Doctor Parents

Having doctor parents is nice.

Nicer than some people might know,

because at 9 years old,

when you’re sick,

they treat you right.

Buy you sprite with bubbles that

pop pop pop real luscious on your tongue and

wash away the pungent taste of regurgitated food.

They put in a Little Mermaid VHS,

the one you’ve seen eight times but

it doesn’t matter because Ariel is beautiful

and someday you want locks as red as hers

with a dark-haired prince to accessorize with.

They give you undivided attention that you

suck up regardless of the selfish looks

from first brother, second brother, third.

Forget school. It’s cozy blanket cuddle time.

You don’t even have to go to the real doctor

with his germy office,

faded cartoons prancing happily along the wall

trying to make sick kids forget about the sick.

There’s the toy with wires and beads.

You can play on it till mom says no because

Do you have any idea how many sick kids touched that?

None of that.

Doctor parents just call in the medicine real simple like.

Doctor parents make the best parents.

Having doctor parents is awful.

First off, when you’re sick they’re real strict about what you can eat.

Toast and sprite.

Of course there’s meatloaf for the family with buttery bread

and hot cinnamony apple strudel.

So cinnamony your mouth aches to taste it.

But it’d make you throw up because

doctor parent says so.

You try to make the plain toast appetizing by

dunking it in Sprite.

And they force you to drink a grape syrup

of a suspicious dark violet

that you swear never had contact with any sort of fruit.

They know when you’re faking too.

They can whip out a thermometer faster than

Indiana Jones’s whip.

Don’t even try to pull a Ferris Bueller.

They’ll load you up with medicine,

pat you on the back and say

You’re good to go.

They know what’s good for you too,

for bedtime gets an hour shaved off it

because sick children need sleep.

But doctor parents make the best parents

because in the middle of the night when you throw up

toast and sprite and a forkful of sneaked-in apple strudel,

they’ll be there in a heartbeat.

Vomity sheets washed, sick child comforted,

bed pan and old yellow beach towel laid by your bedside

just in case.

All of this done by half asleep doctor parents

who love their children.

Even at 2 A.M. and covered in sick kid vomit.

Eventually, every kid gets his mom a mug that says

World’s Greatest Mom

But I don’t think they can say that.

Not unless they have doctor parents.

Be Gracious

I seek your face with blundering hands outstretched, blindly grasping at darkness and quick! quick! seizing nothingness that slips from my hands unharmed.

The air is thick and smothers my lungs. It is hard to breathe here.

Be gracious to me, my God.

Knees bent. My head pressed against the floor, yellow hair spread like holy halo across the ground.

You promise that your grace is sufficient for your children. Lord I claim that promise now.

Like a small child taking his first steps, I stumble, trip, fall heart-heavy onto the ground.

The child sees only the next few steps. He does not know that what lies ahead of him in life is uncertain. Oh blessed innocence.

Father, doubts pock-mark my faith, digging holes into my heavy head. Tears drip from those holes leaky faucet like. Flow down, lick the chin, drip off.

I’m here, Father. Alone with only my inhibitions to keep me company.

Your holy pages have been perused, flipped through, and pored over by tired eyes. Eyes that long for rest from doubt.

Be gracious to me Father.

Give me peace. 

Monster

She shrugs slightly, wiggles her shoulders. The dark cloud that settles on them shifts ever so slightly, then returns to solemnly slump again on her back. She sighs but lets it go, for there's little to be done about it.  It has been there for ages.
At first, it was a new and intriguing (but entirely unwelcome!) visitor that crept onto her back, piece by piece, clinging with careful claws closely catching at her skin. She barely noticed at first.
But.
When she turned her head to look back on it she found it had changed, quite deviously, quite swiftly, into a monster.
A dark, dank, dirty mass of filth and muck and sin. And it would not let go.
She tried a little to unhinge it. It clung to her like mud on a little boy. No matter how often she thought she'd rid herself of it, it would appear again and again in the most unsavory places. And the guilt that came with it, oh that was the worst. That guilt that pierced like a mother's tears, edged into your soul.
Get off, she murmurs. But it's half-heartedly. It's always half-heartedly these days. Honestly, deep down, truthfully, bare-your-heart honestly...she doesn't want it to go.
It's too comforting. Its familiarity and the satisfaction it brings seems to temporarily fill the hole in her heart that should cry out to Jesus. And the monster whispers that it's the only thing that can tenderly caress her, kiss her, woo her soft and sweet.
It's not hurting anyone, she reasons.
Blood though. Red, thick, hot. Blood dripping from the wounds. Her wounds. Monster inflicted wounds. Chunks of her, gorged upon by sin.
It's reached a point where it can no longer be secret, no longer be silent, no longer kill her gently.
This thing that has clung on for so long must be detached. Painfully pulling its barbs out of her skin, she must kick it to the curb and cling to the only one that promises restitution, revival, righteousness.
Take it, she cries to Him who hears. There can no longer be an apathetic attitude of indifference.
There is no more time for that.

Savannah, North Carolina

"Smile," he chimes as his finger hovers above the button, twitching ever so slightly, ready to release any second now.
I am an outsider looking in. A fly on the wall. A keen observer who has happened to be in the right place at the right time.
It's senior picture day and the bearded photographer has been charged with the grave task of capturing these students in the height of their mortal peak. They are ready to face the future, blinking blurry eyes into the bright light, lambs that scurry towards the door, not knowing if behind it lies salvation or the slaughterhouse.
"Got a girl?" He questions the spectacled senior, posing the graduation cap jauntily upon the student's orange head.
"Yeah," the kid grins, dipping his chin towards his shoulder bashfully. "Her name's Savannah."
"Like Savannah, Georgia?" He adjust his camera meticulously. I turn my head, paying them more attention than the book that lies idle in my hands.
"Yeah, but she lives in North Carolina. So Savannah in North Carolina." Snap. Snap. Two down, two seconds frozen, two pictures perfectly photographed.
"That's funny." Snap. Snap. "Engaged?"
"Yes sir. Wedding's gonna be July 18th."
"That so?" Snap. "Congratulations." Snap. "Say her name one more time? There's that smile!" Snap.
The senior laughs; practically glows from pride. Visions of Savannah, North Carolina dance behind his eyes.
"You're good to go," says the photographer. The senior hops off the bench, grabs his bags, makes his way into the world. Savannah means so much to him. He means the world to her. The photographer will forget them both by tomorrow, but they'll always be there, on his film. He, smiling at the camera, his grin big enough to split both cheeks. She, peeking out from his beaming eyes.
The stool the orange-haired kid perched upon just a few seconds ago lies empty, awaiting its next victim-- someone else that will tell it a story, snap snap, and then quietly move on.
The photographer adjusts his camera.
"Next!"

