just to tell you
I have a VORACIOUS appetite
for love and honesty

I held your hands for the first time today
And I loved them
Your palms stretch out
So wide!
So strong!
Wide enough to wrap around mine with an inch to spare
Strong enough to hold them and calm my fears
Like those of a great bear
they complete you

I hope I am grace to you
I hope I am the most powerful inspiration for good from a woman ever given to you
I hope I am a stonewall to you
A picture of the surest **** that ever kept Holland dry to you
I hope I am a warcry to you, what caused Braveheart to go and fight to you
I hope I am rest to you
I hope I am joy to you
I hope that I am hope to you
And I hope I am these things forever to you

If you’re only here to unwind the anxious chains around my heart
If you’re only here to teach me that God is kind
If you’re only here to grace me in self-appreciation
even if that’s all you do
then come
I need you at my side

I have destroyed whole worlds today
the stench of burning cities fills my nostrils
Quiet agony fills my throat
Endless wreckage is my vision
What horrors my hands have wrought
I step upon the ruined ramparts
I weep upon the ashes

I do not have the power to do such things
so few ripples have I truly brought
And yet my anxious heart feels like its caught
caught and shackled in the dry dust of emotional failure

You are
a calm blur
It’s so strange for me
Not to rush to see
But let you slowly unfurl

It’s been so long since my heart was so dangerously close to being exposed
upon the catwalk that is called connection
It frightens me
but whispers of peace have become my food
As I gently coax my heart into the open
I’m relieved to find I’m no longer paralyzed
nor terrified
nor am I too desperate for love
that I would quickly accept a fool

Your cologne smelled like happiness and contentment
Lingering on my scarf,
I smiled all the way home

it takes a certain amount of pain in other’s eyes
to convince me of their vulnerability
I guess that’s why some women think their type is broken men
Maybe it’s because I’ve been making space for them
The vulnerable
the lost
a comfortable place of rest in my heart
filled with all my favorite songs and art
I’ll read to you until you fall asleep
if you hurt that badly
all you have to do is show up on my doorstep
slightly turn toward me sadly
And know all I want is to lift you up if you’ll let me

In my mind
you tell me you wish I would tell you
how I feel about you more
instead of hiding it away in poems
that I don’t always show you
But that’s a level of vulnerability I’m not willing to give
It wouldn’t help
I protest
unless you’re as confused as I am
you probably are in a way
let’s be honest
I’m only thinking about this because you seemed disappointed
It probably wasn’t over something I could have prevented or helped with
But I think you wanted certain words
and you didn’t receive them
Maybe you were just sad
sad to be leaving

like honey dripping down
golden pathways to a sea of spiced tea
like the cinnamanly smells curling up
to caress my face
Like the deep red liquid firey below
with hints of home and rest and apples
excitement in the cold unknown
You are a rare delight for ears and sight

I’ve longed to forget you
I’ve prayed for my mind to erase your name
I ask to hold lessons and memories untainted
As slowly you become a little less
I realize so many people don’t get to forget
Faces, hands, smells, pain
are burned
DEEP
DOWN
their neural pathways are trenches to abusers names
I’ve got it easy
Someday soon I will not think of you for a day
then a week
then a month
And I will ask “who?” when they suddenly bring you up
You’ll be a subject long dusty
crumbling away

walls go up like tinted glass
Each blurs the view more than the last
the tinge of blue turns Midnight
as each panel raises up
Alas!
we’re separated
as I spread the molten soda-lime
upon the molten tin to add another
to my rows of perfect pain
I’m powerless
to end this game
I’m powerless
to stop my hiding
Rescue me with Your sledgehammer of Grace
protect me from the shards
of a silent broken heart

my heart shivers and shakes
like a little bird succumbing in the snow
I clamp my hands over my ears
“DO NOT FEAR!”
plays repetitively over loudspeakers
I’ve heard that doing the right thing is always the hardest choice
It’s not
maybe it is
But I’m working myself harder than God ever would
it’s my own hands amping up scatters of truth to terrifying decibels
my own hands pressing play for another episode

All day
it’s been like this since Friday night
Like little pinpricks
short stabs of adrenaline
giving me an increasing amount of jitters and pain
with no beautiful passion or art to show for all the hormone fireworks
I’m not depressed
I’m not anxious
but I’m suffering directionless excitement
My journey of healing has brought me to this mountain and commanded that I climb
So I climb
I have no choice but to rise
Reaching up with bruised and blistered fingers
it’s the only way to leave my ruined body behind

I’m walking through the desert
Following faint trails of pioneers before
Sometimes stumbling in circles through furnaces of sand and cactus
I haven’t seen my destination
it’s place isn’t marked on any map
I don’t know where I’ll find water
I’m a wanderer and I don’t keep it on tap,
I lose my sense of time
listening to the dune’s eerie song
All I know is that I’ve been trapped here
too long
I live for the moments I crest the layered plateaus
and can finally see the distance
of wilderness I have travailed

