I’ve learned that you always have to make a mess to create something beautiful
Like the way all if the dirt doesn’t quite fit back into the hole you dug to plant the flower bulb in
Or how hours after you’ve finished painting you’re still finding blue under your fingernails and white by your elbow
And sometimes the mess isn’t so fun to make
Often you face a mess you don’t know how to clean
Some messes take years, decades even, to wash off, to wipe up, straighten
Change, uprooting may feel bad, wrong
It’s scary and painful and it seems like hell at times
But never doubt it’s purpose, it’s season, the way it grows and betters you
It makes you beautiful
May 16, 2019
May 16, 2019 at 12:48 PM UTC
"I don't know the first thing about love"
I've never known love that wasn't obligated
An " I love you" didn't cut my throat on its way out
That didn't either send me spiraling into panic
Or fleeing a million miles away from my own body
Nothing but love that trapped and silenced and burned
A love with wicked teeth and acid dripping from it's tongue
That seared me to the core and decided even that was worthless
"But they're family, you gotta love 'em, right?"
Now you stand before me
Saying you want nothing in exchange for your love
Just to be here, together,
But I can't
Can't stay until those arms become a cage
Can't wait for those hands to grab me when I run
Can't let the honey dripping from your lips sour and burn
Can't stand here smiling while I wait for the shoe to drop
Can't wait for that 'nothing' to become 'something' to become 'everything' and I just become a 'thing'
To you
And maybe that's not what love is to you
Maybe your love doesn't come with puppet strings or gleaming teeth that slice
Maybe the mere thought of this definition of love
Sends you reeling with anger and pity and revulsion at the injustice of it all
Maybe it scares you
Maybe it makes you rethink everything you've ever known
About this wild, loud, joyous being you're staring down
And maybe like I thought I'm both too much and not enough, broken and melted and rebuilt in a way
That I don't know the first thing about love
Mar 12, 2019
Mar 12, 2019 at 1:42 PM UTC
I hate roses
I hate the idea that love
Has been boiled down to
Being velvety and soft and seductive
Just beauty and pain
Something you can find in a grocery store
Half-wilted next to several of the same
Or in a garden, bred and cultivated
To look pretty in a designated area
Cut back when grown too big or wild
I hate that roses embody culture's idea of femininity
Mar 5, 2019
Mar 5, 2019 at 5:11 PM UTC
You tell me, "It doesn't have to be this way."
But it's the only way I get through another day
I'm a dreamer and a runaway
You locked me in, told me to stay
"Stay quiet, stay here, stay out of my way"
I'm not a doll in your "happy family" play
Ungag me cause I've got hell of a lot to say
You should have left this dog sleeping where it lay
Don't act like I'm the problem, dear
Just because I can't survive living here
Jan 30, 2019
Jan 30, 2019 at 6:26 PM UTC
I think that too often we become complacent
We want change and wait for it to come to us
We expect others to welcome us in yet we don't go out to meet them where they are
We crave intimacy but are too afraid to bare all of the hidden, rotten places
We want healing but we're the ones who let the hate fester
We want love but we're afraid of getting attached
We want to try something new but only if you do it first
Oct 16, 2018
Oct 16, 2018 at 2:46 PM UTC
Beside my window
There is a Japanese maple tree
And it is much taller
Than most of its kind
It survived the fire
That burnt down the original
House it stood next to
I want to be like it someday
I want to be able to withstand
Whatever life throws at me
And become more than I could ever dream
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 5:13 PM UTC
Bare feet pad down stairs
A tea kettle murmurs
And in the darkness the loneliness for once
Comforts under the light of a single bulb
Here, in this place, time ceases and
Fatigue bears no claim and
The brash clutter of day is no more
Here in the in-between of existence
Where failures of the previous day refresh and
The imminence of the next's tasks does not yet hold
Here there is peace that sleep lacks
And a solitude fear refuses to enter
This is the refuge of sinners and saints
Where dreamers thrive and wise men seek
Oct 1, 2018
Oct 1, 2018 at 12:38 AM UTC
I'm here again and I wish I weren't
Stuck between abject apathy
And being overwhelmed
By everything set before me
Don't
Leave me here alone
To do this by myself
I need to know that you're here
To know that if I fall I won't be
Locked in this house alone
Caged and lonely
(I need to know that those I love love me)
(I need to live in their presence)
I don't need anything
But you here with me
Please stay by my side
And I can face it all
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 12:05 PM UTC
I have always loved mountains
"When I am overwhelmed I run to the
Rock that is higher than I"-
I love the ascent, the hard climb that
Takes your breath away and the greenery
That makes you feel like you're breathing
For the first time
Like you're breathing in pure life
And exhaling your every worry
I love reaching the top
But not for the accomplishment
No, but to look back and see
How far God has brought me
And at how much farther His promises
Extend beyond the horizon
And to watch the ravens soar
To see nature
If only for a moment as He intended
And in that moment I am a part
I see who He made me to be
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 11:50 PM UTC
Sometimes I think that I'm free
That I've conquered the demons
And am on to bigger and better
Then something simple catches me off guard
"Where are you going?"
An innocent question from a friend
And it's fight or flight
Those words drag me back, back, back
And how dare I let such ordinary things get to me?
Why can't I move on like everyone else clearly did?
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 2:19 PM UTC