What I’m craving right now is a
Shot of July,
Fireworks flying high
Over this town that everybody wants to leave
But I will never get over,
Never get over his smile,
Friday night,
Pulling up in my drive,
His voice so full and alive,
Making me want to dive
Right in,
Right into the lake that’s too cold
But I’m too old
I guess, to laugh out loud,
Do something just for fun,
Be happy for no reason,
Be optimistic and cherish hope for a
Better season-
I’m supposed to be already
Battle-hardened, war-ready;
I haven’t reached twenty but I know
There’s evil in the world.
That doesn’t mean there still isn’t good.
I’m craving a shot of July when
I’m not old enough to take a shot,
But I’m old enough to take a stand,
Lend a hand,
Understand,
Witness injustice firsthand
And use my voice to try and mend.
So please.
No more gunshots in July,
No more mothers wondering whether
Her son is going to survive the night,
No more human skin grated against concrete,
No more hospital beds surrounded by weeping,
No more lives lost and priests kneeling
And children screaming for their fathers,
Both earthly and eternal.
What I’m craving right now is a
Shot of July,
Fireworks flying high,
The loudest screams out tonight
Are the children chasing each other with
Sparklers in the yard,
Not yet marred
By the ideas of the world.
So please.
No more gunshots in July.

let’s live our lives
barefoot

let’s live our lives like
small children,
children so precious that their simple presence
evokes tears in the eyes of the most
stoic father,
so precious that the image of them
snoring softly in their Thomas the Tank Engine bed
causes the stressed mother to smile a mile,
so precious that when one of them
pushes back the blonde, wispy hair of the other
the photographer can’t help but laughing as she
captures the moment

let’s live our lives like
children who are not afraid of nails and rocks
in the backyard, but who are
obsessed with finding that elusive
white grasshopper that their uncle
promised was there,
like children who endure countless foot baths every day
in the heat of summer but the pads still blister
and their feet still turn brown
but they don’t care,
like children who have just smelled a flower
for the first time, who have experienced the
sharp pain of a first bee sting,
like children who are in awe as a deer
peeks quizzically at them from above the bush,
tail twitching, eyes twinkling

let’s live our lives like
children who make up odd games that
they remember years later, a complicated one that involves
Patty Cake, jump rope, tag, and somehow
hop scotch and charades as well,
like children who wander away from their house
for many hours, exploring like Columbus,
drawing detailed maps of their small neighborhood,
beautiful crayon stick figures dotting the horizon,
like children who capture and dote on an assortment of
toads, grasshoppers, frogs, moths, and butterflies,
like a child who thinks the worst sin is to
**** an animal that the Lord has made

let’s live our lives like children, with a
loving and unwavering faith in the Savior,
with eyes unaltered by the
whips and thorns of life,
with minds unchanged by the
Judas Iscariot’s of this Earth

let’s live our lives like
small children

let’s live our lives
barefoot

Chest heaving, eyes weeping,
The tomb blurs before my eyes.
How is everyone else still sleeping
When my Savior doesn’t arise?

Oh, how the doubt roars within me,
His words now seem to me as His rotting flesh,
“I will rise on day three,”
But his body is now stolen, unless…

Dirt clenching onto my dress,
I fling the tears from my eyes,
Trying to decide if… Yes!
There are people by his graveside.

Angels they must be, all in white,
And before I can confirm their existence, they speak:
“Woman, why are you weeping at this sight?”
My anger flares as I try to control my speech.

“Because my Lord has been taken away,
And I don’t know where his body is.”
I attempt to keep my temper at bay,
Turning away to abate my boiling fears.

Then I see the gardener, and a flash of brilliance
Or desperation rises in me, which one I don’t know,
But as I open my mouth to ask about my Lord’s disappearance,
He speaks: “Why are you weeping woman, why such sorrow?”

Again the same question, yet I cannot form
An adequate response; how can one describe
The loss of Him who can calm the storm,
But now has left my world in turmoil at his sacrifice?

My anger reaches the heavens now,
And in irritation I retort, “If you have taken Him away,
Tell me where He is, and I will take him from thou.”
Chest heaving, eyes weeping, I glance away.

But then I hear my name, soft and sweet but firm,
Two syllables, a clear “Mary!”
And I turn
And my unbridled joy at seeing him turns into “Rabboni!”

I ponder for a second what it’s like to feel
Sadness, for in that split second, it’s gone,
It’s been replaced by rejoicing and zeal,
And I resist the urge to leap with the dawn.

How could I have ever doubted?
Of course His words are true,
It’s a reality that must be shouted,
Yet all I can do is stare at him now that he’s in my view.

“Do not cling to me,” he says earnestly
“For I still must ascend to my Father,
And please tell our friends this, for certainly
I ascend to My God and your God, My Father and your Father.”

It was good he said this, for I had forgotten
In my excitement to see my Savior; I’m sure
His disciples must have wondered whether their Lord had rotted:
“I’m leaving right now, my Savior!”

Sandals rubbing into callouses, lungs heaving,
I ran back to town, through the streets that
Once knew me in despair, grieving,
Hardly stopping, for I had no time to chat.

