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484 · May 2010
fallen times
JB Fuller May 2010
i know that i'm not worthy
but today it seems doubly true
and once again i find
i am nothing without You

am i swimming in self-pity
coming short of the mark
how did this darkness
make its way into my heart

the moments when I stand
are encompassed by Your grace
and I'm no more sufficient than
when I falter and fall in this race

still i don't want to be here again
where every flaw is shown
pride wants to keep me
from being helpless before Your throne

nor do i want to bring You displeasure
when my life was made for Your praise
so please Lord, God, teach me
and on Yourself turn my gaze
472 · May 2010
only tears
JB Fuller May 2010
how often do I see
the darkness that is surrounding me?
and does my heart
ache when I see that you're falling apart?
I want the words to say
to show you the sunniest side of the day
but they don't come
the magic inside doesn't come

a smile can be guilty
in the presence of utter despair
you couldn't forgive me
if I laughed when you were like this

joy shuddering
your emotions are only fluttering
but you stare at me
is silence all that my answer can be?
I want hope on your side
but all mine seems to be hidden away inside
in your dimmed eyes
before the face of truth imitation flies

and I don't know I don't know
I can hold you when you cry
and mourn when you mourn
but it still seems excruciating
the pain you've internalized
is something I could never see
but I'm here if you can stand me
JB Fuller Jan 2018
One beautiful day in June I met you,
alone with borrowed car and fluttered nerve,
trusting. Our God would keep and see me through.

I ate my lunch, watching your every chew,
and laughing.  I saw also how you serve--
one beautiful day in June I met you.

We went to that marsh--then truly I knew,
though our brave path would not be without curve,
our gracious God would keep and see us through.

We sat on grass under the sky so blue,
and talked theology with no reserve,
that beautiful day in June I met you.

Those early moments when it was so new,
we carefully tried the other to observe.
That beautiful day in June I met you
knowing that God would keep and see us through.

We went on, we struggled, and so we grew.
The miles stretched far, the months much too long,
we thought. But God would keep and see us through.

One fine day in July we said "I do"--
and thus our partnership became lifelong.
We went on, we struggled, and so we grew.

So many days, we didn't have a clue.
We are sinners, prideful, selfish, headstrong.
Despite us, God would keep and see us through.

We looked in the mirror, in the Word too,
and have often found ourselves steeped in wrong;
we went on, we struggled, and so we grew.

Somewhere with grace it began to come true:
we two, as one, started to plod along--
We are seeing God keep and see us through.

With all those past years and struggles in view,
in grace our love is learning to be strong.
That beautiful day in June I met you,
and every day God has kept and seen us through.
286 · Oct 2016
the waiting
JB Fuller Oct 2016
this frizzle of excitement
daring--not daring--to hope
the flag feels the tug of the breeze
but can't unfurl
waiting.
to take in a breath, and not know
whether water or air awaits
265 · Jan 2018
the education of innocence
JB Fuller Jan 2018
i thought i could fly
so i climbed up the mountain
the view was very nice
wind blew through my hair
on its wings flew inspiration
i lifted up my feet to soar
and i ran away from the peak
navigating the currents
and it felt very pleasant
because i knew i was high
i landed ever so softly
gently, in the schoolyard
my feet carried me away
i found me at the seesaw
recounting my flight
the audience intent
the door slammed open
i whirled in surprise
teacher hurring to us
the devil in her face
and hell in her lips
lucifer bound my eyes
grating noises in my ears
i thought i escaped unscathed
but the next day i jumped again
and found my wings had been clipped
in a trance i shuddered
and tumbled to the ground
i lie with broken wing
but i know it not
i lie with broken dream
i cannot
rise

******* the playground
spinning wild fantasy
good to imagine but bad
to believe it all true
i had to do something to stop
inside i drew her alone and free
i distinguished myth and reality
her feet must stay on the ground
and all this insane wishes of dreams
is as eradicated i hope as yesterday
she must move on and be adultish
abandoning childhood fairies and hopes
i have made her a survivor
this is the way things go in this life
those who do not learn fall and break their necks
because we are post-everything
and definitely beyond this immature obsession
everyone must fall sometime
and it is good that i made her today
before she climbs to the summit
inside of herself
and crashes hard to break
to shatter more than myth
but infringing on reality
i have caught her
safely in my arms
i had a peculiar dream last night

i dreamed i could fly
thinking and lifting up
now, awake, i can only wonder
why i would dream such a lie
225 · Jan 2018
dance
JB Fuller Jan 2018
travelling down a road
to a place I've never been
dashing in my own direction
getting lost once again

hearing the patient voice
calling me back home
saying "follow the road"
but I too often roam

