She is scared. Her eyes are red from crying and she is fragile and lost. I smile at her and she smiles back, but mostly because she thinks she is supposed to. She looks like she always does what she’s told. We go to the closet to pick out new clothes from the donations. She will be 12 next month. She wears a size six shirt and size seven pants. She looks undernourished. I show her the room she will sleep in and let her choose a bed. I tell her how much I love her hair, and what a beautiful name she has. She smiles compliantly. But I can see she is scared.
He is tough. He is six and full of energy. He is a mixture of wanting to please and wanting to be naughty. But after he’s naughty, he is supplicating and desperate for approval. He is naughty again. He is playing on the steps to the upper bunk bed where he will sleep tonight. I ask him not to. He lies, and says he wasn’t. Then a loud cry as his shin connects with an unforgiving wooden step. I pick him up and put him on a chair. “Let me see, buddy.” I pat his back. He shows me and I tell him if he rubs it, it will get better faster. He says he is better. He says he is tough.
She is full of words. She is his six year old twin. She is dressed in a Disney dress and wants me to see. I tell her she is a beautiful princess and ask if she can twirl. She twirls until she is dizzy, then stops and rushes to find my eyes to see if I’m still watching. She is surprised when I am, and I clap with joy at how she can twirl. She is desperate to show me her room, her new shoes, her McDonald’s toy, her backpack. But I mostly see her heart, which is starving for recognition and attention. She is unaccustomed to receiving so much of it. She tells me about her teacher, her playdough, her fingernail. She has a lot to say about everything except what she is going through. She gives me little information. She is full of words.
He is tender. He is three and more verbal and articulate than the six year old. He has big brown cow eyes and tiny wrists. I show him the trains. He plays and plays, now and again glancing up at his infant sister who is crying in my arms, to tell her it’s ok. Back to his trains. “Thomas the train is scared.” He tells me. “He is just little and he’s scared.” I choke back the sob and tell him Thomas is not alone and that he has friends to help him. I tell him even though he is little and scared, his friends are here for him. “Yeah,” he acknowledges. I hear him tell some other toys that he has to save his mom and sister, and then I remember that domestic violence brought him to our shelter tonight. He is honest. He is smart. He is adorable. He is tender.
She is inconsolable. She is almost six months old, and has tears running down her cheeks. I hold her and I tell her in soothing tones she is special. She tries to drink from her bottle, but then she abruptly stops and wails. I feel guilty that I have to turn my head to breathe for a minute, because she smells so badly. I cannot bathe her until she goes to the hospital for an exam and documentation. She is the one most accurately telling me her feelings tonight, and I can’t help her. I try and I soothe and I walk and I am gentle. But she is inconsolable.
I am undone. I get home and take off the clothes that smell like the baby. I fall in a heap at the cross. I tell Jesus they are no one’s, and they need Him. He tells me they are His. He tells me they are mine.
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 4:17 AM UTC
Does he see tinted, tainted, tired?
Is he pleased as I create my toddler pictures from broken crayon?
Do my dances and twirls create pleasure, or embarrassment?
I tell him my stories and wait for the laugh at the right time.
I hope there is pride when my days are full of showing the “new” that I learned.
Is there a frown when I spit and pull hair and stomp my feet?
Wondering at the mind of God.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 11:42 PM UTC
Spinning around, trying to find myself through echolocation
Bouncing my sounds off of everyone else
To find where I am.
Stopping to breathe, heart racing
I realize what feels normal and needed
Is keeping me from the truth of me.
Standing still, emanating sounds
Not for validation
But for gift.
Because I stand in the place of something stronger
Than your feedback.
It is a place of bedrock and identity.
It is where He created me to be.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 11:35 PM UTC
African Night
Blood moon, huge and slow
Winks at me with different face
Unhurried ascent
No man made light shouts
Stars without competition
The show is theirs whole
Off in the distance
The sound of heaven rings out
Sung by hutted friends
Loud and unfettered
Unaware of audience
Harmonies in full
To the creator
An offering lifted up
With full abandon
On the horizon
My eyes find burning camp fires
Of communal song
Standing next to me
I nudge the elbow of God
And whisper softly,
“Can you hear all that?
