i didn’t stay
as i.

i remained
as what
they,
   or it,
  or silence
     left in me.

a fold,
 not of cloth,
 but of consent.

the way skin yields
 when held too long.
the way breath
 flattens
  into listening.

what remained
 wasn’t memory
 but impression.
not thought
 but weight.

—

I am in protest
and no I won't come down
with lifted chin and a finger pointed
I am not haughty, nor am I proud.

My disdain for your wicked ways
is not the result of my own rebellion.

The fact that I can discern
between what is good and evil
is not evidence that I have fallen short
but that I have found the spirit

Don't tell me that my conviction
is simply an offense
when my conviction is the core
of what made me a Christian

Don't tell me that when I point my finger
in your direction,
I have three more pointed back at me.
I don't need your correction.
I want you to open your eyes and see.

See the wickedness
you have surrounded yourself in
and the Justice you've forgotten
see that you have set yourself beside
The deceivers and the wardens.

My plea with you from the beginning
was to come step off that pedestal
and I wished that you'd be willing
But instead you've shown yourself a fool

I will not pretend to make amends
to walk as though you've offered repentance
I refuse to be a clanging cymbal
when I stand before God's presence.

They cut the trees
at the park—
not all of them,
just the ones behind
the baseball field.

Now,
when I drive by,
I can see
all the houses
arching their way
up the hillside.

I don’t think I like that,
seeing all those houses.
I wish
they had kept
the trees.

It was always the words I said.
It was never the way I said them—

never the way I screamed,
never the way I whispered,
never the way I spoke with eloquence,
sweetness, kindness, or grace.

It was never the way I spoke with wisdom,
or the way I spoke with knowledge.
Never the way I spoke as a woman,
or the way I spoke as a friend.

It was never the way I spoke
with tears in my eyes,
or with a clenched fist.

It was always the words I said—
the words you didn’t want to hear,
the words you refused to hear,
the words you refused to listen to.

Words that would have made you care,
that would have forced you to act,
that would have demanded you
to sacrifice something.

It was never how I said them
that turned you away from me.

It was always the words themselves—
that you refused to believe.

Something lovely in tomorrow,
The hue of a new beginning.
Hello to the sun, heralding us
Forward into something—
Hopefully, something
Lovely in tomorrow.

I’ve started sharing my poetry,
and I think I’ve concerned a few—
friends, family—
they didn’t see the blue, blue, blue
sadness
that sits quietly in my lingering,
spilling out in these poems.

It was never my goal,
but the sadness likes to speak,
wants to say what is true:
that the sadness still exists,
a deep, deep
blue, blue, blue.