A Double Dose of Doubt

Doubting Thomas has nothing on me.

I hate myself for this quality

That begs to be heard,

Whispers one simple word—

“Sure?”

Sure about future, sure about friends

Sure about relationships that never end

Sure about family, sure about school

Sure that I’m not being played as a fool.

He wraps warm embraces around me,

Kills me softly with tender kisses,

But my sinful heart wonders only

What it misses.

Kill it quickly, kill it soft.

Rip out this internal fear,

Plunge hand, plunge arm, plunge

Into my gut.

My whole being laid out on a table

Sans eyes sans teeth sans heart

If I were able.

Take it all,

Cart it away.

Only – let any sure thing stay.

Cling to the cross, bloody fingers hang tight!

Cling to it now and with all your might.

I need you, Lord Jesus,

Can’t conquer alone.

Defeat this doubt,

This sin please dethrone.

You’re my surety in a chaotic swirl

Of life.

You stand firm. You stand true.

Devote this doubter to you. 

20

There’s crisp rebirth in the air.
You can smell it

Sharp as cinnamon

Tickles your senses

Chortles as it frolics away.

A fresh year, a novel newness

Ready for it? Not me!

Too scared, too timid

Yet already diving headfirst

Into the pile of leaves

That promises to usher in happy. 

Spark in my soul that pushes

Me forward, echoes my wishes

Drowns out my despairs.

Forget the failures of the year past

Suck out the marrow in your dreams

Forge a new, steady path

One that smells of adventure. 

Leave darkness behind

Close your eyelids

Paint them purple

See the moon ahead

Drift away on stardust

And never look back.

Leaves

  I collect them all as they crunch beneath my fingers, brittle shrapnel from their edges falling softly at my feet. They were all so beautiful last year. Like pageant queens on display to the world waltzing down the cat-walk with dramatic flair. Their life was so short, cut coldly by the winter now approaching.

  “Why?” I beg of the leaves that lie dead and brittle-brown in my hands. Could they not see how grand it all was last year? How good we had it? How happy I was surrounded by their colors?

  But seasons change. That’s how it must be for that’s how it always was. And if it was not always that way, would we perhaps grow bored and tired of this old earth? If it failed to renew itself and redeem itself once again in our eyes?

  So seasons change and just like these leaves, friendships change too. And as you grasp them, clutch them, bring them close to your heart, they drift away on the wind, joining new territories, called away by the promising whisper that lies on the breeze.

  We must learn to move on. Just like the trees, we must accept the changes that constantly battle our bark. A lifetime of seasons is ahead and while few things remain constant, so many simply fall away and we cannot stop them.

  The winds of change whip around my face, brushing my cheeks with the promise that all is well. I take their word for it.  With one last lingering glance, I un-pry my fingers from their tight hold on the leaves in my hand. Tossing them into the air, I watch them swirl, tangoing together towards freedom.

  Some may come back to me, stay again for the season. I will welcome them whole-heartedly with open arms.

  But I smile as I remember that in another season there will be new leaves again. 

Prayer

Oh God, take my selfish heart. It wants so much evil and you want it to want so much good. It lusts for things it cannot have, forgets its blessings, turns from you and with a filthy mouth of forgetfulness wonders why it cannot have.

I want, I want, I want.

Without remembering all the gracious good gifts you poured upon me, I crave with a sick longing that can only be defined as cursed covetousness. 

I curse those who have more, disguising my words as jealous and envy when really I just feel hate.

Oh Lord, how is this the case? Am I not full of your spirit? Did you not inhabit my heart when I begged you, tears streaming down my cheeks, to come in?

Why, oh, why do I still hurt those I love with words of roughness and ill meaning. Sometimes it is not even what I planned to say but the sin slips skillfully out of my lips as if it had been crouching in the corner of my mouth simply waiting to spring.

I envy and I hurt and I hate and I want.

 Justify these things? I cannot at the end of the day. They are too real and too painful and my heart is too raw with regret as I remember, recall, refocus.

Forgive, oh, Father. These are the words that, as I bow before you on my knees, I must proclaim. For without your forgiveness dribbled upon my head as cleansing baptismal waters, I cannot – I will not -- ever live for you.

The more I discover about you, the more I see about myself. It is a sickening paradox, and yet the most wonderful thing I have ever encountered.

My old man shrivels in suffocation and shudders as he stutters that none of this is necessary and I could easily just drown my sorrows by burying them deep in my head.

But this cannot go on. I am near a breaking point. I am so so very sorry for sin that it’s driving me insane.

It is only with the glimpse of Christ’s welcoming arms that I keep pressing forward. Like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, having been freed of his burden, and yet with so many pitfalls and snares still to avoid.

I press on.

Hard though it may be.

Tears from my eyes,

Crying “Lord, forgive me.” 

Love Me Simple

He sits leaned up against the car door, smile perched cheekily upon his face. The raindrops that background him dance a slow tango down the car window and the night is a black silhouetted by the glow of streetlight orange.

“I think,” he begins, and I lazily open my lids to listen, to watch his words wander on sound waves, his lips forming with articulation, his mouth creating, producing that voice that I have come to know and love and recognize and crave.

