Facing
catching breath
with sudden skin  
hands pull in
never close enough
with lips unclosed
not unclothed
we shouldn't
but we could
oh how we would
and why?
for who we were
there
see that foggy window
long gone now
where behind
our shut eyes
we warm belied
the leather cold

I've kidnapped them
or so it seems
and so they scream
and scratch me
draw blood clawing
sheets and gowns
with desire to get out
to home not knowing where that is
couldn't make it if they did
bodies sick as minds
I bind them softly to beds
soothe them with meds
I've got to send them off
to dream inside
what's left inside
a place where they can let me doctor
this choice I make to get them better
while they are non-the-wiser
Is it wrong to put them under
am I white coated cruelty
or duty owed Hippocrates
taking those who know not what they do
and to them do onto.

Oh the things I let you do
made a god of you
giving and you take
not awake to the ways
I made me weak
knelt willingly
as you kissed me
a parody of grace
a sinner afraid
ashamed of her crimes
the worst of mine being
first a thirst for freedom
this independence
quench it
second imperfections
unchecked boxes and missed directions
submit for corrections
third pleas for gentle words
shut up that never works
with women like you
thus you loved
me not brave enough
or knowing how to love
myself until the day I could
I stood and ran
you will not see me again

smoke break one when I walk in at 8
though it could be two already today  
as I don't know when she got here
only that she disappears
at 8 and then 11 to see her through
to late afternoon
when she'll leave and be returning
empty packed as I’m packing up,
and she hides it so well
her fingers aren't yellowed and the smell
only faint on her breath if you’re real close
it's not even on her clothes
scented the way some say
a woman should of flowers
I want to whisper in her ear
that whatever leads her
over again outside that door cannot
hurt more than the loss of laughs
to gasps for air and coughs
don't take your breath away  
let me take it instead.

You start talking about suffering,
beaten and broken, you’ll horribly die,
then after three days you’ll rise to life,
you plainly state such crazy things,
so I take you aside to tell you, no,
you’ll be King, show your power
rule the earth,
crush oppressors into the dirt,
then like I’ve never seen, you roar,
the anger of the righteous Lord
the priests teach about, comes out
you yell, Behind me, Satan,
you won’t ruin my plans,
your mind is filled with thoughts of man,
not God, I’m silent with shame,
confused, you’re calling me the name
of your enemy while I’m trying
to remind you what you promised me.

You called my heart a target
when I said your words were arrows
you wouldn’t slow
your shouting
you mocked me
made me part of your clichéd love song
poor you with bad girl gone wrong
you wronged by me somehow
could you not see that I was cowering
before this anger I didn’t understand
your demands
for a woman who’s x and not y
I tried
but could never succeed
Your rap sheet for me
was a 6 foot hole in the ground
getting deeper down
each rule I broke symptoms of sickness
cured by submission
you said to this pit you made
in a life
as your wife
with your name behind Mrs.
keeping you kind with my kisses
while losing my mind
I would have died your slave
so I’m climbing out of my grave
no need to shout as I go
your words are arrows
my heart is the target you’re missing.

You ask me one day, who do they say,
I am, what names are whispered when I pass,
some say you’re a prophet from the past,
and often others claim you’re John the Baptist
whose head Herod took, now alive again
making way for the Messiah to reign,
You follow with another question,
but who am to you, my friend,
I answer, not prophet, not John,
but the Son of the living God,
sudden joy on Your face, intense,
you proclaim to me, Peter, you’re a blessed
man, for my Father has shown you what
flesh and blood cannot, so on you, this rock,
I will build a church that hell’s assault will not
defeat, you’ll hold the keys to my Kingdom’s gates,
power to bind and loose all on heaven and earth
in my name, in the moment, I am
amazed, mind racing, unbelieving you would
hand me, a fisherman from Galilee, the right
to reign at your side but at the same time,
knowing you’d never lie to me, for I
believe you’re all you say and more,
my Savior Christ, the coming Lord.

