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

When I look at a picture of me,  
I don’t really remember the person in the picture.
Who she was and how she saw the world.
I can educate my guesses.
But they are guesses only,
based on what I don’t really remember to be true.
Because I am not who I was (any number) of (anything) ago.
One, two, three, four:
years, months, weeks, days, hours, seconds,
ice cream cones eaten, smiles given, frisbees thrown, breaths taken.
I am the sum of all my moments,
all the years and months and ice cream cones and breaths.  
Every moment culminates in me.
And so when I look at a picture of me,
I see a piece of the person standing with a picture in her hand.
I see a moment of the baby, girl, woman who’s
loving and living and breathing
and adding her moments up.
I may not really remember her, but
I know she is still real.

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 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.

I know. Days like this do come.
Days when I wake up and do everything right
but something small to supersize goes wrong so
I crawl to my cave of sadness and stress because it’s my life and
at the moment it’s about me and my panicked heart.
Yet then, a desperate call comes from someone loved and when I answer
instantly, it’s better—my life is no longer about me, but that someone.
Is it really a life unless it’s a life for someone else?
Do I truly live if what I have to give is given only to me?
Whether your wallet fell down the drain or the sky fell down to earth
you are still you.
And sir, you’re wanted on line one to give what you can give.
Live today for another panicked heart, and remember:
On the days when your own heart flutters madly,
I’ll always answer the phone.

I’ve found that my indefinable truths are hard to hide.
I can’t hold on to what I don’t fully understand,
it escapes from me unhindered by the label I've yet to stick on it.
Then how easily the world captures what I can’t even find words for,
how quickly it encircles what I perceive boundless,
for my truth must belong in this box or that box and
when it’s all wrapped up and labeled accordingly,
the world delivers my truth back to me, and tells me
I can accept and acknowledge or reject and deny this gift of a definition.
So generous, to give me options, yet
somehow I suspect that I have no choice, for
because I cannot define what I hold unswervingly and confusingly true,
the world and its definition will always appear more credible than me.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We still have time*, I hear you say, but
I know we don’t, not really, because you showed me so.
I waited years for you, practiced in my patience,
comfortably sure of what supposedly was certain to come true.
And then the day came when your hugs became hesitant and
your eyes stopped meeting mine with mirth across a crowded room.
Time ran out for us, while I was taking my time.
So, dear friend, please say what you feel, do what you must,
reach for the life you know you cannot live without,
for the hours may appear many and long,
yet it only takes a second to stop the clock.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here's how I think of us, and maybe this will help.
We wake up.
Same house, separate bedrooms.
We stagger down to breakfast.
I get there first, because I want to make sure there's
enough milk for both of us. If there wasn't,
I'd give it to you and eat an apple.
Fortunately, there is, and we eat our
Cheerios while blinking dreams out of our eyes.
We look at each other and sigh, saying
without words that this is life and we're still sleepy.
After breakfast, we go upstairs.
Same house, separate bathrooms.
We get ready for the day ahead,
You're done first, because you’re in a hurry,
like always , and you think about not waiting for me.
Yet, you wait and soon I'm done and
we stand in front of our door.
We look at each other and sigh, saying
without words that this is life, and it's time to face it.
We say that today is today.
Tomorrow will be tomorrow.
And the next day the next day.
And each morning, we'll wake up and
lose our minds again.
But it's fine in the end.
That's how I think of us.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

After some months, I look for you everywhere,
In crowds of people at
places you’d never go.
In cars passing me on the streets of
towns you’ve never seen.

So much a lost part of me I look for you in
the mirror before I go to sleep.

Then in the end, I see you and joy.
Feelings that feel so strong,
they’ll leap out of my eyes and out of the smile
splitting my face to grab you
in a hug that lasts forever.

So much a found part of me that
two hearts beat in my chest as I go to sleep

Actions more than words, my mother said
wait for the arms to enfold you as mine do,
for a sonnet won’t hold you in the bitter cold.
I waited, and in the cold that came
words passed me over as I sat sheltered
warm with my mothers arms around me.
I peeked from her embrace to wonder
sadly how actions matter more than words when
the words come few and far between.