“That love is this. Sitting in a car, talking.”

It’s so simple. I smile at him because it’s not that easy. Love is messy and dirty and there’s fights and struggles and anger and awkward coldness between best friends on sad lonely nights.

It’s not that straightforward. Right?

Just sitting. Not doing anything extravagant or impressive or exhilarating or adrenaline raising or catch your breath exciting or romantic or thrilling.

Just in a car. Not in Paris watching the Eifel tower light up with fairy magic, or in Venice listening to an operetta, or even sharing a hot dog at the ball park.

Just talking. Being content with each other and our life, and our life stories, and our thoughts, and our wishes, and our silly jokes, and our love-sick mutterings.

And all those things that I mentioned? Going places, doing things – I wouldn’t want to do them without him.

So maybe this is love.

“What’s one word to describe this night?” He asks me, because he does things like that, because he makes me think, because he likes to hear my thoughts.

“Intimate,” I say. Because we sit in a car. Rain dripping down the sides, sleepiness wrapping itself cozily around us. And we talk and we love, and we know each other better even now than just two hours before.

And I suppose that, simply, this is love. 

Clean

It cleanses. Washes away the impurities, the emotions, the raging insecurities that dirty up the window of our heart and then slowly trickle off as the drops of water drown them willfully away.  We don’t appreciate rain as much as we should.

But rain is forgiveness. A new beginning. Symbol of growth, of life. Of dry earth turned fruitful, of dirtied heart made clean.

Summer bike rides through a downpour, alone on the trail, doubts chasing you all the way to your destination. You just want to be free. So you ride and ride and ride, wheels whirring across the muddy ground making clickety click sounds hard; wheels whirring away in your brain too. Pedal fast and faster, pumping legs burn but not as much as the fears and questions that pound their rhythm in your head, so persistent and consistent and you’re not content till you get them out. Or at least get them away.

It comes as sudden as a flash of heat lightning. The rain that bathes your body and heart, a car-wash for the soul. Drips. Splatters. Reminders that you are His. That the fears cannot reach you no matter how fast you bike.

It drips down your shirt, races down your arms, beads on your pedaling legs. Your eyes are squinted against the water that flows down your forehead, but you do not resent it. Wipe it away, clear your vision in more ways than one. It has cleansed you. When you reach your destination, stand, raise your arms, look to the heavens.  Smile. The downpour is God’s blessing. A reminder that you are purified, that the doubts that surround your heart like weeds, choking and numbing, have been washed away, sod clumped together, now cluttering up puddles in the ground.

And you? You are clean. You are free. Washed in the rain. Washed in the spotless blood of the lamb. 

Librarian

I want to be a librarian. Not as a lifestyle, of course. Not as forever holding great pieces of literature, fondling them, caressing their spines day to day yet never contributing. I dream of writing things someday that future librarians will sigh over and touch lovingly and eagerly push into the arms of naïve and wide eyed children, cooing “Dear, you’re going to loooove this one, I just know it.”

Not as a lifestyle. Maybe just for a day, though. Just enough to be able to completely surround myself with words, murmurs of history, chasms of wisdom, whispering winds whipping through pages with fierce force, fueled by the emotions of passionate lovers and weeping widows hidden deep within their respective books.

 Ancient authors, spirits risen gratefully from the dead, sighing their words, tugging your earlobe to catch your attention. To see, to feel, to hear: Tolstoy and Austen cavorting around bookshelves, Dante and Shakespeare sliding down the banisters like giggling schoolboys, Dahl and Lewis and Plato in a heated debate. To surround myself with their perspectives and experiences, desires, wishes, wants. Read beneath the lines and on top them and through them, setting up an archeological dig site on their hearts, uncovering with messy, dirty digging and precise procedures their fears and loves and dreams.

Maybe just for a day. Enough time to see what books others check out. To be surprised, watching the mountain of a man with a gruff voice and even gruffer beard request a book on raising toddlers. To see an old woman, eyes like buttery cinnamon rolls, smells like your grandma’s cookie jar, reading about war tactics. To be heart-warmed as a looks-around-8-but-with-that-hair-covering-his-eyes-who-can-tell? boy requests his first library card. To watch a mother, arms wrapped like love around her daughter, reading to her, “If you give a mouse a cookie, he will want some milk.” To feel a mix of emotions as a mix of humanity comes trickling through the hallowed doors of literature, reminding you that though things come and go, authors die and are replaced with eager young things sharpening their pens, words and ideas outlive everyone, lasting lifetimes, lasting eternities. 

Two

I crave you. Please understand, it’s in the most innocent of ways. I crave to hear your thought when your eyebrows rise and begin the cranking of wheels in your brain. I crave to see your face light up, casting out joy like an old projector that you shine on the wall as it whirrs and clickety clicks. I crave to touch, to intertwine fingers with yours, lace them tighter than roller skates, and hold on tight don’t you let go -- not for a long time. I crave to say goodbye and goodnight, to lie next to you, on top, beside, under, parallel, diagonal, caddy-corner. Doesn’t matter.

I just crave to be. To be with you.

It’s lovely long nights of lingering, mornings of mellow meandering. It’s so simple really.

But it’s not because it’s tough. Because love is not love like in the movies. Because movies are magical and they fall in love and kiss and the director says “cut” and they end and go home and forget that just three hours ago they were playing characters who were in love.

Well the movie keeps on in life and you find that love is more than you ever thought. It’s better and harder and shinier and funnier and softer and more dangerous.

But you’re worth it because I crave you.

You take me. I take you.

It’s two mugs of tea on the counter. Two arms wrapped around my waist, two hands folded contentedly. Two imperfect people. Two people who are ok being imperfect together. 

Tell Me of You

The sun outlines the harsh wrinkles that cut through his face. Like the carpenter creating knocked the chisel a bit too hard and sliced a bit too deep.

Read the wrinkles. Tell me his story. Peruse his face from left to right, each groove a syllable, each mole a punctuation.

