Author

Sidewalk Bends is a name I had taken up as a screen name some time ago. The name comes from the lyrics of a HEM song entitled Stupid Mouth Shut. As songs go, there are multiple meanings and images that are conjured by its lyrics, its sounds and its overall play on the imagination. To me however, it has come to define in part who I was and the path to who I am today. Not long ago, there was a time in my life where I held back so much of what I thought and felt.  It has taken many years and a lot of self discovery to be comfortable with who I am and who I have become. So, stupid mouth shut? No longer. At every step along this path there is a lesson, whether it is for today, for tomorrow, or days past. With each moment, life is created, destroyed and recreated in a flash of thought, and in a flash of acceptance or denial.

Though I display my real name in the books and here on this page, my name does not truly matter. I am you. I am a reflection of you. Your thoughts and your experiences are just as valid as anyone else’s in life.

So share your thoughts. See where this sidewalk goes – or make your own path. The choice is always yours.

Sidewalk Bends

Stupid Mouth Shut

The sidewalk bends where your house ends
Like the neighborhood is on its knees
You’re surrounded by a chain-link fence
That keeps me out but lets me see
Well I come by most every night
The shutters pounding in the breeze
A clothesline strung like paper kites
That blow my words right back at me
But someday when my heart exhales
I’ll tell you everything
Those sweet words spilling all about us
I’ll say please please be with me
And I’ll breathe so easily
But instead I’m turning blue
I look at you
And keep my stupid mouth shut
The hall light streams out through the screens
And the shadows capture me in webs
Just tangled up in what I’ve seen
And every word I have not said
I have not said
Cuz the sidewalk bends where your house ends
Like the neighborhood is on its knees

_HEM