A crowd more than five thousand fed,
with leftovers, we fill twelve baskets  
and You’re tired as the sun sets,
so You send us on ahead while You go to pray,
a short journey across a wide lake
to another shore, another day coming
of people healing, sermon teaching,
my thoughts drift as it’s deep night, we’re rowing
while the wind’s blowing against us,
when out of no where, there’s a ghost
gliding on the water, shining,
soon approaching our starboard side,
my brothers and I, terrified, we shout, we cry,
then Your voice says it is I, take courage, no fear,
Awestruck, excited, I quickly reply,
if it’s you, let me walk on water too,
You tell me come, and so I jump,
feet ready to tread the solid water
I stand firm, eyes fixed on you, my Friend and Master
you’re smiling as I step forward,
but the wind whips my face,
turns my gaze to the waves,
and soon I’m afraid, then I’m sinking,
then drowning and screaming, save me,
I throw my arms blindly toward you
and somehow I’m safe, you’ve taken
my hand, pulled me up firmly,
saying Peter, why did you doubt me?
the wind ceases as we climb aboard,
I rejoin my brothers at the oars,
but not before I fall before You giving
thanks—it was that night I knew You were
the Christ.

Be serpent shrewd and dove docile,*
my Teacher tells me and sends me,
His sheep among wolves with nothing
packed except a walking staff,
but no gold is worth this good news
my Master unmatched by silver,
so I’m empty-handed but full-Spirited
for His might in me somehow inside
I feel Him living, as I travel places
to preach a Kingdom coming to my people
who wait with open doors to listen,
my work a different kind of fishing,
casting out with healing words
reeling others in to follow Him.

I’m standing in the back unsteady,
not understanding Your story about good seed
fields with soil rich and deep,
enemies in the night that plant weeds,
which burn in bundles while reaping the wheat.
Later I ask, which makes You laugh
but it’s laughter of a patient kind,
for You take the time to tell me
You’re the sower, the field the world,
the seeds You plant, your people, me,
among the weeds, the devil’s lies, I’ll grow,
His own, until the end of time
while evil dies in flames, we’ll shine together,
and Peter, You say, *blessed are your questioning ears,
for you hear what prophets prayed to hear,
the mysteries they strained for years
to see before your eyes.

You turn water into wine at a wedding,
then I sit on a Sabbath day watching
as you give a sermon better than the scribes,
drive a demon from the dead eyes
of an unclean man who screams
you’re the Holy God and King--
one night, I bring you home to my wife,
and her mother fevered, flickering life
on a bed upstairs she’s cold, shivering
til you hold her hand and lift her laughing,
well, so whole she can run to open the door
for knocking neighbors, who come in crying
and leave smiling, all sickness and evil spirits fleeing
you, who’s gone to pray when I wake next morning,
who I search for, frantic, fearing losing you
as I’ve just begun to find you.

Lately the sun’s warmed the sea, the fish hide deep
still as we sail you say to me these nets just washed let down,
I obey, for my brother names you Messiah, found,
and I wonder what you are that catches crowds—
suddenly I haul away at weight that weighs the boat
to sinking, I spent weeks worth working for half a load
as large as this, impossible cargo your power calls
and I cry leave me at your feet among the fish, face low,
for the blood of days is on my hands,
and in me there is too much man
but you stay with words I don’t understand:
*You have a new name, Peter, don’t be afraid  
we’ll catch men in the waters of this world.

Dear daughter dancing at the wrong time,
playing in the wrong place,
I hear you breaking
as they’re saying sit still, lie low,
keep clean, mind manners
judged by how silent
how still you keep your body
bound to beauty on the surface,
so you’ll keep yourself seen
to make yourself heard,
wear yourself like
a weapon, a wall, or worse, your worth
when there’s more to you that matters.

All those symphonies
you wrote to my
           heartbeat
had I not lost my hearing
the band would still be
          playing
but all the voices many mine lied louder
than the drum-rolls in my chest
your
         melodies
bested by the worst of them of me
now on my knees
before a God who says He’s good
if He could
         please
write away my wrongs with  
         a new song
that makes you see the
         I’m sorry
         I’m singing
aloud, the repent of my deafness that
I hope you’ll hear
yet I fear the only
        music
I’ll ever make for you is
         pain.