His liver-spotted hands slowly pass me dollar bills, contemplating each as if they were of great value while he unwraps them carefully from the rubber band where they’re stored in his pocket. Hands are browned, weathered, strong. Like they’ve held a woman softly, brushed the tears from her cheek. Like they’ve toiled under the sun and wished for night to break. Like they’ve bathed a newborn baby, tender as a father’s love.  They practically beg me to imagine, to create his life in my head, to reinvent his memories and play them in my brain.

This is the second day he has come into the store, asked in a muffled, thick accent, “Chocolate?” and then shuffled to the ice cream dispenser. He always gets confused between Peanut butter and Chocolate. Muddled thoughts then he finds his way, dishes out his serving of sweetness. I think, What if that’s the only sweetness he has left in life?

I watch. His slow, thoughtful, methodical movements. Everything is contemplated, every move is necessary, nothing is wasted.

So different from those who rush, hurry, bustle through. Like whirlwinds that sweep in, riling emotions and sucking in stress. He is no whirlwind.

Shuffles. Slow. At the counter, I notice the leather on his belt is cracked. But his shoes are polished, his shirt tucked in. He takes pride in doing things right. No, he is no whirlwind.

And he speaks to me kindly, his thick accent working its way clunkily through his crooked old man teeth.  

Questions circling in my brain like curious vultures picking at my thoughts. I want to ask him. Where is he from? What did he do with his life? What has he seen, what has he experienced?

He awakens in me a strong curiosity, and I am overtaken with a spirit of inquiry that begs to be answered.

But I am too shy. I cannot face this man who is a mystery. And it is a mystery to me as to why of all my customers, he alone silences me. He pays, smiles, shuffles away. Sits alone in a corner, eyes turned towards the window, face lit by sun, lost in his own secret memories.

Hear Me

She’s got blueberry eyes

That look to the skies

And pray for the blessing of God

She’s got raspberry lips

Child on her hips

And she prays for the blessing of God

Her dress wraps around her

And angels surround her

As she stands in the field of sod

She opens her mouth

With a loud shout

She prays for the blessing of God

He hears her prayers

Her voice bold but scared

As she begs him to send down his grace

She’s not got the know how

But she knows that somehow

She’ll look up and see his face

Painted on the horizon

As the years slowly wizen

Her, she’ll feel His embrace

Oh God have mercy

We are but earthly

Creatures who seek your will

Spare us and love us

Bless us and hear us

Look, we bow to you still

And she prays for the blessing of God. 

Strawberry Souls

They gurgle a bit as they chunk their way down the disposal. Strawberry tops sliced deftly off their bodies, cast aside on the burial heap of waste. Mourned by no one. I am the lone funeral attender as I flick the switch by the sink and hear strawberry souls clunking together, pulverized into pieces, slid into sewage.

Is this how God feels? The thought slips into my brain, slides slowly around the gray mass and matter that makes me feel and think and hurt and breathe.

It’d be so easy to just not care. To flick the divine switch, watch us disappear into nothingness, become exhausted from seeing soul after soul simply slowly slippery, slide, slip! Then be no more.

It must hurt to be God. Or does he become tired of it all, exhausted by the daily grind. The prospect of more souls waiting for damnation, of more souls hungering for salvation, rising out of every nation He can’t deny his creation, yet sin poses a complication and the duration of time spent being God must get so long.

What is it like to flick the switch every day?

To bring a soul up, to send a soul down? To see the person you created dead in the ground, his soul swimming above him and you know you have to collect that unfortunate masterpiece that you worked so long and hard on and send him hurtling into earth’s depths until he’s eaten by

The garbage disposal. 

Hell.

Dante’s Inferno.

Flames.

Crunching up the leftovers that didn’t make it to the table. Eating up the discarded souls that didn’t cling to Christ.

I wonder if God cries. Or if He simply cuts strawberries everyday, a fact of life, must be done, faster the better, just flip the switch and WHIRRRR there it goes goes gone not to be bothered with until tomorrow the sordid tasks again begs completion.

Can He no longer feel the pain of soul separation and devastation? Strawberry souls and divine switches and garbage disposals that reek of death. I wouldn’t want to be Him. 

Love Words

I tried writing you love poems.

I tell you this because you care so much and

I want you to know that I care too.

Not as much as you

Perhaps

But enough to make my heart go beat beating hard

When I see you.

Enough to make my words get stuck

In my teeth when you’re around

My tongue prying them out and

Making an attempt at intelligible conversation.

They suck.

The poems, I mean.

They feel old between my fingers,

Clichés worn and tarnished and

Nothing feels here or now or as much as I love you.

I can’t give you these poems because

You deserve better but I don’t know

How to do that.

So here are my emotions

Ironed flat onto the page like my heart

Steamrolled by, left inky tracks.

Can we pretend these words can capture

My smile

When I see the screen light up with your name?

The ache the need the desire the want.

Can we act like “I miss you” stands in

For long talks, long walks, conversations that

Left me wanting to know more?

It almost hurts in a way to know that

Others have felt this too

Because it’s so personal that I want to believe

I’m the only one who’s ever missed

Or loved

Or wanted

You.

Please act like this is an acceptable

Though unconventional

Love poem.

The words bled out of my heart

Onto the keys

Before I could stop them. 

Self Esteem

What if at the grocery store

Instead of a self-checkout lane

You went through a self-esteem line

And purchased good thoughts

About yourself

Made up on the spot

By your very own personal and all around well-intending

Self-esteemer. 

San Francisco

The clouds slip slowly down from the sky, clutching desperately onto the buildings that jut into the blue and reach hopefully towards God.

On a hill, cluttered close like too many teeth in too small a mouth, their roots hugging tight to the ground as if they’re terrified of letting go, like they might slide slowly down the hill and into the unknown future or backwards into the, god-forbid, desolate and unfashionable past.

