you lay still and stretched out
in your backyard,
stars thriving leagues above you.

can you feel it?
the pulsing of the earth,
beneath your hands, your heels?
the feeling of drifting,
anchored firm but drowsily drifting:
this is how it feels to exist.

“Confío en Ti.”
The words rip the tastebuds off my tongue,
the skin from the back of my throat,
the bile from the pit of my stomach—
all raked out by the utterance of this phrase
that has never been so hard for me to say.
“Confío en Ti.”
“I trust in You.”
God, I—
I can't say those words aloud.
Not just yet.
It hurts, oh God,
to put my hope solely in You.
But I will write it.
I will write it over and over until
the words roll off my tongue,
until saying them feels like it has never been easier.

“Confío en Ti.”
“Confío en Ti.”
“Confío en Ti.”

I trust You, Lord.

i slice my heart with strokes of pen;
blood flows as ink onto the page.
when i share my writings with my friends
they hold my life force in their hands.

now
words only sputter and spurt;
suddenly it hurts to hurt.
writing exhausts and reading consumes
over my head numbness looms.
words ought to follow each place i go
yet now i find them falling short.
i'm clinging to Your rays of light
fighting paralysis, reaching for Sight.

what happened to you
that made you change?
you were a different person
when I knew you.
now your values are deeper than your veins
you hug people less but now you mean it.
your confidence itself
has morphed into something
less like a sun-bright dress
and more like an adamantine
gem,
a pendent you wear close to you
under layers and layers and jackets and sweaters.
do you still respond to the same name?
the creature you are now
is surely a different being
than the one you were before.

I've begun to summon
a voice of my own
but it still falls short
when I need it the most.

I still have so much left to learn and yet
it just feels like I should
already know all of it.
I have only just begun
to dig my own place
in confidence and wonder and transparent faith.
but every time I look up it seems
I'm always losing my grip on more than I keep.
I am not hopeless, but
a little out-of-world, I spose.
it's been a while since I've had
a glimpse of where my path goes.

(stay by my side, Lord,
lend me Your hand.
together we'll walk
upon the dry land.)