"God is my strength"
were the first words spoken
when we saw your small body
lying still, broken.

"God is my strength"
was braided in the prayer
that your Nana spoke over you,
even though you weren't there.

"God is my strength"
was my loudest heart cry
when the doctor came in
and didn't speak, but sighed.

"God is my strength"
said Jon's hand on my hair
"God is our strength"
his eyes spoke through the air.

"God is my strength"
our eyes locked in to say
while we slept and we cried
countless hours away.

"God is my strength"
as the pain grew stronger,
"God is my strength"
as the night grew longer.

"God is my strength"
as I wept through my prayers
"God is my strength"
although this feels unfair.

"God is my strength"
in the silence that followed
"God is my strength"
my womb and arms, hollow.

"God is my strength"
when the nurse held you first.
"God is my strength"
when the silence was burst.

"God is my strength"
I've never seen this before.
"God is my strength"
I can't take anymore.

"God is my strength"
tiny son in my hands
"God is my strength"
For I know the plans...

"God is my strength"
that day and still.
He holds my baby
as part of His Will.

"God is my strength"
and I know it's best
for Gabriel to be there
where he is best blessed.

Truly unruly.

It's profundity unravels
into the expanding universe

chasing it's own tail toward an
answer that won't be caught because
it's a question that moves too slow.

From time's beginning, or from the
paradoxical idea that we have invented
in a vain attempt to understand what a
beginning is, or could be, or was, or isn't.

Do you ever stop and think of these things? Of how
we have loved since "let there be" and have spent
all of eternity weaving into life from here and there
and everywhere in God and nature's beautiful dance
of unity and life which has caused us to be here, together.

It's like Rupi Kaur says,
"You should have known."
You should have seen me
as a candle,
you should have felt
me as a flame.
You should have never
tried to hold me,
should have never
changed my name.
I was never merely embers,
I was always made
for pain.

He sees me as a candle
soft and light and
smelling sweet.
Or he sees me as
a wild fire and he
marvels at my heat.
He's the wind and so
he tests me
and I
burn out or I rage.
He's the wind and so
I need him,
to clear away the haze.

He can quench the
flicking candle,
he can feed the
blazing flare.
He can touch me
without burning -
I can't breathe without
his air.

moaning* | door |

groaning | floor |

come on in

       **you little *****

my ego so easily constructs
     a fantasy
in which you, my favorite reader,
       t
           r
       i
           p
over my words and fall into
a wonderland
     with me

a single small s  p  a  c  e
between the blackness of
     these letters
and you fall into my fantasy
where we relish in
     our fetters

we forget to climb back out
as the passion starts
     to mount

we lose our minds with pleasure
hands and mouths
     d      i
           s      c
                 o      v
                       e     r
                             hidden treasure

the words that you pour out
my own that you soak up
leave us beggingpleadingscreaming
till our keyboards
light back up

Flushed and warm.
The kind of breathless you get when a
   butterfly from your belly flutters
      onto your heart.

And then it starts -
A little squeeze on your heart,
   a bigger tug on your smile.
The sprinkles in your laughter harmonize
   with the beat of his heart.

He breathes through your whispers
   which creak the bed though you try
      not to wake him.
But he smiles anyway -
   you can hear it through the dark.

Growing up on a farm
I lost count of
The hundreds of times
We rotted compost
And scooped manure
In order to make things grow.

I figure that's the reason
I still believe in my life
Blooming.

My eyes have seen the body
of a lifeless tiny son
They have fiercely wept for heartache
when life from my womb was torn
They have held in them the vestige
of a perfectly formed son
My grief keeps lasting on.

My eyes have seen the pink stripe
of a second ray of hope
They have gently wept from joy
while I grabbed the saving rope
They've beheld the wriggling grey shape
of a tiny new sweet babe
My love keeps hanging on.

Aggravating, but without intention
Because
Insecurities are my mind's
Greatest invention.
Alluded to harshly
In regard to "pretention."
L**onely but loved, despite the contention.

The things left unsaid
are usually more hurtful
than things left
unthought
(Ask me how I know).

It's the things left unsaid
that eat into the light
of your usually
big heart
(Ask me how that feels).

It's the things (I) left unsaid
that leave you (who says them)
in a quiet little space
(unaware)
that I'm not as good
as you're trying to convince
everyone that I'm not.

the first time
   i craved
kalamata olives
purple and firm
to stain my fingers
and tickle my tongue
with their harsh
sour **** and their
succulent burst
of too-sour juice.

the first time
    i craved
those gummy straws
(in blue specifically)
covered in powder
too sour to even
taste beyond the
jaw clenching tingle
of a feeling rather
than a flavor.

and now this time
       i crave
       lemons
i'll take 'em any way
we're talking popsicles,
candies, lemonade...

and,
this morning,
i ******
on a hard lemon candy
and simultaneously sipped
on a lemonade
and i couldn't help but notice
the difference
the actually incredible difference
it makes
to add just a little
something sweet
to something sour

this time
i crave
anything but
the first time

I suppose there is
a thunderstorm
brewing up outside.
I suppose it rivals
the lightening storm
you're holding deep inside.