Roads wind down, lazily forming side streets, cutting corners like manic taxi drivers in a rush to nowhere really, carving out a slice of solemn-as-a-preacher-black in between the fruit-pie colored pastel that cloaks the houses on the hills like a breezy summer dress.

Two men, playing checkers, chicken-bone fingers plucking ivory bone pieces, hunched over their chess game, bent over by life. Like the burdens they’d carried in their years had been much heavier then their frail frame had allowed and had slowly yet deliberately pressed all the spirit out of them, deflating, pushing out vitality one fatal step at a time. Like a child squeezes a balloon under his fists, slowly letting the air escape until all that is left is a husk that floats eerily away on the wind and leaves forgotten.

Rat-a-tat. A beggar broken by the side of the road, legs crossed, eyes down, resigned to his fate. You would step over him, pass right by him, not even notice him. Rat-a-tat. Except for the quiet rhythm that his begging cup tattoos on the cold night air. Coins against plastic Rat-a-tat. Subtle but distinct. His heart-beart, his pulse, his middle-finger to life that though it has kicked him in the gutter, he lives. He breathes. He is society’s lowest. He is still here.

Life has been good to her, pampering, spoiling, feeding her choicest tidbits and dainty morsels that she’s snapped up in a heart-beat because food is comfort and food is love and food is safe. Her flesh, once so supple, (she had been a fine woman in earlier years), now bulges and testifies to her newfound religion: one that does not believe in self-denial nor, consequently, preach a doctrine of exercise or restraint.

Snapshots of people and places, chapters of lives, completely opposite yet more similar than any of them will ever know. Too many faces to count, too many to even remember. Each a story weaving together to create a city –their city—that hides itself in the fog and welcomes strangers with a misty cold kiss.

Sushi Monk

Sake and soy sauce splash

Anoints like holy water

This is the monastery 

Here he practices the sacred craft

Sushi rolled, presented, devoured

Simple

Rice, fish, seaweed

But hands rolling speak of more

An art long lost 

A way of life forgotten

Forsaken on the road side 

Like a pack thrown off

By a traveler who says

It's too heavy 

And moves on to more modern

Quicker 

Faster

Sleeker

Ways of life that promise

More

Better

Smiles welcome you near

Eased by alcohol 

Yet they welcome all the same

Chopsticks plucked by slender fingers

Or fumbled by meaty hands

Tell of different stories, ways of life, history 

Passed down by snatches of speech

And smiles with secrets tucked away

Tea leaves read and told of future paths

Roads yet taken, lovers yet unloved 

All who enter: present or future friend 

For their destiny is inevitable; friendship secure

See, this is a safe place, a solemn sanctuary

Cloistered close by, the monk practices his quiet craft

Diligently passing down his forefathers

In each plate, smile, hearty laugh

He gives food along with grace and the promise of safety

Like a warm embrace from someone you love

Here, tradition and green tea aroma wrap around you

Urging you closer to the future

Excitement in throat and eyes and smile

Of what was, is, to be

 

The Art

It sits on top of the hill, shrouded in a languishing mist, the white brushing its delicate features like a wedding veil hides a blushing bride's emotions.
I approach, and for a second I am transported to antiquity, making a pilgrimage to Apollo's temple, offering him my humble sacrifices and pleas of pardon as I beg the murmuring medium who stands guard to grant me an audience with the god. Just a little while, I appeal, the muses have not yet come.
Up the stairs, under the columns, through the doors. The welcome that greets me on the inside is pieced together by dusty whispers of history and hums of modern curiosity.
This is where the artists play. Their stomping ground, their hallowed haunt. This is where they twist time, beckoning it softly with their opening canvas, baiting it with paper, then grab grabbing, pinning it down roughly with paint strokes and pencil and whatever it takes to keep the time stopped, held suspended, captured. Victory is theirs, if only for a second.
But a split second is all they need to show the world that they have mastered, they have conquered, they have seen god's perspective, and for them, time is now simply an option. It has lost its power.
The art that lines the wall stands as testament to the struggle of artist against clock, laid out in beautiful graphic timeline imagery.
As you watch, look and listen, feel the brush strokes that clothed the naked canvas, smell the sweat drops that mixed deftly with the paint, hear the scrape of the easel and the sigh of success, and become one with the artist and his mission.
You understand. You get why this is so important, so vital to the artist. Because you, too, feel this urgency course through your blood as your ears are tickled by the tongues of men long dead. They live on through their work, enjoying their permanence, reveling in their defeat of death. For they have not been forgotten: their lives snapshotted and pressed image after image into the public's brains. They are immortal, their eyes staring out at you from the smiling Dutch boy or the bowl of fruit that are pinned like guilty prisoners against the museum's walls captured in 8x8 canvas.
Each art piece labeled by a small white sign precisely two inches to the left, detailing the dates of birth and death and disinterested facts of interest, scientific in its exactness, prompt in its boredom.
As if you could label art. As if you could put a tag on the artist's life, file him away like some interesting insect specimen. As if he didn't have a favorite breakfast cereal and his wife didn't warm his slippers by the fire and the tea he drank every morning at 9 a.m. sharp wasn't Earl Grey.
Because the art is not to be looked at and examined and ahhed over and is it time for lunch yet? It is to be felt. It is the artist's bare soul that is eagle-spread and stripped naked, put on display for you. It is his life it is his claim to victory it is his rebellion against time it is his it is him.
And you leave with a solemn sense that a great responsibility has been placed upon your shoulders, handed down to you like a heritage or a favorite family recipe. Your duty is clear now, your path is forged.
Come, time. Let us battle. Let me pinion you and make you mine.
If only for a second, if only for a life-time.

