I see it
It's on their faces
All of 'em
This shadow
Like some sort of indifference
Built out of hurt and pain and loneliness
Like they're so tired of fighting that they just gave up
"This is reality" they say
Yea, I see it
Don't think you can fool me
And there's a lot I could say
You know, to them, to myself, or to God
A lot of words that attempt to heal
A lot of prayers that attempt to reveal
A lot of...wrestling...that attempts to understand the brokenness of our condition and how God fits into all of it
But lately I've only been able to think of one thing
One single question that wells up inside whenever I begin to feel overwhelmed by the comprehension of the depth to which you have sunk your teeth

How dare you?

I see her
She's laying it all before me
Her heart
Her emotions
All her past
All her brokenness
Her father who used to chase her all over the house
Call her all sorts of horrible names
Totally RUINING her sense of self worth!
And now, she doesn't know what to believe or what to say or how to say it or what to pray or what to do or what to choose or how to love or when to love or if to love at all and all I can say is

How dare you?
Are you not aware?

And I see him
He's caught up in himself
So misguided by the failures of those involved in his life that he built a wall TEN MILES THICK around his heart, locked it, swallowed the key and never looked back cuz he's so **** sure there's nothin' left to see and all I can say is

How dare you?
Do you not know?

Oh and I see him
Sitting right across from me all full of lies and blasphemy
The things he says only ever amounting to full blown hypocrisy
I see him
So full of anger, hatred and hurt that I don't even know where to begin
The web is so thick it's BLACK
And you say it's hopeless, and I feel helpless, and all I can say is

How dare you?
Can you not see?

Oh, and I FEEL it!
That voice!
Insipid and subtle
So confident and slithering and leaving no room for rebuttal
Give UP it says
You're not capable and they're not worth it!
Your faith is invalid cuz it contradicts all the others
Your heart is too filthy and your soul is too shredded!
You're gonna fail!  Because you always fail you failing, miserable failure!
And all I can say is

How dare you?
Do you not know?
Can you not see?
Are you not aware?

Get to tremblin', beast.
For we are the children of the living God.

When I was a kid
I remember watching the comedy channel
Not in my own house, mind you
My parents were too smart for that
When I was a kid hanging out at my friend's houses watching the comedy channel
I remember
A slogan
Time.  Well.  Wasted.
And I remember thinkin'
"Oh!  Yea!  I like that!  Imma sit here a lil' longer!"
I was just a boy at the time and that's as far as the thought got
About a half-hour later we decided time was better wasted building gigantic, man-eating snowmen.
Eventually I went home
I wasted some time arguing with my parents about schoolwork, ate a bowl of cereal and wasted the next 8 hours in a comatose
I woke up to waste the next several years of my life figuring out how to waste the NEXT several years of my life
Somewhere in there someone told me I should do what I feel called to do so I wasted time waiting for a sign of some kinda magicy, Jesus voodoo
While I was waiting I wasted time reading Ecclesiastes and learned about what a waste of time it is to read Ecclesiastes
So I tried filling my time with all the things that weren't supposed to BE a waste of time but then I didn't have any time so I fell flat on my face on the edge of the vortex that is the human condition!
And I cried, "God!"
"Why do you waste your time with a foolish and selfish sinner like me?"
And the almighty, holy, infinitely incomprehensible, incredible God of the Universe replied
"Time.  Well.  Wasted."

Love
What a perfect balance
What a complicated dance
What a mess
Love
Something that is both felt
And chosen
Given
And received
Wanted
And needed
Love
We all seem to have our own little perceptions of love, don't we?
What it looks like
How it feels
What it's for
Love
Arms wide open?
Or arms tightly closed?
Embracing
If I hug a man do I love a man or am I just trying to buy his land?
If I tell you I think you're making a bad decision am I your enemy, or your closest friend?
Love
What a complicated dance
Open arms always willing to embrace, but never holding back
Knees strong enough to meet me where I'm at, but never too weak to lift me past that
Words gentle enough to sooth a child, but STRONG enough to fight off giants!
Ears always ready to be lent, but never bought no matter how much is spent
Only love is capable of being the safest, most dangerous place all at once
Because love
Sweet, sweet, incredible love
God is love

I am the queen of stutter.
There was a time every creak and crack in my bones resonated between every slur of a word and every pop in my vowels.
I was a young girl with a white picket fence and yet there were still moments when words mixed and broke and-and-and-and
kids thought it was weird.
So I hid the voice with lollipops and suckers because I was
"That kid" and the "Freak" and I started to believe it like I believed my mothers bedtime stories that rested in her cheeks.
I was a broken jar and no matter how many times you tried to put me back together I always broke again and again and again.

There was a time where words came out together,
like a butterfly hatching from a cocoon and instead having feathers. I spoke with a voice of the age of four and before I was five I spoke no more because ****, vowels came out like clicks and grinds and everyone told me they paid no mind but I knew that they hated it liked I hated consonants. And I think the reason I hated it so much was because it reminded me too much of her and it made me feel like I was turning into her and all I could see was her standing over me like a murderer stands over a corpse and for a moment I forgot what it meant to be cradled to a chest, fluttering with a beating heart.