I suppose there is
someway that I
am surely to be blamed.
I suppose you could link
either storm
right back to my name.

I suppose that some might
jump or fret when they hear
the thunder roll...
I suppose that might
cause me to fear if not
for the CRACK
of your soul.

On the days that I can't
even roll over in bed without
an internal sigh so deep
it would rival the heave of
the shuddering earth
and you ask me why
dinner is still cooking and
the drier is fluffing and
the dishes are crusting
and the dust is still lying
and my lashes are bare
and my hair is unkempt
as the sheets on the bed...
On these days when
I go to work anyway
before you wake up and
I get home after you
(you're sleeping on the couch)
and pick up after you
and serve myself after you
and you still think to ask
about the undone things that
your eyes see so well...
On these days with
these questions and that
look in your eyes
it's all I can do
to set my jaw,
smile,
and say:
"I just haven't..."

Aggravating, but without intention
Because
Insecurities are my mind's
Greatest invention.
Alluded to harshly
In regard to "pretention."
L**onely but loved, despite the contention.

I can't help but love
the new curves
being paved down
my amazon body

       Tall
        Strong
          Glowing

There's been no better
time for warm hands
to run down the new
roadmap of my skin

       Firm
         Round
           Growing

It's **** and startling to come
into myself so fluidly and quickly
as I am beautifully growing out
after all this time of hating myself
for doing the same thing differently.

Everyone talks about how beautiful it is
to be shining with life, to have a slight glow
to be walking with joy, just starting to show.

Friends will all smile and will all want to know
(just like your family) the date and the gender;
If it's a girl, your beauty you'll lend her
but if it's a boy your body will surrender.

They all have a story, a fun little tale
but none have the cure for
the all-day-long hell.

But here's the first secret
I have learned on my own:

I love this sweet baby despite how it's grown.

It was only about
an hour
into our first date
that he told me
my eyes were the ocean.

It was even sooner
that I knew
his were the shore
I would always return to.

When life screws you this hard
are you supposed to
     scream?
     Or sigh?
Or just shut up and enjoy
     the ride?

It's Saturday. We're running late for a wedding.

Scene:

**** body, loosely wrapped in a lime green towel
which, I'm sure, makes the paleness of my skin
downright floresce in the warm, bright sunlight
pouring too generously through the picture window.

A mound of life rises like the moon,
casting a glow all the way to my face.

On a Saturday. One in which we are currently running
quite late now for a wedding.

Contrast:

Against the softness of the sun, a backlight glows with
harshly lit updates from hundreds of people who,
to be honest, I keep up with to be kept up with
and I suppose that makes the glare harsher.

My hands curl softly around the glare, thumbing
gently through this distraction in an effort to abate
the sweltering heat of late April in the WV mountains.

It rests softly on my rising moon, the source
of this precious glow far outshining the scene around
me, although the burst of glorious sunlight coming
would prove me wrong again.

Then it happened.

On a random Saturday morning. We happen to be closing in
on being too late for the wedding.

And my hand jumps.

He kicked me.

And you ran to me.

And we watched in wonder
this life we made,
this man in the moon,
being everything but still,
until we ran out,
still dressing as we
frantically raced
our way to the wedding

(which we were not late for)

on Saturday.

stillness
is
translucent red,
if you were wondering

it's the see-through red
of your eyelids against
the sun
invading your
sight
when you would rather
see the darkness
than what is in front of you

it's the see-through red
of the unfinished skin on
the son
assailing your
sight
when you would rather
see the movement
of who is in front of you

round and swollen
tears; eyes swollen

waddle and beguile
listen; forced smiles

rubbing my bump
swallow the lump

          a shy little smile, down onto my belly
          cry into my biscuit and onto my jelly

          questions come fast and answers come faster
          ignored and vanishing into the plaster

it's the first year we haven't
taken turns 'round the table
rejoicing that we're
happy
or healthy
or able
   because we lost
          *gabriel

A l~u~l~l~a~b~y
   or a tired sigh

            a chuckle

                      a laugh

                 a      dam        burst        open

      A SHOUT
             a cry
(a secret unopened)


                     Soft prayers and sleepy groans
             or stand-up hairs from guttural moans

But my favorite is the whisper
(through the dark
and in the night)
it's the one that
shouts through tears
"it will be alright"

But my favorite is the whisper
(in the soft gold
morning sun)
it's the one that
wakes my heart and
pulls my strings undone.

But my favorite is the whisper
(in the race
of passing time)

it's the one that
shouts from mountains

            you,
         my dear,
         *are mine.