My Savior has risen, he is alive and well,
He has saved us lost sheep who have gone astray,
And although He no longer on Earth will dwell,
He will never allow us to fully decay.

I’m sure when you die he will call your name too,
With a voice soft and sweet but firm and so true,
And you will go be with Him and He’ll make you brand-new,
And we’ll all live forever from our own Easter morning, too.

My heart’s in lockdown and
I can’t break free,
I wish I could feel something,
Wish I could be me.

I feel like I’m running in circles,
Striving for emotion,
When all I feel is numb
And sick of my devotion

To the voices in my head
Who keep telling me to quit,
“Why not just give up now,
There’s no way to fix it!”

But I know there’s something there,
In the deepest part of me,
Something that still wants to learn,
Love and move and breathe.

So I will spend some time today,
And love that part of me,
And lock down all the saddened parts and
Start to break free.

Dancing, you are Spring;
Birds flock to see your song, yet
Night falls and silence-

Silence but for the
Stars and moon who mock us in
Our bed, our Winter.

The man was leaning back in his fancy wheelchair
So much that he was almost parallel with the ground,
And while everyone else who was
There for the church service was freaking out,
He was as still as a gym before a free throw.
His left leg was not present, his right one at an unnatural angle,
And my mind started to conjure up a bomb
That had thrown him through the air,
Away from his friends, his commander, away
From his life as he had known it.
He had large homemade, not quite mittens,
But knit sock-like articles over his hands,
Alternating orange and black yarn with only a couple of
Cute errors where orange touched orange or black touched black.
A slight grunt, a swift motion, and the mittens were off,
Revealing a left hand twisted into a fist and a right hand
In a white cast, hanging limp at his side.
His soft peppermint scent, large wrinkly face, and wispy
White beard was reminiscent of Santa Claus in the mall,
Though Old Saint Nick was never that far back in his chair.
His assistant was a frantic college girl who looked like she had lost a child at the park
And was trying to decide whether to ask for help or
Continue to struggle helplessly on her own.
Each turn of a dial or press of a button pushed the man farther down,
Until his feet were almost higher than his head.
Yet on the man’s face was the type of smile that a grandpa has
When he’s about to checkmate his grandson in a game of chess;
Triumphant, knowing, loving.
He must have seen me openly staring at his cruelly funny dilemma,
For he turned to me and grinned,
“Don’t worry about it; makes life interesting.”
I smiled back, not knowing what else to do.
As suddenly as a pitcher throws to first,
The man jolted upward, and his chair returned
To its normal angle.
With the crisis averted, church
Began, and although I tried to focus on the preacher,
My eyes and mind kept wandering to my veteran.
His one leg tapped to his own drum,
His strong voice belting out the melody on the hymns,
And a hard “Amen!” was heard every other sentence.
Happy.
He was happy.
He had one leg, two useless hands, was living in a place away
From family and friends, with much of the joys
Of his youth over, past, gone,
Dead.
But my veteran was happy.
His frantic college assistant seemed very pleased
That his chair didn’t have a repeat episode on the way out
Of the chapel after church.
He shot me a quick nod as he was wheeled out,
His wisp of a beard bouncing on his chest.
Perhaps he would have been a Santa Claus at a mall
In a different life, one without war, sadness, pain, hardship.
Maybe he could have been a more active grandpa to his grandkids,
If he had them; he could have played football catch in the yard,
Secretly baked cookies for Grandma with them at two in the morning,
Get on the roof and scare his kids hanging Christmas lights.
Maybe he could have done and been all these things, but for the
War, sadness, pain, hardship.
I know what the veteran would say to that though:
“Don’t worry about it; makes life interesting.”

Step 1: Get out of bed
Step 2: Look in the mirror
Step 3: Practice your smile
Step 4: Eyedrops to hide the red eyes
Step 5: Conceal the dark circles
Step 6: Breathe
The curtains are almost up
Step 7: Lock down the pain
Step 8: Ignore the weight on your chest
Step 9: Silence the screams inside of your mind
Step 10: Choke down the sobs
Step 11: Ignore the stinging in your eyes
Step 12: Swallow past the tightness in your throat
You’ve put on this show a million times
Step 13: Don’t let them see
Times up. Curtains up. Camera rolling

She never failed to mesmerize,
The poetry girl
With the rich maple eyes.

Her jungle of hair flourished on her head,
Contained by a green scrunchie
While the bangs on her forehead were spread.

A bite of the nails, a twist of the hair,
A brush of the bangs,
And her voice echoed like a call to prayer.

She goes to IHOP every weekend, knows the menu by heart,
Lives on pancakes and unlimited coffee,
Although she has been known to dabble with egg tarts.

She pulled her knees up to her chest,
Two Crocs, one green, one white,
Her gaze as stalwart as a tree in a forest.

When she spoke, her thoughts came out like trails of smoke,
Littering the room with her personality,
Those scraps of beauty as powerful as a thunderstroke.

She never failed to mesmerize,
The poetry girl
With the rich maple eyes.

Happy Birthday
to my favorite
and only sister.
Thanks for always
being there.
Have fun being 17