thinking I have a pack
of heavy weight and care
the voice says "I have it"
and suddenly it isn't there

tripping over the rocks and roots
my feet just plod along
he tells me to look up and dance
and starts to show me the song

it sings of sorrow and of grief
of love betrayed and promises unkept
but there's a thread of faithfulness
and joy at which hearts have lept

the voice tells me this measure is mine
and shamed I hear the minor key
until suddenly brightness fills the song
he explains this is his work in me

the new beat floods my soul
and my feet find life of their own
for joy I dance, to joy I dance,
and I do not dance alone
211 · Jan 2018
this game
JB Fuller Jan 2018
flirtatious stolen glances resting
in the churches' company
speaking with inhonest subtleties
and darting furtive eyes
forthright is incarnate as a fool
as evasiveness is deified
carefully intertwining the moves
the delicate dance continues
speak and rejoin to play the part
in the precise code of conduct
step once wrong to tear the sail
disband aspiration and expectation
the night is too important to take heed
abandoning the morning
208 · Jan 2018
the song
JB Fuller Jan 2018
i came to the forest
reckless and ravished
hopeless and poor
i came for redemption
but it was no more

the trees starkly glaring
crushed leaves in my wake
a trail of all that was wrong
and all that remained was
the softness of the poet's song

i heard the song
enter the mountain
emerging a flowing river
it calmed the waterfall
and made the rock to stir

it echoed the valley
and sung of the moon
it loved and it left me
back where I began
with renewed eyes to see

i have entered the song
and the song has entered me
i have heard the harmony shift
as it completly transformed me
and left the twice-edged gift

i hear the song still
the melody lingers on
i love the sweet sad tune
but I cannot escape
the song's tragic croon

i am singing now
reconstructing the notes
trying to rewrite the song
into a higher, nobler key
but my task will be lifelong

i am a fugitive
from its call
it is ******* my life
and if i cannot stop singing
all will be lost in the strife
JB Fuller Jan 2018
"Mama, why
do the boys stare at me?"

She stares at me with her
bright green eyes
and golden wavy hair
that falls perfectly.

"Mama, why?"

What in all my years has prepared me
to answer this?

"That's—because—"

Ask me no questions,
I'll tell you no lies.

"Because—"

I flounder, but she
doesn't notice.
She just stares at me,
waiting.

I think.
I should have looked this up.
I should have anticipated it.
I stare at her.

"Hmm?  Mama?"

I decide to brush it off.
"You know why. You're
just fishing."
I tease.  Deflect. Wait.

But still she stares, so I lean in.  
Hating each word before it emerges.
As if the sum of our existence,
our attractiveness to the world,
our usefulness,
hangs on this one flimsy, filmy,
fleeting facet of our being—

"They stare because you're pretty."

I smile love at her.
Before I walk away.
198 · Dec 2023
for a girl
JB Fuller Dec 2023
I remember you with the brown eyes and
blonde hair, arranged in a cute little bob.
I remember you, bright smile and dark tan,
looking for her first babysitting job.
The toddler-you made me quake in my boots,
but the older-you seemed collected and cool,
a teenager with solid family roots,
popular and very well-liked at school.
Today it's all gone. I ache for your mom,
and your sisters, your brother, your dad.
The pain you've inflicted has little balm--
Did you know you could make joy itself sad?
184 · Jan 2018
summer days
JB Fuller Jan 2018
the sun shone bright against the water
the waves rippled gently in a shallow wake
and the clouds floated lazily through the sky
as the geese landed gently on the lake

there was no past and no future
no dreams of what might come
only the beautiful and awesome reality
that today was not yet done

we talked of crushes and cooties
and all of the older far-off dreams
but distraction surrounded us with play
life was exactly all it seems

in those sunny days it took so little
to make our bonds and hold them strong
we played together in the muddied creek
and nothing could make that go wrong

they told us to enjoy our childhood
they told us it'd soon be gone
we absorbed ourselves in every moment
but couldn't understand our dawn

one day we stood and looked out
over all we'd done before
and realized with bittersweet astonishment
we had walked through childhood's door

as we waited on the threshold
tenatively awaiting our turn to leave
we knew what we had could never return
as surely as we knew we'd never grieve
180 · Jul 2019
in October
JB Fuller Jul 2019
our lives stopped in October
    with the brain tumor
    (that wasn't even ours)
and now there's a calendar
    and piles of things
    all stuck in October
while our real selves are in spring
    or is it our fake selves
    gone on before us
with the impossible feeling that we
    will never catch up
    still here in October
and the flowers are blooming
    the April showers
    bringing May flowers
to October.

in October he died
    though his body lingered on
    his meanness and vanity too
but there was never home again
    no corn from the garden
    no last buck to bring down
everything that should be
    died just before fall
    though life continued to gasp
through Christmas, into winter
    half-life, half-stopped, desperate
    and breaking
since October.
168 · Mar 2023
words fall
JB Fuller Mar 2023
Words fall; they clatter to the floor like
the shoes the five-year-old discarded
or things returning to gravity
after an extended time in space.

