From your Father,
When I grew up I lived in a small brick house that was cold in the morning no matter how many times your grandfather yelled at the fireplace, the world never let him dream, he had to earn it.
You will never meet him.
You will never be the small reminders and the soft tug on the bottom of my sternum helping me sleep at night, I will give you string and yarn asking you to weave silk and save me from the winter.
Your hands will be overflowing with apologies, the sink will always be filled with water that looks like it is pulsing at an open wound, and the gauze from your mother's gentle throat is never going to stop you from leaking out how sorry you are.
I was not raised to be what you need.
I am not going to love you the right way.
When you are 7 I am going to tell you that the way you carry yourself isn't tall enough, for your 9th birthday I will give you a mustard seed and a pocketknife and will ask you to grow cherry blossom trees throughout our back yard and in all the pastures of the city, and cut each of them down the very next day, and THEN I will tell you how to be a man.
When you are 17 you are going to cry so hard that God mistakes your mouth for the trumpets that were used to tear down Jericho and when your walls come apart I am going to color your heart with footsteps leaving the room.
I will show you how to miss a warm shower, how to pretend so hard your head cracks and your skull looks
like the coldest bowl of tomato soup I ever gave you.
You will not see that this whole time I have been staining your windows to see things in a better light, even if it is not clearer in the afternoon.
This is my blessing.
From your Mother,
I was raised with ***** hands and the only person who I ever looked at in the morning and loved back was the sun.
Your grandfather taught me how to ride a horse, and cover up a bruise, how to scrub blood stains out of my white blouses, and a whiter conscious, and how to grieve.
Oh how he taught me to grieve.
You will never meet him.
When you are 10, I am going to write down all the sins of your father on a piece of paper, slit your throat with it, and tell you that it's just a papercut, I will show you that faith does not move mountains, it simply makes them smaller.
You will stand up, shake the dust off your knees, and learn to clench your fists without worrying who will hear you.
I will try, but I will not love you correctly.
When you are 13 I am going to show you that what you see is not always on your side, you can love someone harder than you can stab them, but people are going to worry about ****** knuckles before they take a second look at a bruised heart, they're going to forget which one is more important.
I am going to tell you to forgive them, and I will never truly mean it.
Maybe I am sorry.
I am going to flirt with death until it blushes so hard that the blood from it's cheeks flows down to it's chest and gives it a heartbeat.
I am going to make you understand that GOD needs you just as much as you need Him, and there is power in prayer, in the way God might not be worth as much when people aren't giving Him their attention.
I am going to help you need less of the world, but a little more from people.
Your words will be full and deep, but never your pockets.
This is my blessing.

My doctor told me today,
after the seventh blood test,
and the eighth psych screening,
that she didn't know if I'd ever get better.

I nodded
because I knew this.
Of course, I knew this.
She had tears in her eyes though
and her pupils screamed at me,
"You're too young to be this sick."
I know.

She told me I have to keep trying,
that my brain might heal someday soon.
It's not you, love - you're fine, it's just
your head is so, so sick, my dear,
and I'm so, so sorry.

You know boy, treasure that kiss
and all the others, they'll be pure bliss
For I had one once, a velvet kiss
on her soft, lush lips.

For me there's no more, not one such kiss
And they're one thing I'm sure I'll miss
One thing about which I'll reminisce
So yes boy, treasure that kiss

Sometimes I want to ask
if we'll ever get back
to normal. If the hospital bed
will disappear from the main
level, if the endless stream of
doctors and nurses and physical therapists and reflexologists and acupuncturists
will ever pass us by, if maybe
a night without the squeaking
of bedsprings and the helpless shaking
and gasping of another seizure being
broadcast throughout the house
will finally come, if just maybe
when I say goodnight, you
will have time to look up
and see me standing there.
But then I remember that
the word "normal"
has never been heard in our house
without the harsh sting of comparison, and
this is our life, now, as
we have changed so many
other times. Who knows
what "normal" is, anyways.
If I ever did, I have forgotten.