Hired out by his heart,
seven years after that sun high when
he saw her, he worked, waited,
was tricked, yet traded his time,
never giving up on father’s second daughter
and nigh their wedding night, he tells her:
*for you, I did, I do, I will.

You thought I might have lasted longer,
loved you better, if I was stronger
I'd bloom in the stony garden
you grew in, because somehow it's weak,
unwilling to will a future where saving you
means selling me and buying the deed
to a house with hardened hearts
where they tell the children stories
about their mother’s lies, how she wiles
her way into the mind of their father
and don’t you worry, darlings, they whisper
*there there, in these arms you’re safe.

In profile is the only way I see you these days
or from behind, in the way the sun can’t shine
through shades drawn you closed your heart
and your face followed, eyes front, soldier,
don’t you dare look at her who dares closer,
orders coming from your need to stay a loner.

I behind her watching in the cold room she unzips
my gift blue bagged and pink skinned pungently
I exhale she inhales turning away from
my half-closed eyes closing her eyes
stinging from the stench of
my body given for her
for the blade of her scalpel to
slice she cuts along my spine
and I trace ghostly fingers in a line
down her shivering back to say there
that is the place where
what you see beneath in me is you.

Only God watched me as I watched
you, running your fingers through
your hair to tame it as the wind
tried to taste it--a delicious moment
made for swallowing to keep
inside me because
these seconds of savoring you
seem a sweet and secret sin.

To put it plain, you’re cheating:
your eyes are wandering off the test in front of you
and into grass that still seems green, like
the eyes you suddenly fall into when they smile
and dance on a face so much like
the one you used to love when
you were young and now again,
you strain at commitment’s tether
because on the other side of the fence
there might be more to life than getting old.

You remind me of that boy down the street
who rode his skateboard
running chills along my spine
in the heat of a summer evening,
the boy who inspired my mother to pray--
Lord, please protect her from those
heartbreaker eyes that gleam with
too much laughter and not enough love--
the boy whose July birthday I still remember
because he was bad in all those good itchy ways
begging me to just scratch a little harder now
though I was young with blunted fingernails
so he never meant more than
the diary buried in a box in my garage or
an shivery afterthought on summer nights,
but here you are, the boy next door made man
you meet me, still that girl yet woman so
what's running along my spine aren't chills
they're flames begging me to just burn a little badly
now, inspiring me to pray--
Lord, please put the fire out before I am consumed.

I’d done it before—losing that feeling that came in the door
when my love walked through, that the ground I was
standing on wasn’t quite steady and the world was spinning
the other way—but he loves me back this time, so now guiltily solid,
I watch as he shakes, head over heels with that feeling
I'm losing and painfully, I remember when both our axes
tilted right instead of left, when earthquakes followed our footsteps.

Your brows furrow as you play,
trying to cage what’s written on the page:
a melody you could hold between your fingers
if only they would stop stumbling and do as they’re told,
which they do, because as the minutes tick on,
I hear the notes slowly become a song.

That night, the moon was so bright
its beams gave us shadows
dancing for joy as we walked,
hand in hand in wonder at the
wildness of our brave new world
with strange rules of addition:
a planet where one plus one equals one,
no longer the loneliest number but
the most beautiful common denominator.

If only You could wipe my tears as I’m weeping
or hold me as my heart is breaking
but instead You’re a voice I can’t see,
words on a page I can read but not touch,
I don’t feel Your hands on my own
or see Your eyes because you won’t show
your face and when Your Spirit moves about,
I can’t feel the breeze, so I doubt
Your love because You aren’t showing up-
The pain is so real and You're not close enough.

Frost forms on the window as I fly away from you,
looking through the crystals to clouds,
imagining falling through frigid air outside,
my faith in a folded parachute to end my flight.
You told me once you’d do it, you’d jump into the sky,
but never for the thrill of risk, only to rescue, to save a life.
I wonder if you see me falling into your eyes,
and in your heart, am I worth a dive
for love, or even friendship’s sake?
Maybe that jump's just a risk you won't take.