That ancient fragrant music?”
He waited a beat.
The songs still in full
A smile colored his voice
“I know,” he replied.
“With the joy of life
They offer this every night,
And I’m always here.
Tonight, I share it.”
My wet tears of gratitude
Became one with earth.
My ears overwhelmed,
I yearned for another sense
To engage it more:
To taste or smell it
And have it be part of me
Attached forever.
So God and I stood
With the stillness of listening
Aware of glory
I don’t know how long;
Time tried its normal counting
But we hid from it
Standing still
And we drank it together.
Temba, his arms wide.
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 1:06 AM UTC
You’ve got me feeling feelings
You’ve got me thinking thoughts
The things I thought were pretty
The dreams that I have bought.
I know you don’t want promises
Or what sacrifices do
I know you’re craving mercy
I think I want it too.
I thought the point was given
The game plan clearly marked
I didn’t even notice
The sky is growing dark.
So now I’m feeling feelings
I’m thinking deeper thoughts
I’m contemplating mystery
My spirit’s sticky caught.
The space between the knowing
The pause between the breath
I’ll give you all my wonder
From now until my death
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 8:14 PM UTC
He was so scared.
I held him while he shook
like a broken bird in my cupped hands,
wings beating against my palms
desperate to stay and leave.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 8:00 PM UTC
Breaking and entering
through unlocked window.
Heart beating too loudly
not to be noticed.
But then, no one is home.
I move slowly at first,
picking up speed.
Moving frantically before discovered.
Recognizing my own plundered treasures,
I throw them in my bag and run out
boldly through the front door.
Far enough away,
I toss the bag in the water.
They were mine to throw away.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 6:56 PM UTC
He kissed her neck and she closed her eyes.
The 80s sidled up to her opposite ear
whispering reminders that these could be lies.
Famished, she reached out for bread
but holes in the walls screamed that she could never eat.
The yearning so desperate, she tried to stomp
on the tapping foot
telling her she was expecting too much.
Practice made her better and more talented,
twisting with contortions to
***** out enemies like cigarette ash,
rewarding her with
belief in the truth that these were lies. Mostly.
And when she finally relaxed
the one that championed her all along forgot to notice she was in trouble.
Then lies and truths became friends instead of enemies
joining forces to taunt her and
laugh at her.
She tried to champion herself, and
ran to pour water on erupting fires like a game of Whack A Mole
hair sticking to her sweaty face and
blinding her even more.
Her champion was sitting down
picking dandelions and writing songs for them.
She tried to yell for help,
to save him herself,
to run up and down hill as fast as she could, but
no one noticed and
no one spoke the language.
In the end, she decided to stop trying to
put out the fires
and make s’mores instead
even if she was the only one eating.
She couldn’t make herself into a dandelion and
she couldn’t make anyone else hungry.
How this would dull her soul
was a question she didn’t have the courage for.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 6:28 PM UTC
Pre dawn glory
inching in.
Secrets invite.
I always taint,
but this is stronger than I.
This dark,
holding promise,
is not the dark of my nightmares;
it is kind.
Sleepy, I let my eyes fall shut again.
As I have done so many times before,
I waste this invitation
To dance
With the Divine.
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 12:18 PM UTC
You holding the pan, hands shaking, pan seesawing
Me feeling doom growing in the air like electricity building
You crumbling
Me swallowing danger
Them coming through the door, a bed on wheels
Me thinking that was funny
Him in the background, acting uninvolved
Me standing on the couch, forbidden
You lying on the funny bed
Me wondering if they would laugh at your clown slippers
You…I can’t see your face
Me looking at him
Him sending me away
Me sleeping in the neighbor’s bathtub, where it was safe.
You. Alone.
Me. Alone.
Him. Alone.
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 2:00 PM UTC