestrated on the stage. Sometimes it’s not good enough; they demand the same old things, the same four chords they heard before. Or maybe something completely different than what was produced in the first place. So instead of nicely casting their complaints, they brutally call out the innocent Artists. The ones who put their hearts and minds into something they believed in, sometimes the crowd becomes hostel and refuses to pay heed to the lurkers.
They viciously rip apart those beautiful words written for them, unaware of what they are doing.
I try, sometimes I scream until my lungs cannot take it anymore.
“Stop!’ We all scream. It's almost as painful for us to hear, as it is for them.
With tears running down my cheeks I scream with all of my heart to make them stop while they throw their insults at the four innocent men on the stage. Their ‘followers’ throw their complaints staining what was once hopeful and pure.
Then the Angel and Artists’ hope dwindles, they sometimes wonder why they do it? This is what turns my tears into choked sobs. It almost seems as if they are going to give up, that they have given up.
And then there’s silence. Angel is no longer singing, the Artists are no longer playing, and the beauty has withered into a forgotten song.
They wonder why they ever tried, why they hadn’t gone back to real life a lot sooner to avoid all of this.
I know it hurts, as much as it pains me I can only imagine the anguish in the Artists and Angel’s heart. Do they regret it? Do they regret us? We gave them our trust, all our hearts could offer and I like to believe they did the same. We wait, how long will it be we ask. How long until they come back to us? Will they ever? We’re scared for a moment, have they truly given up? Do they really believe we don’t care? We do, we do. We believe with more then our hearts and souls can offer, is it not good enough?
Then the artists reemerge from the darkness, pick their instruments back up, and trudge through the storm. Angel keeps singing, the heart is still there. The Artists keep playing, the heart is still there. Only this time, it’s stronger,
It’s hard, they‘re as scared as us, but the bigger picture is so much beautiful. So much so that the beauty is worth fighting for. The heart, those four men, the soul, is pure. It’s pure.
You see there’s this band, but they’re so much more to me then “just a band.”
They sing my lullabies and make me feel safe when the monsters under my bed come out in the dark.
They play small stages; hurl their bodies across it with a passion I have seen in so few people in all of my life.
The singer, sometimes…sometimes I think he doubts himself. Sometimes it hurts to hear of those hard times this band went through.
Do you know how painful it is to hear somebody you look up to so much question themselves? To see a hero in pain.
Hero, that word is thrown around so much almost as much as the empty “I love yous” teens seem to carelessly put so much faith into after a week of knowing their “love.” But like love, it’s just one of those things you know. You see the person. And you know it.
Let me tell you; seeing a hero in pain, that’s one of the most awful feelings in the world. First, all you want to do is hug them. There’s nothing else in the world that you desire more then to wrap your arms around them, to tell them that everything will be alright. To let them know that everything will be okay. One of the worst feelings in the world is to want nothing more than to comfort somebody you know you never will be able to comfort.
That hero, he reassures me of so much almost every night. When I’m listening to his lovely voice for a moment all of my fears have vanished and I feel my heart beat again. But what about him? Maybe I worry too much, people have always told me that. My question is why is that wrong? To care, to care so much for a person that all you want to do is tell them everything is going to be okay.
Who takes his fears away? Who helps his heart beat?
I have a nickname for him. I call him Angel when nobody’s listening. I’ve never told anyone, for some strange reason I fear their responses. I fear that they’ll tell me I’m being overdramatic, that maybe he’s not as much of an angel that I want to believe. But of course he isn’t, he’s human. He bleeds like me, he cries like me. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why he is my angel, there’s no way to explain it.
They won’t leave Angel. I see the way you smile on stage, when you look down at us singing along to your verses. Do you believe in us as much as we do you? Angel, we wouldn’t leave. Don’t you see Angel? We don‘t shine if you don‘t shine.
There’s a few though, they don’t appreciate the beauty being orchestrated on the stage. Sometimes it’s not good enough; they demand the same old things, the same four chords they heard before. Or maybe something completely different than what was produced in the first place. So instead of nicely casting their complaints, they brutally call out the innocent Artists. The ones who put their hearts and minds into something they believed in, sometimes the crowd becomes hostel and refuses to pay heed to the lurkers.
They viciously rip apart those beautiful words written for them, unaware of what they are doing.
I try, sometimes I scream until my lungs cannot take it anymore.
“Stop!’ We all scream. It's almost as painful for us to hear, as it is for them.
With tears running down my cheeks I scream with all of my heart to make them stop while they throw their insults at the four innocent men on the stage. Their ‘followers’ throw their complaints staining what was once hopeful and pure.
Then the Angel and Artists’ hope dwindles, they sometimes wonder why they do it? This is what turns my tears into choked sobs. It almost seems as if they are going to give up, that they have given up.
And then there’s silence. Angel is no longer singing, the Artists are no longer playing, and the beauty has withered into a forgotten song.
They wonder why they ever tried, why they hadn’t gone back to real life a lot sooner to avoid all of this.
I know it hurts, as much as it pains me I can only imagine the anguish in the Artists and Angel’s heart. Do they regret it? Do they regret us? We gave them our trust, all our hearts could offer and I like to believe they did the same. We wait, how long will it be we ask. How long until they come back to us? Will they ever? We’re scared for a moment, have they truly given up? Do they really believe we don’t care? We do, we do. We believe with more then our hearts and souls can offer, is it not good enough?
Then the artists reemerge from the darkness, pick their instruments back up, and trudge through the storm. Angel keeps singing, the heart is still there. The Artists keep playing, the heart is still there. Only this time, it’s stronger,
It’s hard, they‘re as scared as us, but the bigger picture is so much beautiful. So much so that the beauty is worth fighting for. The heart, those four men, the soul, is pure. It’s pure.
You see there’s this band, but they’re so much more to me then “just a band.”