When I look at you, I see a wall:
A wary way of walking through the world,
hands pushed deep into your pockets,
keeping them safe from other hands.
Your laughter comes only controlled,
even smiles sometimes shielded
during our careful conversation
that’s calculated before it clears the air,
sentences screened for slips of the tongue,
holding back secrets that sit in your silences
when I ask the questions you can’t answer.

Whoever took that hammer to your heart
has this hard shell to answer for,
this barrier built on top of broken trust,
a mountain I am not strong enough to move
so instead I choose to love you from the outside in,
drumming on the door of this fortress you made
when someone made a fool of you.
May this love make such music that one day
you find yourself holding my hands
as we dance to it, laughing, talking, smiling, free.

A day, like any other at the start,
but then you called, filling up my heart
with happiness too big for my body,
so I went on a walk to let it free,
my smile too wide for my set of teeth,
I shared it with strangers on the street,
as I skipped and danced, laughing at nothing
because you are everything
I never let myself wish for out loud,
you were too impossible to be allowed
yet against the odds, you’re alive,
and because you are, so am I.

Camera-happy me captures moments constantly,
yet with you, I fail and realize: a simple photo can’t suffice.
It cannot exhale, inhale, run its fingers through its hair,
look, laugh with your eyes, speak, seeming older and wise,
for in reality you’re more than a lens could ever see.
Your smile’s light resists a frame, and a flash cannot tame
the wildness of your mind or cage your heart--so kind
that you soar through my life like no one before,
but because your essence escapes photography,
I wonder if you can ever belong to me.

Years, listening to your lies and
writing sad odes, sorry metaphors about worthlessness,
all the reasons, various, numerous, for my loneliness,
figure flawed, wits wanting, a person less than perfect,
me, cast in the role of defective, undesirable.
I believed you.

This morning, you’re at it again,
telling me I can’t have this, the sum of my hopes:
a mountain too tall and I, too small, can’t overcome it.
a feat too mighty, and I, too weak, can’t accomplish it
a vision so beautiful, and I, so ugly, can’t attain it.
In all of this, you’re right.

Or would be, if I wasn’t part of a Whole
who’s height can’t be measured,
who’s mightiness surpasses strength,
who’s beauty a sunrise can’t match.
All this and more is mine in Him
so I stand, therefore,
to tell you I will drink none of your poison today,
to say sorry, sir,
the sum of my hopes cannot be shaken
by the sum of the fears you fling in my face.

At first, you won’t admit you lost, you count the cost,
fighting hopefully for someone who doesn’t want saving.
The weight of failed friendship and the blame you believe
belongs to only you bends your back
as you pray for peace and problems solved.

(Time)

You wake up weary of battle
and realize you have nothing left to give except giving up.
Then no longer tired, you’re on fire,
because surrender burns and sears a scar:
a name on your heart.

(Time)

New names and faces you want to trust, but
your wound’s not healed quite yet so you fret,
worrying that war will start again, you wait,
inside though laughter beckons you outside,
you’re not ready to open the door.

(Time)

Breezes wind their way in through the
window as you peak out when
someone comes knocking, smiling,
eyes looking at you with a question and
holding out a hand for you to take, which you do.

(Time)

Sometimes, sadly you wonder what went wrong
when the scar with a name beats when your heart does,
but the hands you hold are steadfast in holding you
as you let go of the past to live in the present that
promises a future, one day at a time.

There is no road until I start walking.
I put my foot down, the bricks fall under my feet,
paving the way as I need it, but not before.