Reflection

It is introspection and reflection and depression that settles on my shoulders tonight. I leave my home to return home, and my heart is ripped, torn between two, incapable of settling, restless and wondering, and I can't stop my brain from pacing around the large empty space in my head.
I am so blessed. The Lord I serve has not failed to mercifully give good gifts. Denying and breaking and humbling and hurting in order to give and restore and boast and heal.
And the people I've met, the lessons learned, the sights seen are priceless. They can exist only in the frail precious world of words that flutters about in my heart and soul. I am so blessed.
But right now I feel emptied of every emotion. For though I've learned life and friended fellow humans along the journey, right now all I want to do is stop time. Stop. Stop. It's all too good, it's all too real, it's all too alive. And I'm so very scared if time keeps going going as its bound to do because thats how it lives and thats how it is then how do I know that things will keep going so well?
I tell myself I'm afraid to lose people. To not see them for a three month chunk of time. To not see him.
But really, at the root of the tree that blooms into my heart, I'm afraid I'll lose time. Because it's such a precious commodity and its fickle sands trickle through my hands and I'm utterly terrified that one day I'll notice that there's but a few grains left and then one and then none and then gone.
I've changed so much but does the world care? Life goes on and time keeps turning and there's good and there's hurt and there's kisses and there's missed-you-by-a-second and there's breathing and there's long goodnight sayers and sleepy wakers and in the end all we can do is exist.
And time goes on, mindless of us, mindless of where we are --youth-- or who we're with --him-- or that we want to be someone who matters when we grow up --who can autograph books and nod to the public and smile and say how good it is for you to come tonight.
It steals away our innocence; it leave us with wrinkles and memories and a wistful nostalgia.
Then it skips away.

Us

It’s not like I asked for you. For this. I was doing perfectly fine on my own, yes? Mending my heart with patches of hope from the souls that had bumper-carted hard against it and left it dented in places. I had it together, and I pulled my arms closer around me, tighter like a child tugs a safe blanket around himself, and I told me I needed nobody. 

And it was true because I made myself believe it was.

Then there was you. Oh hello, we’re friends and then we’re more and then its unsure and uncertain and hands grasping mine and eyes that light up and long nights and late talks and then what are we doing?

It’s not like I asked for you. I was done, done, done. Finished with finding faults in him, through with clearing schedules and making time for events that ended up being pointless because they were about him and then what happens when he doesn’t matter, over stupid heart flutterings and soul mutterings and silly so-good-to-see-you smiles and you-make-my-day butterflies. Done. The end. Kiss me goodbye one last time.

And then there was you. A blank page that promised so much if only I took the chance to write out the words in a steady hand. A canvas that begged to be covered and splattered and kindergarten-finger-painted on, hinting that the end would be a masterpiece. A wood that invited me to travel its pathways for who knows what hidden treasures lie there.

There’s the possibility the novel could fail, the painting flop, the wood devour me in its clutches.

But the slightest chance, the glimmer of hope, the light at the end of the tunnel indicates otherwise and pleads with me to give you a chance.

I don’t know how or if or why.

I’m not even sure if who. If you. If we. Us.

But time turns on and what’s life without risks?

It’s not like I asked for you. But here you are. Hello, you. 

Yoga

Yoga is aligning your body and soul so that they snap together with a gentle click like two puzzle pieces who have long felt each others absence. The simple ritual of rolling out your mat onto the wooden floor is comforting, for it denotes your space in the world. In that quiet moment, and just for a little while, it is your tiny piece of earth --yours alone-- and you treasure it.
Thoughts of grief and struggle and hardship barrage you, but you've erected an unseen wall around your mat and for the slimmest allotment of time, the troubles simply clink against the invisible barrier and fall harmless to the ground, dirty shimmers of despair. They cannot penetrate. Not right now, at least. For right now belongs to peace. All is well.
You trace the unseen line from ceiling to land with your prayer-posed hands, stopping in front of your heart to reassure yourself of its life-giving beat.
It is there, as it has always been. There is consolation in its stubborn consistency.
It is quiet here, the half lit room humming with intensity that is felt, but not seen, assumed, but not heard. It is invigorating yet soothing, like pouring milk into a glass cup of coffee and watching the creamy white penetrate the dark-as-sin black in a swirling dance of playful purpose.
And we are each planets, orbiting about on our own course, oblivious to each other but with our energies circling in perfect harmony. Or perhaps we are tiny islands set adrift on the sea, swirling on the smooth sailing waves of serenity and serendipity.
Our faces are arranged in a beautiful picture of belief and tranquility and sweat. I know the artist who created that piece of art. He wanted to portray both the intensity of the spirit and the flesh. I told him he accomplished what he set out to do.
The ritual finishes; it softly comes to an end. When we roll up our mats, we collect the doubts and fears that lie broken along the side and roll them up too, tuck both mat and misery away in a musty closet. The world has become a place of wonder, and we wish with the eyes of an innocent child.
For, we are the ones who hope in the most dire of dark circumstances.
We are the ones who believe during the bloodiest of battles.
We are the ones who will change the world.

Spring Away, My Darling

  She eats the sunshine, takes it in giant gulps, grins as it bubbles boldly down her throat and settles in a warm glow in her stomach, emanating out of her eyes in shiny happy thoughts, causing freckles to break out on her skin, and dimples to dance on her cheeks.
  The land is coming alive again, and so is she, resurrected from the winter depths of death and dread.
  Dancing comes easy, joy comes fast, and the wonder that fills her days has rarely tasted sweeter.
  So she cavorts in the newly born sunshine, her toes plunged deep into the green damp that is grass, her body spinning circles, her head dizzy, but her thoughts staying stable and balanced and focused on the God who fills her with such peace. He is the same God who mercifully gives beautiful spring to winter when the earth can take no more death and groans to be released from the sorrow of filthy gray sordid snow.
  Virgin spring blushes bashfully as the Ordinary Princess welcomes it with open arms, unashamedly embracing it, awed by the blueness of the sky. She hasn't seen blue that brilliant in a while, and a little part of her she forgot she had ached for that hazy azulejo background that tiled the ceiling of her life.
    It is here. It is newness and God's grace and life and temporary. But, for right now it is here. And it brings with it happiness so long hoped for and peace so long pursued. It is spring, dragged to her on the backs of sparrows, opened by branches of trees, and delicately kissed by the buds of tulips.
  Spring away, bound over the brooks and fly through the fields. Welcome it with song and with laughter and with thanksgiving. Shy spring won't last forever, but take comfort in the fact that it can never stay away for long. The wheel of the seasons, like the wheel of fortune, is always turning. And for right now, the wheel is pointing up.

