These words that I am speaking are not my own.
No, they come from the Heavenly Father seated on His Heavenly throne.
Hallowed be Your name, Father!
Hallowed be Your name.
Father, grace.
Father, spirit.
Father, power.
Father, peace.

This is what the Father says,
"Be still, child.
Be still.
You can feel the undertow tugging and pulling
not knowing
which way the
water will go and
there is a wave coming
a towering wave
a rushing wave
a crashing wave
a tidal wave but
do not be afraid.
The water's safe.
Come walk on it.
For this wave is not what it seems.
No,
this is a wave of blessing and people and provision coming your way
this is a wave of overcoming and
victory and answered prayers
this is a wave that will sweep you off your feet,
toss you around in its waters
leaving you breathless and gasping at My faithfulness and love everlasting
So you'd better be ready and brace yourselves,
this wave is coming.

Be ready.
Leave your doors wide open
and your doorstep clean for
I am sending you prodigal sons
the lost, the broken ones.
I am leading them back to Me.
For I am Love and this, this is love:
That I have loved and traded My kingdom for your sins
and My wealth for your filth.
Because I am Love and My love never runs out.
Be ready for the return of your
brothers and your sisters,
be ready with open doors and open arms,
be ready for a wave of those who need patching up.
Be ready for them.

Do you hear the rain?
Smell it.
Taste it.
Feel it.
Like the rain that pours without end, I will open the floodgates of heaven
and pour out so much blessing
your storehouses will overflow and
your hands won't be ready to catch the next one so
never worry about what you will eat
or drink
or wear
For I am Jehovah Jireh and
I am more
than enough.
Be ready for downpour.

Rise, youth.
Your time is now.
Don't tell Me you are too young
too inexperienced
too busy
or too scared.
I will take your weaknesses and make my strength perfect in them,
I will give you the wisdom and faith you need,
I will make you into the leaders I've called you to be.
Don't worry about what you will say to them,
for I will put the words in your mouth,
and the seeds in their hearts.
My plans never fail, child, so enough with the doubts,
enough with the fears,
your time is now.
Be ready for the youth.

A wave of breakthrough
is coming straight at you and
don't you for one second
cringe in fear.
Don't you be afraid of the wave coming,
Don't you whimper when I lead you
to walk upon deeper waters,
just
listen to my still, small voice, child, and
follow it.
Don't you for one second
let your faith falter
just trust in your Father and
you'd better get ready and
brace yourselves because
this wave is going to
blow
you
away."

...and what if I took it
just once
took the ticket
and let go of a day
let it pass
with my conscience flowing
my whole being dissolved
with the substance in my saliva
and the fires in my brain

And I let existence be an eruption
of emotion
and sensory floods
of fluid, fluorescent light
If I took it
would I be able to let go
and be a teacher
again...

The cold air kicks on,
And floods my hotel room,
Full of my belongings,
But empty of anything that matters.
And the air drowns me,
Pushing me deeper and deeper,
Into my thoughts.
And I remember your way with your hips,
A reoccurring thing,
In my memory.
And you remember my way with words,
Not what I said,
Simply how I said it.
Just like I remember how,
It felt to be whole.
How it felt to be warm.
How it felt to fit in my own skin.
How it felt for you to be my only sin.
How it felt to be loved.

But now,
Now it seems,
Alcohol
Missed phone calls
Quiet days
Thought filled nights
Are the ways,
That I find myself able,
To smile.
Fake,
but better than a frown.

It takes a lot more,
To fit into my old,
worn out,
and over used,
Summer skin.

There's something so satisfying
About eating fast food in front of a gym.
Whether it's about watching other people
On their endless cycle of self improvement
And disappointment,
Or slowly embracing your own failures.

There's something about eating McDonalds
At four in the morning
Near the beach
Which says that you've really given up,
As the salty hair floods your lungs
And the cholesterol hardens in your veins.

There's something about KFC for breakfast
After a long night out drinking,
Which makes you feel
Just how rotten you've become.
With your insides all rebelling,
Poisoning your body to match your soul.

There's something about eating fast food
Which is synonymous with the break
Of the human spirit;
And I'm so fucking tired
Of eating all this
Takeout.

On campus, warm sun bathing my shoulders
as I listen to two girls discuss poetry
(and the dreamy guy who teaches their class)
and I try not to laugh at them as they talk about
how romantic I would be to have poetry written about
them. I want to ask them if they are really that stupid.
Instead, I bite my tongue and enjoy the taste of pennies
that floods my mouth and keep my laughter gurgling inside of me.
I long to ask these simpering, silly girls
if they have ever read any poetry about life. Not about the
romantic notions of life, but about really-real life. Poetry about
blood and pain and fucking and dying and loving and art
and I want to force feed them great bloody bites of
Chaucer or Ginsberg or
Bukowski.
Yeah... Bukowski. Visceral, blunt, gory, beautiful Bukowski.
But I have a feeling that this action would go unappreciated.
Their poets don’t use language like “fuck” or “cunt”.
Their poets don’t talk about the world I know.
Their poets live in a world of rewrite and revise.
I want to scream at them how silly they are and how much
their views will change over the next few years. And I realize that I may
have been staring (glaring?) at them because they have fallen
silent and are now looking at me with the squeamish discomfort
of people who have just realized that they’re being observed.
And I think to myself, “Fuck it,” and I smile and tell them that
their handsome poetry professor is married, and their idea of poetry
is limited. “You should read some Bukowski,” I tell them, “Then,
you just might get it” and they gaze up at me slack-jawed, staring blankly
for a moment, and I want to make sure I have not sprouted another head.
Instead, I gather my things and walk away. And as I do, I revel in a fleeting
feeling of superiority because I know.
I understand.
I get it.
And I can almost feel special.

Tell me;
What can happen,
from a single dropped tear?
From a single missed meal?
from one cut?
from one night alone?

And the tears join, and the floods roar upon those you love,
drowned beneath the current
The single missed meal joins with the others and starves a nation
rendering all useless and weak
One cut becomes many; you become a portrait of sorrow,
neither happy with now, or the past
One night alone turns to many, consoled by nothing.
And you put it upon yourself, with a heavy heart.


And I say to you, don't you dare
cry
starve
cut
or be alone;
you're better than that, and poetry doesn't need to inform you.