Oh, Lac Operon, gene cluster great, you code for enzymes three,
but only if Lactose in the cell arrives to set you free.
Lac Z, Lac A, Lac Y: these genes would be expressed
yet a crafty protein from gene I keeps you so repressed.
Binding to the Operator, I’s Repressor keeps you capped.
Do not despair—Lactose saves you from this cruel Repressor trap,
for Lactose turns the Repressor off, giving you the space
to make galactosidase, transacetylase, and lactose permease.
Then Polymerase binds the Promoter, and the Lac genes have their day.
yet alas! They break down Lactose, taking your savior away.
When Lactose is gone, the Repressor binds and causes you to freeze,
so Operon, to live again, you must find more milk and cheese.

Storming loud, the wind drowns out my gasp
when the spray hits my face,
I walk on concrete,
the roar of the waves silencing all other thought in my head
as I realize I am afraid of suddenness I can’t predict,
the crash of cold water coming
when I don’t know when.

And then, I laugh at fear—
feeling exhilarated in the face of the oncoming
for just as I know I am not unshakable,
I know the Ground I stand on is,
and if the rush of wind and water shocks me, icy,
I will not be swallowed but supported.

So open wide with my arms and heart and soul,
I turn my face to the waves, waiting,
and when the water finally hits me, I live.

Light breaks the clouds.
It wafts in the window through the sterile air
into the room where he lies, burning.
Its rays hit your face
I stand behind you in the dark as you speak to him.
Elevated, authoritative, calm and cool,
you look pain in the eyes and smile,
explaining, the fever is spiking
because the infection is spreading
and there’s need for debriding,
also treating with something
starting with “Vanc” and ends with “In.”

I watch silently from the corner, and as you speak,
I realize who you are.
You are smart, strong, and shrewd,
You are tough and tenacious.
You are efficient, and you make your work look effortless.
I could be all of that.
I will be all of that.

But first of all, you are you.
I want to be me too.

One two, one two, with a pause between.
Victory drums beating out in glory
because today, I am alive.
Maybe someday, the drums will skip a beat.
Certainly someday, the drums will stop.
But for now my heart is dancing happily
to the pulse that gives me life,
making music with every single breath.

He bends over the paper, his pencil scribbling,
trying to keep up with his neurons firing.
Three plus eight is eleven, carry the one,
He shows me when he’s done,
and for a moment looks at me
questioning, did he succeed?
Carefully, I check his work, I smile, I nod.
The light in his eyes lights up the world.

I’m living insufficiently,
yet I’m loved by One who
knows what I don’t know,
and sees what I don’t see—
my life in context of forever,
today in view of infinity.

I wish it was like going to sleep,
letting go, sinking deep,
reason shutting down gradually
while love tiptoes through the door gently,
but no, love knocks me out like a long day’s work,
hard and fast--it hurts
like a sucker punch to the gut
before I get my guard up.

Impossible, putting it to words, distilling this to nouns, verbs,
but I write because I’m scared of the way I feel when you look at me,
when I’m the focus of your eyes, so deep--I want to leap and dive
but I’ve forgotten what it’s like to swim so I panic,
backing away from the water’s edge, head spinning because
I don’t know you, still my heart smiles wickedly as you walk my way.

I looked today at pictures of us:
talking, in a group of friends laughing,
in a crowd standing, our heads bobbing
to the music of the moment.
So many moments, you and I,
yet not once, not one time
did you stand by my side,
did you put your arm around me,
did you look at the camera and smile wide
to capture a moment only meant for two.
Years later, this tells me everything I should have known.

I like to begin this story with her shoes: Sequins, orange plastic straps,
cork sole, pointed wedge toes, and 2 inch high heels.
Impossible for mountain climbing.
And yet, I was the one who fell.

I thought I was saving lives that day.
I meant well, and as I see myself,
climbing down the mountain,
I know I believed I was a hero.
And, honestly, wouldn’t you?
If you climbed up a mountain to give medicine to
someone laying sick in a house made of dirt,
if children smiled as you gave them toothbrushes
to protect the teeth missing already from their parents’ mouths,
if an old woman held your hand and thanked God for you,
Me agradezca a Dios por su ayuda.

She walked with me, my guide.
Meant to walk before me and lead me safe,
but heroes are better than high heels
so I walked beside her, faster.
The path inclined downward, sharply, and curved.
At the edge of the curve, a drop, 30 feet or more,
My left boot slipped, rocks and dust giving way
I shot sideways toward the drop, flailing,
Humanity crashed back into me.