Heart Harmony

Sometimes when she’s alone and she’s feeling introspective, she delves into her heart, past the bruises left by relationships long gone, gently brushing the cracked and fragile filaments of faithless friends that flake at the slightest breath, breezing by the cannon ball holes penetrating the walls left from unfulfilled promises. All of that is in the past. Like the Greek mediums who peered at animal remains to determine destiny, her hands pull apart her rib cage so she can get a better look at the future.

It’s a bright and piercing heart for sure, brilliant with joy as it feeds on friends’ happiness, pumping their euphoria back into her veins. But it has its darker parts too, for the nineteen years that it’s pumped for her have not been without scars and sores. She stitched those up, covered them with a band aid, sealed them with a kiss, and they rarely give her trouble now a days.

            Her heart doesn’t belong to another person right now, and she tells herself she’s alright with that. But each heart pump and each heart thump means she’s young and her song is unsung and the drum beats of death echo ever so slightly in the blood that pulses through her veins. She’s got time to fall in love, everyone says, and she nods carefully. For she knows this is truth, but her heart still twinges and cringes when she watches fellow friends fall for each other.

            So she inspects the future, and she asks herself if she’d be alright with a lonely heart, for the prospects of heart-giving in the future seem dim as the twilight evening. Give it to God, she knows she must, but the lust that fills her seems unjust for what if she dies turns to dust and her heart is hushed. These are the thoughts that haunt her head when she lies in bed wondering if she was dead would others care or would her heart simply stop beating and there would be no lover no friends to notice the absence of her thump.

            If a heart stops and no one’s around to hear it, does it matter? 

Holy Communion

  They move as one, shuffling, scuffing shoes on the floor, leaving subtle marks that they lived that moment. To remind the janitor that they were there, and he'll acknowledge the trace of their existence before buffing it  gently away.
  Each worshipper gathers in his seat, facing forwards, eyes and heart lifted towards the cross that presides over it all, a good luck charm, a token, a reminder of why each came. Holding high their voices in humble offering, they give back to God in holy adoration. Feeble, airy, deep, melodious, out of tune. The voices rise as individuals, yet join in swelling harmony as they make their way towards heaven. First filling the air around them, cavorting in joyful dances around each worshipper, then flowing out through nooks in the brick wall and crannies in the wooden ceiling to frolic among the clouds in cold star light and then go soaring up to their maker.
  A longing, a begging, a wish to be filled. Joined together in joyful communion. Different in every possible way yet connected by the Holy Spirit that weaves together the body of Christ and stitches our souls, heals our hearts, threads our thoughts, mends our meditations.
  We pour ourselves out as offerings, transparent and breakable, bathed in humility and the tears that cascade down our faces. We are one with Christ, we are one with each other.
  This is His body, broken for you.
  This is His blood, spilt for you.
  And in that moment, we cry for faithfulness, forgiveness, fortitude.
  Father, hear our prayer. Do not forsake us in our time of need.
  This is our cry. This is our plea. This is our holy communion.
 
 

Smile For Your Public

There are times when I worry it’ll fall off. And I clutch it hard with my tongue, clinch with my teeth, growling, willing the smile to stay there. But sometimes it struggles away and all I can do is leave it, broken and splintered, shattered at the side of the road like a car mirror, in a million tiny shiny pieces. I worry that others will turn, smile on their face, and notice what I’m missing. They’ll flip their smile upside down. Social protocol calls for a frown in concern at my predicament, or perhaps in dismay or disgust.

Ravenous for acceptance, I try to form a smile. Lips of satin silk. Teeth made from pieces of broken china white and blue. Bits of a beer bottle green as the clouded sea. A doll’s painted porcelain finger. An ivory whalebone necklace from someone I loved long ago. Fur from the lucky rabbit foot. But the smile is an imposter, a counterfeit, a fake, a façade.

Those who care enough to notice are not easily fooled, yet they speak nothing. How can they? Forming words might tear the fragile paper mache smile plastered on their own face.

I worry that I’ll grow emaciated. Without a smile, I am unable to feed on others welcoming affirmation. One day I’ll do something dreadfully drastic.

Like…

Lurking, lunge, leap.

Lacerate someone’s smile.

Lick clean the blood.

Lay the smile on my own face, smearing blood and bits of flesh in the process. But the smile won’t stick, and try as I might I can’t make it stay, and I’m crying, and the tears mingle with the meaty mess mashed upon my face.

It hasn’t come to that yet. By God’s grace.

But it has come close. The desperation I feel that mutters, still stutters its words, causing me to shudder as each thought putters through my brain.

Lies: That without a smile, I will be disregarded and distrusted and disgraced and disvalued. My value lies in how much fun others have when they are with me. My worth is reflected to me in their own smiles. My smile is my mask I hide behind and the reason others want to be with me.

And though I know these truths to be lies, I cannot lose my smile. Not even let it slip for a second. Constant upkeep, constant wear. Grip it tight, others value it.

 Sometimes, though, it’s so hard to hold onto. 