Leaves emerge in spring when the winter leaves
and me too, leaving the arms that held me.
I live on my own, and when your words came with
actions to match them, I wondered why only one
should be so important and not both
because two is nice and better than one, like us.

when my mother asked me if I loved you,
I gave an answer elaborately crafted,
neither yes nor no, and full of platitudes,
a tale of loyalty and bond and trust earned over time.
I finished, and as I caught my wasted breath
she crossed her arms and repeated with gravity:
Actions more than words.
I understood.

I fall in the trap of lovesick lines,
ballads for my broken heart,
and dragging my world down into angsty darkness.
But I promise you I have more words for my life.
There’s that thrill of seeing a sunset sky in winter,
turning from the oppressive gray to that vibrant orange and pink,
warmth I didn’t expect to see in the cold.
There’s the nostalgia in eating a Chicago style hot dog on a summer’s day
at a picnic in the green grass that’s just right and
doesn’t stain my shorts or leave them damp.
There’s the peace felt the first day of wearing sweaters in the fall,
where my arms, exposed to the heat for too long
revel in wool covering every inch as I walk to my car with cocoa in hand.
There’s the hope fulfilled in hearing baby birds in springtime,
chirping in hunger in the birdhouse hanging by my window,
the first signs that life still exists in a world once frozen over.
There’s hope. Always. And so I promise with conviction,
there are more words for my life, because there is more to my life than you.

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.

It hurts me to remember how
she and her laughter made you smile.
I wince even now, watching you in my head,
replaying the moment you used your eyes to speak
with her in a way I thought reserved for me.

Friendship has boundaries:
boundaries once overstepped are hard to renew.
I crossed the river
and tried to cross back for both our sakes.
I maintain success. I must. For us.

But thinking how she came so close,
how if she’d chosen you instead,
how if she’d danced you to the end,
laughing all the way,
My constantly crossing rivers heart cringes.

Dreams of you frighten me more than nightmares.
I can handle the sight of bodies on the floor
and monsters clawing and biting at my door.
Neither so scary as dancing while music plays slowly
my head resting on your chest gently.
An attack where I’m weakest,  
I wake and I’m speechless,
rubbing my eyes, holding my heart,
The most terrifying dreams are the ones
that I wish were real.

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.

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.

It’s very true.
While walking in the street,
jealousy is often mistaken for romance.
When the green monster strikes,
friends seem guilty of unfriendly desire.
Fallaciously.

Jealousy judges not.
At least not that way.
A jealous someone is not (might not be) in love,
but is (most always)
wanting to be someone’s only Something.
And that Something could be anything:
French Tutor, Designated Driver,
Babysitter, Secret Keeper.

So when we’re walking in the street,
and you ask me why I’m jealous,
you answer your own question saying I’m in love.
When the green monster strikes,
you accuse me of the passionate crime.

My friend, all I want is not you.
I just want to be your only Something.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Tomorrow, dear, I’ll write to you
a poem when our day is done,
our day together in the sun
under a sky that’s blue.

The poem shall not be too long
two verses, maybe three or four,
that say quite plainly I adore
the way your hands are strong.

I’ll tell you that you make me feel
as if I’m spinning in a daze
when your eyes hold me in a gaze
that’s filled with love so real.

Your smile, dear, I’ll mention too
and remember how it shone all day
while we talked all the hours away
under a sky that’s blue.

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.

Our dreams are best pursued alone, we say.
Our aims are too high, our goals too important.
There’s no room to hold someone's hand
when we’re seizing the day with both of our own.  
That’s what we agree, smiling.
And suddenly, there it is, in our eyes,
the unspoken question:
In another time, where we don’t dream so big or aim so high,
would we hold hands as we walk together in the sun?

You can’t simply say
I thought of you today
for time merely blurs the past,
and cannot ever erase the fact
that you and I were once 16
and you were all there was for me.