quite frankly you've put me to shame -
and not for the reasons you think.

my beloveds:
it's your hatred.

i sat in on one of your congregations.
i heard the words you put in my mouth and i smiled, sadly,
at your empty trying.
i heard about that man who performed what you call miracles,
and i heard the words you put in his mouth and i laughed, genuinely,
at how much store you put in a little age-old gossip.

but then i heard the whisperings:
and i have to ask you.

all this behaving as if you know me,
and dancing around with me in your hearts,
and you think i care,

you think i care about those two women
who love each other?
those two men with their beautiful children?
those millions of others?
you think i didn't make them that way -
special,
free,
and just the same as you?

you think you earn my favor,
accusing and oppressing your brothers, your sisters?
you think i smile on your closed minds?

you bring shame on yourselves.
my ad-libbed wrath, i can laugh at that,
and that man from galilee,
i can smile at your childish clinging.

but i didn't make you with hatred.
i didn't make you to see differences as anything
but a celebration.

if someone had told me this is what would take shape,
in my name,
i would have pointed at you hateful few,
and i would have said,

god forbid
(and i do)
that you spread this poison.

i swear we were something
and if i could sing it, i would
along to the bare strumming of guitar strings.

i can't feel better, and it's
because you care.

the monosyllabics are all i can muster right now,
and the hurt in your eyes -
oh god.
we've been here before and it's
always the same -
our words just circling,
too little for what we feel.

you don't know what it's like,
not being able to feel better.

not being able to feel anything.

my heart is mountains and valleys
and this is a ravine.

someday i'll sit you down -
you
who are still just half a thought somewhere inside my person -
and i'll tell you.

i'll tell you the day my parents stopped loving each other
(i was three, but
i remember)
and the way they never stopped loving me.
i'll tell you the things that i've milestoned in ages -

that when i was 15 i made a terrible mistake
with a terrible boy
and i'll warn you that it happens to everyone once
and you won't believe me till it happens to you ( my poor beautiful babies)

that, 17 and filled with abandon,
i punched a second stud into the pop-pop cartilage of my right ear
(it was ten minutes of biting my lip and
trying not to make a noise
because the only permission i had was from myself)

that, 16 and starry-eyed,
i met the boy who may very well be your father.
i'll tell you that
you'll be surprised at who you end up with
because chances are he was right under your nose the whole time.

and i know that you may not even exist for me to sit down with -
that i may choose cups of coffee and pages filled with words
over ever being your mother

but if you do happen,
and the shadows in my mind become little faces at my feet,
and my doorways become clogged with
light-up pink sandals and
untied muddy gym shoes,
then that's what i'll tell you.

that's what you'll know.

so until then, my little ones
(unless,
that is,
you remain just half-written stories.)

well you say you want it all but
you don't have what it takes to come and get it,
and frankly,
you're not him.

he knows
that i dance in the rain
and he knows what i love
in terms of books,
baked goods,
and warm-weather clothing.
he holds my hands when they're frozen to the bone and he
presses little kisses into my ear when no one's looking, he
teases me to within an inch of my life and
loves me like you wouldn't believe.

and frankly, you can't give me that
because frankly, you're not him.

he knows every nook of my self and
every cranny of my heart
and i didn't have to tell him -
and you only find one person like that your whole life.

and frankly,
it isn't you.

so i'm sorry -
but he loved me first
and i picked him first
and there's something about the stitching of our souls
that you simply cannot undo.

this town is an artistic afterthought -
forgotten and almost there

and when i went walking today i looked down at my feet and i thought,
"pebbles like people."
it rains in the mornings here.
start with a gray sky and end with a gray sky,
and the rain is the most comforting thing.
it tip-taps on your shoulders like,
"i'm here too,
and i feel
what you feel."
it's an old friend.

the buildings all lean on each other -
their stone and their thatch,
their brick and their brawn.
they say,
"we know what we saw,"
and they make tiny skylines against the purple morning sky.

the streets are slick with rain,
black and worn
with the boots of wanderers like me
and the scuff of passersby like you.
they lead into secrets and roads
that i don't want to know about yet.

it rains in the morning here -
it paints our town all the oranges and pale greens of fall that you miss.
it pops the purple-gray of our stilting homes and offices,
our neat schools
(catholic is so relative, and innocence depends on how you look at it.)

it rains in the morning here -
and i can only dance when it rains.

spill and tumble -
and we catch them in our hands
and spin them.

this
is our calling.

hello, poetry.

build your towers up
up
and i won't stop you -

but i know those
who will.