The closest thing to God my father has ever seen, is dawn at the brim of a lake.
Finding forgiveness in its tides.
Seeking solace in its depths.
Building a chapel on a coasting boat.
Discovering answered prayers hooked on a line.
There’s a hallelujah echoing from the trees, if you stay silent long enough to listen to the birds.
You can find grace in a no wake zone.
I’ve always admired my father for unveiling hidden faith in the heart of nature.
For developing a catch and release mantra.
Feel and withdraw.
Love and surrender.
Live and abdicate.
I’ve never been much of a believer in God until I saw the same light at dawn in my father’s irises.
I found the same forgiveness in his hands.
I sought solace in his mind.
I built a chapel on his morals.
And discovered answered prayers in the strength he hooked in me.
I am silent and still, hearing a hallelujah echoing every time he says he’s proud.
I have found grace in knowing we share the same blood.
My father loves me like a prize winning fish at the end of his line.
He reels me in, and lets me go.
Because he knows I was never born to be a trophy.
I was born to be a legend.
Catch and release.
Love and surrender.
That’s how I know, and how I believe.
For only God could design such a man.

Watch out
For the greatness
That sits
Inside of you

Do not leave it alone
It is not luggage
Not visiting
It does not need your permission to stay

Treat it like family
Like summertime
Treat it well
Like it belongs there
Make it bold
Hold it tight to your body
Make it your body
Live within it every day

Be bold
Be great
Before you forget it is yours to own

The metal in this brass knuckle heart
punches my chest from the inside out

The valves, a semiconductor for the static
electricity of your touch

Who ever thought a defibrillator could be so soft?

And in the challenge of this love
I wonder what kind of mettle you're thinking
of now

And I think patience is found
on a molecular level inside the iron
in your blood

And love then, a stone ground down
from your ashes

I mean, pressure and heat are
what diamonds are made from

Tell me again of the struggles you shone through

And through that logic, we are precious stones
but so much softer than that

I want to hold you like the focused light
from a jeweler trying to make a sale
but so much more earnest than that

And what of the contradiction
between hardness
and softness

Because there is you

How can you be so hard
and so full of life?

How can you be so beautiful?

People tell me I overthink things
It has never been about mountains or molehills
I always see land big enough for shelter
I do not need reasons
This is what worries me

I am the best at sort of
I think I know
Then I know I know
Then I see you in public and you're laughing
And I can't tell if you're laughing at me
Or just laughing
I'm not laughing because I don't know what you're laughing about
So I smile
Not because I want to
But because I think you want me to
Hope that your giggle is the drawbridge to a conversation I've been dying to have
But you walk by
Barely nod your head and say hi
And suddenly I don't know anymore
But I think everyone else knows
I wonder if you know
And I sure hope not
I've been trying to tell you myself
So I turn back
I swear in my head this was easier
The words just a quick skip down the walkway away
But I stand here
Discussing with myself the things I know I could have done better
But definitely shouldn't have done better
Because the possibilities of better bring thoughts of the worst that I've never envisioned
So I sit down on the pavement
Each passerby shouts another reason why maybe next time won't be like this
But I most certainly will be like this

It shouldn't be this hard to climb mountains
To lose my breathe as I look out at the landscape
I just want to see you
Shout your name at the highest peak
And watch the echos vibrate off my chest
Hope that you shout back
This is what worries me most
What I need
Is the courage to say exactly what I intend
Believe I already own this certainty
Live within the in between