"If Only You Knew" featuring Anthony J. Shears

The hardest songs to write are LOVE songs. Because the easiest time to write them is when you are feeling HATEFUL watching them go up in FLAMES...

You will see rain,
and think of me.
And say: he preached hope and wanted love
The falling
of tears will feel
like razor blades
And your heart,
like then,
will tremble.
And yearn for old umbrellas.

Sincerely,

me

A Journey Within

To master without,  you first must master within.

Belong nowhere.

Love Always. Sometimes.

I need confidence in myself. And the pieces of you left with someone else.

I'll give you all I've got if you give me what you can't. 

Love. Me. ?

"A Lonely Place" by Deveraux featuring Anthony J. Shears From the upcoming EP "Sheet Music" - Coming October 30, 2012!

Used To featuring Anthony J. Shears

This song is dedicated to anyone and everyone who refuses to give up. I used to be a used to...

Death of a Muse...

To Whom It May Concern:

I once had a MUSE. Whose eyes I knew. Or so I believed. But I missed all the clues. With love I pursued. Though our pasts were confused. I patiently waited for my time's "I Do"s. But her heart was bruised. So she misconstrued. That my heart's only wish was that she never lose. But she could not choose. With lies she eschewed. And has left all my love for my heart to recuse.

Sincerely,
me

Everything Breaks Sometime.

All love is unrequited.  All of it.  And there is a certain sacredness in tears.  They are rarely the sign of weakness.  They speak more eloquently than ten thousand voices. Tonight they are messengers of overwhelming grief, a bit of regret, and an even smaller bit of happiness.  An unspeakable love. I've seen her cry. Once. At the darkness moment of night... Right before the sun rose. 


Love is like an hour glass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties... And then it all breaks apart. I've never wished to be everything to everyone. Just something to her. And tonight... With that confirmation. I also received a goodbye. 

Her: "Maybe we'll be butterflies..."

Me: "May I could have loved you better. Maybe you should have loved me more. Maybe our hearts were next in line. Maybe everything breaks sometime."

Goodbye.

JAS

For Life. Forever.

"Street life is expensive/And what it cost some niggas/Is everything!/But I been buggin' since I lost my nigga."  - Anthony J. Shears - Mea Culpa 2008

I am lost. At a lost for words. Lost in this way of life. Lost in thought. Lost in pain. Lost in regret.

Death is always around the corner.  But the neighborhood I'm from seems to give death inordinate help.  My man has taken leave of life. And my only thoughts are on the uncertainty of how it all went down.

We used to joke about being willing to die to live like men.  PJ was a real religious dude, and one afternoon as we sat in the gym he asked me if I was afraid to die. I told him I wasn't and asked him what he thought death was. He looked up and then at me and said, "Dying means we ain't got to sin no more."  Stopped me dead in my tracks.  I've thought about that conversation every now and then over the last decade.  I used to think I had some subtle fear of death.  That conversation with P that day  changed my entire opinion on death and dying.  I realized that day that dying was the easy part. Living like anything other than a man standing on my own two feet - that seemed much harder to  me than death.  Way back then we made a decision to live as men, no matter the cost.  And in the end, the residual of the answer to that question is why my man is gone. 

Someone said once  "Coming generations will learn equality from poverty and death, and love from woes." I've memorized the pain of these woes and can recite them backwards.  I don't think of myself as a kid from the ghetto.  The home I grew up in had everything I needed. I think of myself as someone who knew from an early age that I would live my life totally responsible for myself, and all that I wanted to achieve.  P was the yin to my yang.  Where I was "cold and calculated", he was "warm and likable".  I kept my distance from most people and most things. P wore his heart on his sleeve... To a fault.  Where I had accepted the judgement and sometimes rejection of others, he took any perceived slight to heart and responded accordingly.  In the end, we balanced each other out, in life and on the court.

He said to me once "I'ma die fighting!"  And while I didn't attend his funeral, I sent a kite up saying I missed him and admired his commitment to his word.  All great men want to live beyond their death.  No one can say with any certainty they will be alive tomorrow. So we live hard, with no apologies today. My personal dead are never dead to me. I never forget them.  And I'll never forget Mr. Princeton Jerome Latimer. You told me "when you blow up, I blow up!" It's taken awhile my friend. But I promise you I'll make good on that promise. You embodied everything a solider should be. And until I can fulfill my promise to you, I won't weep for you. I won't celebrate your life with morning because you're still alive in the hearts of those who love you. And will continue to live in the mouths of men thru my music.

That's my word.

AJS

A Lonely Place...

Tonight I broke down while performing. I can't remember exactly what song it was, but I remember it hitting me pretty hard. It's a very real, potent feeling to look out into the crowd and see people tearing up and crying - to see your music touching them and taking them to that very raw, personal place feels a lot like an accomplishment - one I am very proud to have been a part of.

The entire weight of the words I had written, the stories I had told, and the hope I was looking for came crashing down at once. At that moment, there was nothing standing between me and the pain, love, and hope that has influenced the message in my music.

As a performer, the worst thing you can do on stage is to "think".... The best performances are pure emotion... You become the snare, the kick, the violin, and the piano. I've found that it's easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find men who are willing to endure the pain of vulnerability. My goal is to keep my music as far away from ego and as close to vulnerability as possible.

This particular show on this particular night provided a platform for that moment where vulnerability meets pain and patience.

Though the room was full, the space felt like a lonely place. And I feel all that much better for adding what I could to it.

Special thank you to Deveraux for his heart-felt performance, and to Elijah C for bringing us home with his guitar.

Thank you all,

Me

Labor of Love

This morning... 9 hours after I sat down to write last night... I looked at my post-it notes, scratch papers, drawings, sketches, musings, and 3 empty energy drinks... and I saw myself.

A long time ago a friend of mine named Noah gave me a book by Khalil Gibran called "The Prophet"... I read the entire book in one night, and found myself totally transformed the next morning. There was a passage in the book where Gibran commented that "Always you have been told work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, and in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life..."

Love life. I write to right.

Sincerely,

Me