I want to tell you everything
But as the words try to slip off my tongue
And get past the pearly white guards
Hoping to slide off my lips with ease
They are fighting an uphill battle with the lump in my throat
And as I try to muster to confidence to tell you 3 simple words
I can’t
And they repeat themselves in my head
Like a broken record
I love you
I love you
I love you
But you will never understand how much
How much I love you
And I want to tell you everything
But sometimes
The lump in my throat wins

Nothing is as simple as it ever seems, and nothing ever will be.
You can say "I love you." or "you make me happy" without uttering a single word, and I think that's
the only reason anyone can make it past the age of twenty-five.
I remember being in third grade wishing I was made of steel and concrete and every other single thing that my father's knuckles couldn't break through.
I remember being young and putting conch shells to my ear because then you would hear the ocean, and I remember doing the same to my grandfather's grave, and how his marble tomb sounded like a hollow room with smoke rising upwards through the floorboards, and I see how even at our composition, we are flooded with what we cannot turn away from.
I see the power of finding more in things that you don't really understand, and that even something as soft as a voice can be my sweet tooth.  
I was once told that people are exactly what they allow themselves to be, and are defined by the things that they were given, yet decide to change.
So just know that I feel the time passing like wind sliding down my back, and I am carving softer ways to love you,
I am trying less to know you and more to know why.

Because the way tires leave blisters on the skin of the road when they leave too quickly, is the same way goodbyes scrape arms.
It is easy to devalue our breath, when we live in a world filled with flame, and coal, and ice which are not supposed to be beautiful, but despite their purpose, they find their ways to be.
It takes courage to pray to someone knowing that gravity can ****** your words from the air and bring them right back down to the soles of your feet.
So when we question things like Heaven and wonder if that big blue sky is another bruise on someone else's Mother's arm, we find much more than answers.
We find that people are nothing extra, they are only themselves, some simply more than others.
We are more afraid of a silent and a hushed love than we could ever be of one that oozes too many words, so I will continue quieting the world until it is time to listen.
So yes,
hell exists.
But I refuse to believe it is a place, and as far as I am concerned it is a moment.
It may be one moment or millions of them, but hell is real once you understand that the people who are supposed to love you like bandages that cover burn marks, seem to be pretty good at starting fires when no one is looking.
These are just things I was thinking about on the car ride home after I ran into your Mother in the grocery store.
She said you still walk like there is sand in your shoes, and I realized that being in places isn't the same living in them.
We have bad habits of getting up and taking a few steps toward someone just to say we were there, and I hope you are guilty of
loving me from within the distance.

I was swimming in a sea
Of confusion and heartache
But all along you were guiding me
Saving me from destruction

I was lost in a dark place
I had trouble understanding life
But you always made me feel safe
And helped me find my way

You are my light at the end
Of the long and cold tunnel
Through this bond, we transcend
Into a beautiful, undying love

This is more than I’ve dreamt of
You give me everything I desire
Truly, you’re my only love
Your heart takes me higher

I only wish to give you the same
Make you feel elation with every kiss
The spark will never leave this flame
We’ll burn brighter than the sun

take me away
to the fields and moors
where the fog never parts
from the ground
(like i will never part from you)
and the dew licks at my bare ankles
in the most endearing way

take me away
to the city skyline
where the movement of bodies
pushes us even closer
(how i would like to remain forever)
and the lights never dim
so we will never have to sleep

take me away
to the oceans shore
where the waves caress the shore
like you my face
(keep doing this please i need this)
and the gulls cry to the clouds
and nest in the grasses on the dunes

take me away
from the world we both know
of gray and dull matter
to a place of fairytales and adventure
(i love you dearly so)
dont forget to lock the door
when you leave

I used to think that maybe
just in time
you would want to be mine.
Just in time for the shattering of skin,
the withering that makes me so dim.
I used to think that because I'm autumnal,
you'd only want me during fall.
But when you unsewed me, you
proved me you might not want me.






At all.