ian-cairnsEcho

Soaking FaithOn the way to church this morning, I told my mother for the first time I don't believe in God anymore. Which is to say there are ways to invoke the spirit without demanding something holy precede it. / We arrive and I sit up straight. Witness warning signs and yelling matches and I know this pew remembers each sermon by name even if I don't. / Voices oscillate across my cranium and in unison hands raise up as I drown everything in sight out imagining driftwood and arms spread wide as communion floating across disparate waters. Maybe gods wonder about evidence too.

8

Mar 7

Ode to PatriotismThe wind howls and it too manifests what it must to stay alive / and this I understand / To fight even when everything within you says enough already

13

Jul 9, 2025

HopeAbove this flesh even while these stubborn bones dissent / Underneath the blank stares even while these tired eyes are giving up / Despite every slithering excuse even while these days constrict us

8

May 7, 2025

ToolAll it takes is a little bit of resolve / such a travesty to see / your true colors shimmer so bright

9

Apr 28, 2025

Late Night SnackCan’t sleep / but will eat / the fondest memories of you

4

Jul 1, 2024

Fingerpaint in GrayMy gut reaction remains the same / shade of grey I remember finger painting yesterday. / The smears cloak my fingerprints

15

Mar 22, 2017

On Burning BridgesWe would sneak on your rooftop during every thunderstorm / Watch raindrops kiss our flannels closer together before we knew just how powerful the clouds could be / Lightning cracked

23

Dec 7, 2016

On Remembering to BreatheWhat of the moments we dare to forget? / Are these not the wars worth fighting? / Sometimes my mind leaves behind those Trojan horses

9

Mar 16, 2016

Here is HeavenFrom my bedroom, I imagine what it would take to become nothing. Some days, all I am is the comforter. Others- the mattress. I could waste away and become this bedframe forever. I mean, I've been thinking and what does it mean to be here anyways? I mean, how much effort is required to exist in these tired sheets? This narrowed gaze some called alive once is fearful of the windows now. The walls shrink across these hallowed bones and here is heaven. Spirits rising or angels falling. Here I am. The casket sits below this windowsill where the dust collects and dares me to make the first move. Home is stuck between these rib bones and I've been looking for a way out for a while now. Existing just hard enough for a pulse. Some scattered breaths. Feet face down stuck above the floor boards- quivering towards their next step. Yet I am here. Seem too worried about the timing of it all. And how I never loved the ground enough. Never cherished that fertile soil swelling beneath these feet until it could become me. And what now? Escape this body? Suffocate under the promises these pillows keep? Or stand.

1

Feb 9, 2016

OverpassAnd it was there I said I'd meet you. / Under the overpass, your eyes grasping for new ways to say I told you so. And that smokestack heart of mine piled up a few more miles of the most beautiful memories that could fit into my nap sack before the bus left: / When you remind me I'm lip-synching on our car rides to nowhere which is everywhere with you and how I hate telling you I'm wrong.

7

Jan 18, 2016

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