The first time my mother left, It was June.
She gave me a kiss on both cheeks and said she'd be away for awhile but that her love for me was longer than any mile that she would have to cross. I kissed her on both cheeks and it wasn't until she left that I realized that I was the one pushing her out the door. So when my dad came home from work he found an empty house and nothing more, he knew where to find me. I sat out in the pouring rain on a swing set that was older than my veins and waited to be saved to be rescued to be heard to be found to be be be be be be
I, was the queen of stutter.
And I had dropped that off when I moved from the city and I started a new life, carving it out of the trees outside with motivation and a knife. I did not yet understand that life was difficult.
But then my mother did not return and my father got scared because she had been the only one to ever love him the way he needed to be loved. And I did not understand so I started to carve life out of my palms and wrists and every **** kiss and nothing was ever good enough. I was the kid that turned to pill bottles and drugs but it was a metaphors for my dying bones and cracking lips. I breathed air that was blue and told my dad lies that were true and I was lost in a lost world, where being found was something that happened when you were dead and God, I wanted to be found.

So the story continued on and I wrote poetry to encompass my heart and my lungs and I painted over myself, scribbled all the mismatches and righted out all of the wrongs. Life seemed to continue and my dad had been injecting life into his veins and had been living at the doctors and had been tired all the time and had been lonely and sad and had been gone. He promised me a graduation and maybe even my wedding if he was lucky. I took these words with me everywhere I went and trust me if I could marry now I would in a heart beat.

I am fifteen.
My marriage has not yet come but I feel like I have all the time in the world and the doctor is only a place my dad goes to visit now. I can make words come out of my mouth the way they appear in my head and I now know the meaning to carving life into my bones and into the hues of the sunset. I am no longer afraid of every click and grind and twist and churn in my brain because it reminds me that I am alive and breathing and that my veins are filled with blood and that I breathe air like every other person does.
I was the queen of stutter.
Now I am the queen of hope.

Your lies in your eyes as you sit and realize. What a mistake was made when you threw it all away. Don’t you feel upset when you think of that day, when you brought yourself to one knee 2 months after May. Wasn’t it sickening when you said those words that ended it all in a rushed fashion. Turning your cheek and completely leaving, empty handed. Running from what you were afraid of, and leaving me abandoned. How could you just cut me off, and never speak to me again? Like I’m a ghost in your past. A ghost in your closet, grey and black. How could you do this simple deed and leave me on the side of the road to bleed. As if I meant nothing to you in your life, you were willing to toss it away. Trash, never treasure, that’s what I hear you say. I loved you to the very end, no matter what I constantly would bend. Maxing out my credit and taking out a loan so that you would never have to be alone. Not only that but I pushed all aside, in school and family and in friends, so that I could abide. With you, I would feel you were my soulmate and now knowing you could easily sever my tether, I wonder if my worth was ever so great. I based my reality on this dream of us, being together and never having to fuss. And yet, we talked about how we never fought and when we finally did we saw what it brought; Pain and suffering to a relationship too perfect it seemed, how could we have been so stupid to think it would always gleam. In the light, we saw some true colors of each other, but I think those bad things are not enough to make us hate one another. Could you please just look once more at our photos together and see those smiles and know it was worth while. That we were not meant for a separation such as this, and this emptiness we feel is nothing like our kiss. All I can recall from our moments together is all the beautiful times and the beautiful weather. Positives outweigh negatives that’s what I’ve always said. I even told you with that other guy that’s how I felt, and now I’m telling you here. Out of our two years together, this was only the second major fire and I really cannot fathom why the building came crashing down so quickly. We have our faults and I definitely know I have mine. But I can’t help but think that there is some sort of line. Did I cross it? Yes indeed, but I couldn’t help it when I felt threatened and helpless. Misunderstanding your words and feeling attacked…when in reality you were just fighting back. A never ending circle that could have been stopped if we had both just calmed down and talked for a spot. Like cool headed adults that we really are and not impassioned children that we became. I really feel like we could have retained all of this anger and sadness. I really do. I really feel we could repair it if we just started with a bit of glue. Glue of compassion and glue of understanding. Glue of love and comprehending. Darling, you made my world worth while. You made it all ok. And that was the happiest moment those two months after May. To see it all shatter, right before my eyes. I can’t even believe it, I feel as if my soul has died. So please, I urge you to look once more. Make a list if you must, but look again into the dust. See our relationship as a whole painting and no just the smattering of ink upon a dim page. Look at the positives. Look at the beauty. For I see it and I know that we are more than our mistakes. More than our flaws. I know that I am more than what you saw. Forgiveness is a key part of any relationship, friend or lover. So please, do you have it in your heart to take the blemish and cover? It would be the best day of my life in these past weeks, if I could just call you up and not have to weep. What joy I would be brought to have that person back, who I met between the romantic buildings of Europe. What joy I would be brought to have the person back, who kept me upright in the snow. What joy I would be brought to have that person back, who kissed my tear stained cheeks and held me so close.
Look back, darling. Look back into the past. Look at the picture as a whole. Don’t you wish the same things? Don’t you want to restart? Refresh? Renew?
I know that I do.