These thoughts had just been dancing
between us, whipping between us
ruffling our hair and mussing
any claim we had to perfection.

But then, you snapped your fingers
and they fell. Harmless, motionless
there on the floor where we dropped
them, and, by will, we forgot them.

Yet: I did not snap my fingers.
I let go when I saw your words fall;
I let go and mine fell too, joining
yours in sparse synchronicity.

(and you don't know what an act
of blank force that was for me
to fall with you in a mad hope
that I don't even grasp or hold)

I know you think it was your snap
alone that made the words fall down
to be dead and harmless echoes
for you to forget so promptly.

But I let go. Through bitter choice,
determination. Sad reaching
for character and battered love.
My words were pain; yours were knives.

I'm glad you dropped them. Obviously.
And I'm glad I did, seamlessly
so that you wouldn't notice how
we just papered over my blood.

Forgiveness is a sticky thing,
most brilliant when drowned in concealed tears.
And my words, fading equal with yours—
the messy debris of the holy.
165 · Jan 2023
Anonymous
JB Fuller Jan 2023
In history,
Anonymous was a woman, she said.
And certainly,
Anonymous has since been me.
I've been hiding,
Not hidden. Afraid of shame.
153 · Feb 9
split: an outside view
JB Fuller Feb 9
somewhere an emotion tumbles into existence
ex nihilo, or maybe not
in the great universe of the mind it could be from the outer rim
I can only feel the train rumbling in the distance
vibrating, gently

and then boom it flies in and explodes
right next to me so my blood and sinew
escape my gravitational pull
but the emotion doesn't care and it tumbles
and tumbles, like a snowball

a great cosmic snowball of misplaced nothing
or maybe it's a black hole,
because nothing escapes its horizon
everything around us goes rushing in
and it all is smashed relentlessly

around this giant ball is a fringe
of pretense
there must be some explanation in the brain
and so it is constructed around the emotion
justified by the emotion

if faith is belief without sight
splitting is justifying all the dark in the heart
no facts need apply
cause emotions don't lie
so we have this construct of make-belief

we burn on and on and die and die
nothing is real but the feel
and no one can try to explain
who can hear facts clamoring
in the middle of all this pain?

then boom and bust and the snowball
melts, and the star goes supernova
and all that's left is an eerie silence
and the construct created to explain
the anger that took the rein

what do we do with that?
it's a fragile paper mache
and the balloon is popped
and it was just air?
how is this fair?

we watch it collapsing
what do we see?
everything around is gone
consumed by the fury and the fire
now we can see

the moment of decision:
for you, for me
how do we unwind
the mess that was made
from this ball of irrationality?
145 · Jan 2023
Life as a broken vase
JB Fuller Jan 2023
The lies we tell
About happiness
About ever after
Fragmenting us
Pieces of a beautiful picture
A puzzle
So pretty, so art
Until you pick it up
And pieces in your hands
Fall
In a heaped mess.
Love that is whole
So whole
Such an example
Such a lovely life.
But we know
We hold disconnected, broken bits
Torn out of our souls
Just pretending
To be one
To be beautiful
When two become
One
Set of shards.
126 · Jan 2023
Fall
JB Fuller Jan 2023
I just want to float down
Like a leaf in fall
That has finally
Finished
The hard work of
Sustaining a giant tree.
And turning brown
Blowing out a brilliant
Hue
To fall down
And rest
On the ground
Crunched by the feet
Of the passing schoolchildren
And ground
At long last
Into dust.
JB Fuller Jan 2023
Pain etches deep in the mother's heart.
Fear burrows into my soul.
Are the ducklings home,
And will they remain?
The moment, I can feel, is so fleeting.

If I could see the future, would I shudder?
One day will they hold me, or scold?
These days I'm writing now, will they return and haunt me?
Oh children, am I bringing you joy or pain?

These little ones are so simple to shepherd,
But they grow into each a man.
And the adult will reflect and stand alone and judge,
And I'm afraid they'll find me wanting.

I see my failures lined in a row
And I know there are more beside
Invisible to my eyes but written in their hearts
So fragile were these things I treated so roughly!

Pain etches deep in the mother's heart.
Remorse buried in my soul.
Can the ducklings, grown,
Forgive my mistakes?
These chances were so quickly fleeing!

— The End —