I wonder if the moon feels like we take it for granted.

Maybe we are the ones responsible for the waxing and the waning
of the moon.
We must learn of our responsibility.
                                                                It is the same for people

It is a constant cycle of convincing ourselves we are
something people want to see--
luminous like the
orb that lights the night.
And then convincing ourselves
we are only a crescent of a person--
not worth the space
allotted to us.
                               Just like the moon.

It is not nature that controls its cycle.

We are born from the moon. It is more human than we are comfortable admitting.

Waning is genetic and there is no cure.

Every time I look around Sedona, Arizona
I cannot deny the existence of God.
He's helped me see the beauty in everything
& I think that is what I adore most about Him.

I see it in how the sun stretches its fingers
into every nook and cranny
the mountains try to hide.

I bet even the mountains
feel alive within the warmth
of the sun's grasp.

I hear it in the tiny pebbles rolling
downstream or down crevices
to new homes.

I see it in new beginnings.

I think I'd like to get married in Sedona
because it's the first place I've ever fallen in love with.
And the only place I still believe in beauty.
In simplicity and purity.
And in forgiveness.

It's the only place I can go to find myself
and when I sit within the valley
of two red rocked mountains
that could pass as monuments,
I feel closest to God.

And whether that is because I feel like
I'm nestled between the powerful palms
of an endearing God
or because whenever I see the sun
reflect off those red washed walls
I realize God didn't just paint these rocks for me,
they are his masterpieces as well.
Where he too can seek refuge when the rest
of the world gets a little stormy.

It is in Sedona, Arizona (population 10,000)
where I realize
I truly am made in God's image.

There’s a girl.
She lives somewhere between Dayton
and the rusty, old tracks of Georgia.
Lips like cinnamon, hips like sugar.
She smells like October but shines like summer.

But underneath,
she’s calloused and bruised.
Surviving off an *****
that only pumps blue,
matching the hues of her arms.
You can read them like a book,
                                          they tell her story.

Her tears could fill the empty
keg her cheating boyfriend drinks from,
as she cries her galactic eyes to sleep.

She awakes, breathes easy,
but stays.

As if to prove she has heart, by letting him break it.
As if to prove he loves her, by letting him break her.

This is not a poem
                          a legend,
                                            or myth.

This is my story.
       This is my rescue.
This is my redemption.

This is a young girl who
wore her shame like chains

                                      it never set her free.

Tugging at her clothes
trying to get the tightness to stop mocking her.

Wanting to be any body but herself,
be in any body but her own.

She wore approval like static electricity,
                 she always c
                                   l
                                 u
                                   n
                                  g
                                        to it.

Even if it never came.

She’d scrawl the words

SOME DAY

in black ink down her arms

so when the other kid’s words
       caused her to hang her head
               she’d look down and remember

some day is one day closer.
some day is just one day closer.

She learned to carry herself like a flagpole,
                                                   it’s all she had out there.

Until she met Him.
He who canoed about her arteries and
wrote books about the things she couldn’t see in herself.

He who gave her someday, everyday.

Who showed her how to break the chains of shame.

Who told her the reason her clothes might feel a little too
tight, was because they couldn’t stand to be too far away from her.

She stopped hearing others insults and only felt His love.

His name?

His name is Jesus.

He saved me from myself.

I think we poets know best
that these words inside of us
can either be
anchors
or they can be life vests.

Choose wisely.

Someone else’s life could depend on it.

They tell me, I don’t know what pain feels like.
Because of the color of my skin
and the numbers that roll in on my daddy’s paycheck—
                                                                                         I must not know what pain feels like.

Any maybe that’s true
but then again,
maybe it’s not.
Cause things—
                                                              they’re rough all over.

I come home and my heart rips apart
when I see my mother’s broken heart
has finally escaped from her eyes in the form of tears.
Because she only has three fifths of her senses
so she’s different,
                       not normal,
damaged.

But enough of the Helen Keller jokes.
To you, she’s just some dead lady with a
problem with her eyes or ears or something
but to me, I see part of Helen Keller in my mother.

She was born with Usher’s Syndrome.
One part hearing loss,
                                 one part vision loss.
She had her first pair of hearing aids by the time she was five
and by the time she was thirty—
she realized there was something wrong with her eyes, too.

There’s nothing more we can do for you,
doctors urged.
Filling her with empty promises and false hope
with every,
“Maybe it won’t get any worse.”

We know now, that’s not the case.
They’ve put an expiration date on her vision
five years,
ten if we’re lucky.
But still my mother remains unbroken.
I mean she has her bad days, but most of them are good.
That’s why my definition of strong,
begins with the word “Mom.”

But no Mom, you’re not alone.
At every 11:11 I wish for it all to go away
or at least slow down so you have a chance to catch up.

I utter midnight prayers,
face decorated in the light cast off from my alarm clock
whispering I plead
“Dear God, what did she do wrong?”
But I’m not angry anymore and I don’t blame Him.
I know she of all people, can handle it.
But if it were me
I would have cracked years ago.

But if the day is to come,
blind due to genetic defect,
I’ll be here.
I’ll proudly grab her hand in public,
just to give her walking stick a rest.
I’ll be the guide dog she hopes she never needs.
I’ll take her hands and help her trace out the
outlines of every sight she never got to see
but really wanted to.
I’ll put her palms over the heartbeat of the grandchild
she may never have the pleasure of seeing.
I’ll spend forever divulging every detail of my loving husbands face
she may never have meet.
I won’t let her miss out.

And on those days where it’s too much to handle,
I’ll be the whisper—
smooth like the wind, delicate like honey.
“Don’t give up, you’ve made it this far.
Plus you look really old, you don’t want to see that anyway.”

I’m in love with the memory of you.
We tap dance on the neural connections that connect my brain,
to my soul.
Tapity- tap- tap.
But only on those hot summer nights.

You kisses taste like moonshine
and your arms in mine, make music.
Tapity-tap-tap.

I fell for you where
brown eyes met blue.

Where
first date dinners
met
third date kisses.

Where camouflage and bullets
met
pearls and lipstick.

Where moon-lit dances
met
tear stained airports.

And where friendly fire, met you.

I got that tapity-tap-tap on my door,
I fell to the floor
and now here I am, tapity-tap-tapin’ my shoes
tryin’ to get back to you.

But death marches to its own beat,
tapity-tap-tap

If there is reincarnation,
I’m jealous other people get to
have you in their lives,
and I don’t anymore.

My heartbeat echoes, tapity…

tap…

…tap.

Tapity….

tap…

tap.

I spent the morning tossing a Frisbee, and my worries along with it.

I soon found myself swinging to the sound of

forgetfulness and nostalgia.

My childhood memories danced at my feet,

but with out stretched arms,

only my fingertips graced their excellence.

The touch sent the memories of crawdad fishing and tree forts

tingling up my spine.

The me I used to be

boiled in my blood.

When wet grass and free time were enough.

When I wore scrapped elbows as jewelry and the fresh wood scent

decorated my body as perfume.

Back when my dog was my best friend and I had yet to realize

that wasn’t okay.

“Ignorance is bliss,” they chime.

I know.

I don’t want bliss. I want life. Brutally beautiful, if you let it.