Pulling barbs from deep within your heart
Feel your soul be ripped apart
And all the miles of chain you swallowed
Must be thrown out
Screaming as they entered in
Your ears, your eyes, your mouth, your nose
burning down your skin
And the pain thickens in your head
Like blood pooling on the ground beneath the dead
Dripping down into your sight
Inkiness  
as all the grime from past clouds of smoke are washed away
In a Tidal wave of grace
your ribs are bruised and crushed
In the Violence of Love
Ready to take the poison hidden in your bones
Dig Deep!
Let your old, iron stomach throw up
all the nails
whose place is in the wounds of Christ

The best part of getting older
is looking straight into strangers’ eyes without fear
Oh the joys that the iris brings
what confidence of soul and spirit
Breathing with a lifted chin and open chest
Seeing the honesty in others’ happy and respectful gazes
All the truth I had missed
Now spread out before my sight

I am a bright light
and I defy all walls and prisons
With Holy Fire
I devour boxes like paper shreds
but I’ve just begun to burn
and I’m only an ember compared to my future
A Roaring Burning
I will not hide the glory of the One inside me
Like oxygen and diesel
it is He who feeds me
I am but the pottery that must crumble away
until I am a skeleton lampstand
Leaving a Naked Flame

I think my greatest power discovery
is finding I’m strong enough to love myself
and it’s not hard
because I’m very lovable

Your face staring into mine
and I feel
what
afraid
is the only thing it feels like
but it’s a gentle fear
And suddenly I realized
that power is what draws me most
to you

I was formed in power
Adam began in dust
I was breathed through bone
He recognizes himself in me
Yet cannot understand the change
Or his great need for the strength I bring
I’m his most important friend

And we’re both too recently scarred
to be far enough from fear
of foolish affection
So we ask each other simple, surface questions
only a few every day

Maybe I feel connected with you because you ache in the ways that I do
We both suffer alone
We both quietly long for recognition
We both see our own potential but self sabotage out of fear and laziness
We work when we work hard
But if nothing is pressing us we get nothing done
We both long for affection but somehow you’re more open about your need
While I more openly show affection
We both somehow feel awkward together
Like we can’t figure out which roles to play in each other’s lives
We both feel like big fish in small ponds but then feel ashamed of our pride
I think we both feel like we don’t have a lot to show for all the talent we’ve been given
But really we’re both doing well for ourselves

You’re so black and white
when I look at you
Like a creative charcoal canvas
like exquisite dot work
like the shades and shadows of a skeleton
You show me the world is still beautiful without color

I tell my children
“Do it”
They say
“I can’t”
I say
“You can”
They say
“I don’t know how”
I say
“Yes, you do”
They start to cry
I say “Just try, and I’ll help you if you can’t”
Most times they do it by themselves
Just do it, just try, and it might be so much easier than you thought

I didn’t realize the mantle I’d taken on
as I first tapped my pencil idly against blank white
I strained to put ink on paper
500 poems ago
Now I glibly glide words out
In a lyrical dance to make my impressions last forever

I take my pictures from an angle
to hide my crooked teeth
to make my face seem more symmetrical  
I never take a picture of my head’s profile
My chin disappears when viewed from left or right
And so the mole near my right ear is never visible

At this point I’ve given up on letting most people most of the time know when I’m in physical pain
I guess it’s kind of maturity
It doesn’t matter that I hurt more than most people most of the time
My great pains are just as guaranteed to leave as their little ones
We’ll both still be walking tomorrow

I don’t know why you added pink toaster
to your 23rd birthday wishlist
Except to display on another line
that You so ****** extra
maybe it was just that
Or maybe you wanted to see who was gon be extra with you
And actually go get a tacky pink toaster
guaranteed to never match your kitchen
But sit on the counter doing double duty
Toasting your bread with a sunshine picture
while also warming your heart
a daily reminder that there are some people who will always enjoy meeting your silliest requests
because they love you

Listen to the lies
Carefully recognize
The Devil wants to cut you down to a size too small
Flip them
and the truth will materialize
Before your eyes
He says that you are wise,
O fool?
Embrace God’s foolishness and become Wise
He says you are a fool?
In God’s wisdom you will Rise
and be no demon’s tool

May you forever drip golden lyrics from your lips
ambrosia melodies from your fingertips
May dancing never leave your feet

It is agony to die, to live in death
to wait as He says wait
to breathe as He says breathe
to rise as He says rise
It is Joy to be lifted up!
But achingly
so slowly
as He shakes away the dust
and grave clothes

And the strangest thing about this new journey
is that what helps me feel less need for your attention
Highlights how much I wanted it
I didn’t know
****
I didn’t know
How deeply I’ve wanted your attention

so I settled on you
And I know I’m scared
I hope you are too
But maybe I’m just desperate
Maybe I didn’t want to search anymore
There’s no denying you’re wonderful
But . . .
Maybe I’m tired
Maybe I’m wrong
I’m afraid to clear my throat and talk about myself
like
“Well, I!”
when you didn’t want to ask or know

I stooped over the flower
twisting  
rending skin on thorns in my attempt to find a good angle from my phone camera
And I thought “How poetic”
Here I am
inconveniencing myself to photograph
something that is put into images constantly
And yet I battle to do it again  
Like hope, this little bud appears
New today, like possibilities for love