I like to end this story with her hands:
Simple human hands, four fingers, a palm, a thumb
Strong, worn, smooth like a rock worn by the sand.
These hands caught me falling to my death
on the side of a mountain and held me steady.
These hands taught me that it’s not heroes who save lives
because all she had to do to save me was hold my hand.

We are stories that we tell because we can’t help but live,
every day and every way, through our music, our words,
our pictures, our bodies.
All day and long into the night, the universe hears us living loud
as we share our stories spinning around the sun’s fire,
playing songs and writing words,
drawing pictures and dancing to the rhythm of our heartbeats
driving us forward into our future.

In the scheme of things, I am small.
But my problems can’t shake me off their backs,
my to-do list wants a quiet night at home, and
my calendar wishes it had room to breathe.
I’ve always been insane that way, but truthfully
it doesn’t bother me.
Before I go to sleep, my problems are solved,
the to do list gets a rest,
and tomorrow’s calendar may be full, but today’s calendar sighs with relief.
World, your problems have lived the easy life,
but I'm awake now, with a calendar of a lifetime to fill.
Can I help with your to-do list?

You see, I’d forgotten the sound of your voice in the dark
the glint of your eyes, your smile by the fire’s warm light.
A colder fire burned the letters you wrote, every day for months,
letters that I’d read before bed, holding your words in my heart
and whispering my dreams into the pillow as I lay awake,
wishing and afraid.

Sleeping became easier as the fear of losing you
became the reality of losing you.
I couldn’t fear the present, the happening, now.
I could only cry, and the tears sent me to sleep.

Suddenly, I can remember so many reasons why I loved you.
Your hands, the music you made tenderly over your
guitar on a summer’s evening, your voice carrying on the wind,
your zeal for life and laughter, your conversation like mountain springs,
refreshing and flowing down naturally from heaven, and me, a girl becoming a woman, thanking God for this gift, this boy becoming a man.
I had so much to learn.

Memories now, of hanging my hopes on your
shoulders though you could never carry them.
Days were not days but hours and minutes and seconds,
counting until the next time I saw your face.
All that time spent sitting by the mailbox
waiting for letters while wanting more of you.
Wanting and wanting, because it was never enough.
By then, my life was you and you were my life.

There’s a difference between looking and seeing.  
I’ve looked bones in books a million times.
I’ve looked at skulls in horror movies out of the corner of my eyes.
But this year, I saw her.
Yellowed and petite, she stood in the corner of the lab.
A stand cradled her spine, wire bound her together,
her head ornamentally dangled from a string.
Tasked with learning the parts of the body, I touched her hands.
Then I realized:
These are her hands.

The elevator dings, I press the button,
and I ascend from Sanity onto the second floor of Craziness,
where I am free again to walk today and forever into your arms:
a place I purposefully forgot I shouldn't go.

This day always comes.
Frantic searching for you in my life...nothing there.
Desperate wanting to hear your voice...no words.
Very few have the elegance of no regrets.
By the way, the answer is yes.
I miss our minds.

It never gets easier.
Smiling, waving, carefree.
Suddenly, one pair of eyes, and
the hands of Time rewind the tape:
the laughing, dancing, dreaming, sighing,
wishing, hoping, losing hope, then weeping,
weeping because the world was ending
and it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know.
Just one pair of eyes and it happens again.
Again, again, and again.
It never gets easier.

That canyon deep inside--that aching, echoing chasm
where at night your pain is so loud that you can’t sleep.  
I’ve had one too, and so I ask as one who knows:
please don’t fill that canyon with rocks,
only to repeat when time weathers the rocks away
leaving the canyon empty and echoing again.
Don’t treat what hurts and ignore the cause.
Instead let your tears run, filling the canyon with a river
that’s fast and frightening.
Let me take your hand to travel in a boat up the scary waters of pain,
rowing together, moving out of the canyon to a place where nights are silent.