Copywritten Signature
By Maggie Hess

Sitting in a long stretch of poverty, she attempts an openmouthed, centering smile. She wants to be loving. She wants to be the next Martin Luther King Jr., Gandi, Ani Difranco, Pete Seeger, Mother Teresa. Without all the wife beating, cheating, and rage. A rebel with a cause, she's come this far, but lack of money seems to inhibit her from direct action.

Or Does It?

She finds herself questioning the pen, questioning her frugal lifestyle, towards which daily she thrusts bohemian curses, petty insults, and middle fingers.

Is she a seeker?

She goes to Google Search Engine, types in what she wants, and her own picture comes up on Wikapedia. There she is, hair short, curves well pronounced, eyes wide, feet bare, but not pregnant.

Is she a sojourner?

She worries herself with how to heat her appartment for her climate change party, how to be healthy, to live without a car, to recycle. But here, writing, she becomes centered. In the car, was she praying to be centered when she thought "I cannot just wish myself grounded again".

Is she on fire, writing?

It is chilly in her mothers house where there is "free" internet access. But her hands heat the keyboard, her fingernails flush with the joy of finding something out of nothing. Maybe she _is_ a saint. Maybe she is sane. Maybe she is creating something perfect.

Is Jesus somewhere in her still?

Her family disregards Jesus, use words like Christocentric. Jesus spelled backwards is Susej, the edge of Zeus(?) The edge of a flat world (?) If Jesus is love, maybe her smile contains this Jesus.

Where is her voice?

In the back of her mind, she hears her father... Be patient. Her mother... Give and yea shall recieve. Her cat... let me out the door to play. Her sister... Live independently. Her friends... Stop being so moody. The Earth... Be at peace. Time engulfs her inner peace. She feels the pulse of the dying penguins, fading, fading. She hears the beat beat of the drums of WAR. She knows that she is not the poorest of the poor. She counts her blessings. She prays.

Here is my voice. I am Maggie Hess. I am a young person of wide values that I do not fully understand. But I crave justice. I am strong and I am tall and I am a poet. I breath deep in Yoga, but often on the wrong breath. I boycott Walmart, but I wish I knew why... I have trouble reading, and I cannot stop writing. I play at poetry until late at night. I care about NATURE because she gave to me, when I was not asking, she cared for me when I did not expect. I am a medium listener in a world that screams song lirics, NPR, conversations, and emails.

I realize that this flow of lyric voice is unsolicited and blind. This is a work of faith. This work says to you, equality can happen, happiness is possible, love is an open possibility. I can write myself out of depression, I can chose whether or not to write myself out of an economic recession.

Today I woke up angry. But I am not angry. I have bent an internal sword into a plowshare. If you read this you are my inspiration. I do not only write for myself in my blog anymore. I write for specific people. But also I write for the world at large. May the life of the universe linger past the life of the sun, but may the life of the Earth linger past our lives. But may we live long, hard, and in deep respect for all things sacred. May we appreciate the beauty of an acorn in a hand.