Fill Me

  Some nights I feel so full of emotion that I am sure I could quite possibly burst if one more feeling pounded through my head like an over eager child in class, hand extended and waving, begging to be noticed.
  It could be nervous frustration that's fluttering like an excited bird against the cage of my ribs. Or perhaps another night, anger is pushing at the knitted seams that holds my skin together and keeps my beating heart in. Maybe sadness drowns my brain in its salty oceans of fear that swirl down the drains and leak slowly out of my eyes. This one that's bitter yet indulgent, sweet and sour, leaves a track of ugly across my heart and jealousy prickling in my eyes -- it's called envy I think. Love is easy and beautiful and deep. And is it elation that jitters my hands, gives me shivers, makes my feet leap and want to fly, my eyes crinkle as happiness breaks out in beaming smiles across my face?
  Other nights though, when I feel as empty as a watering can that poured out all of its substance onto the flowers that surround it, and while the flowers might be well wetted, the watering can feels only the loneliness that rattles around in its tin shell -- and nothing much else.
  I wish I could bottle emotions. Save them all, even the bad ones, for days when I feel nothing. When I'm sucked dry like a juice box that a kindergardener has slurped clean, just crinkled and empty cardboard, even the air taken from me, left to bake and fade with the sun on the side of the road, and eventually, forgotten, melt into the environment.
  Because even the bad emotions that prick my heart like barbed wire and make it bleed a little are better then the emptiness that sometimes drains me. When that happens, I don't know what to do, and I panic.
  I am stripped of my essence, vulnerable to the environment-- the winds of worry wash wearily over and the rains of insecurity that pound down on my body lick me clean-as-a-cat of my confidence.
  "Fill me," is my plea. To my friends, my work, my art, my god. "Life's too short for emptiness."

Thy Will Be Done, My Father

To be read aloud as spoken word:

Thy will be done, my Father
For you say let it go, Lord
I mean it's kind of hard to do
The only comfort that I'll have is
Depending solely on
You.
And I know that should be enough, God
It's certain and it's right and it's true.
But my fleshly desires are always
Crying out inside
Yearning and growling hungry and unsatisfied
And I must feed the beast that is my sinful heart
With jealousy and malice and doubt and
Pride.
So much pride that hurts as it rattles inside.
Breaking the bars that confine it and hold it still and I can feel its chill
And I have to learn to silence it so I can hear
The quiet voice that whispers over all the din
"Just trust my will."
For if I could learn to trust you, God
Ah, that'd be the day. I cry for faith, my Father
I have such little and the fear that is there tends to scare and beware the
Anger that stems from it.
I just want to know you, to see you, to touch you, feel you, be by your side
With your hand in mine and it'd all align if you'd give me a sign
Thy will be done, my Father.
For where were you, God, when the nights were long and I'd sing a song simply to myself
Because it felt like no one cared.
And the doubt that whispered "You're alone"
Lay upon my heart
Heavy as a stone and cracked open my eyes with unbelief in the form of tears.
My prayers sky rocket into the atmosphere but no one's there
To catch them at times so they fall back down and
Hit me hard to the tune of the mocker's who surround
As I'm stretched on the ground
And the wicked march on.
Thy will be done, my Father.

Solitude

  Sometimes aloneness is an unwelcome companion. You cannot shrug him off and he grasps your hand, clammy fingers grabbing onto yours where friends are supposed to hold instead.
  When you choose to be alone, however, that is solitude. And solitude holds the promise of new ideas and breathes into you inspiration. For it is when you are enjoying your own company and basking in the promise of your future that happiness helicopters down like an autumn leaf or a freshly made snow flake and lands on your shoulder with a soft whisper.
  Solitude is immersing yourself in the adventures of Huckleberry Finn whilst perched on the limb of a tree, legs dangling, feet gently kissed by spring's promises of summer soon to come. And the birds echo the joyful melody that resonates through your heart as you bite into an apple and bask in the sun. The berries you squeeze beneath your fingers stain your hands with red and tattoo your skin with happy spring thoughts.
  Solitude is sinking into an old chair that has seen so much in its lifetime and could tell stories that would make you gasp in wonder and giggle in surprise. Your fingers warmed with a steaming mug of coffee, your nostrils greeted with scents of vanilla and cinnamon. Surrounded by light that dances across the table and flirts with the shadows on the wall, only to order them away with a spritely command.
  Solitude is not being blown away by the wind when weather is angry and earth is solemn. Stepping in puddles just because and taking the long way home because you like walking and thinking and the wind knows your problems and begs to carry them far away to the east, gone for a very long while, and possibly never to be seen again. The wind chimes sound like the choir of the breeze and they make you smile because you're happy to be alive and to be the only human around that hears their serenade.
  Solitude is sitting on a wooden bench and watching. Just watching. Wondering who that man was in his long lifetime and where that woman is rushing in such a hurry and flurry and bustle. Seeing two strangers meet and a flame sparks between them and you're not sure whether this is the beginning of a new romance or simply a happy serendipity but you wish them well. Watching not alone but in solitude
  And that's perfectly alright with you.

Snow Globe

There’s something to be said about living in a snow globe. How the white all melts into itself and you can’t tell land from sky from clouds. The snow greets you like an old friend, gently kissing your face with wetness, as it reminds you that though you may have forgotten it in those balmy summer months, it has not forsaken you.

And it nests snuggly-as-a-baby-bird in your hair, clouds your vision by clinging sweet-temperedly onto your eyelashes, taste like winter on your tongue. You’d be frozen stiff except for the warmth of friendship that surrounds you, like a wool blanket that wraps around your soul at least three times and nuzzles softly against your cheeks, the warmth of your own breath an internal heating system that circulates throughout.

There’s a love language flurrying around spoken in smiles and guffaws and giggles and smirks. Embraces you, warms you, slides slowly down your throat into your belly. In those precious moments swept away by whiteness and winter and cold and dear friends, you are the snow princess, ruling her kingdom, living in her snow globe. The bubble that surrounds your globe is impenetrable, and the flurries that whisk you away are made of simple whiteness and nothing more.

It is the prettiest side of winter. The side that goes on post cards and gets dreamed about by sleepy children on their way to school wishing for a snow day. It is nothing short of magic.

And you can’t be more grateful to be alive, to have warm blood coursing through your body. You look up, your eyes lift towards the heavens as they continue to salt-shaker down the snow that surrounds, that reminds, that makes you so grateful to be a part of the simple white magic.

This is your winter.

Your snow globe.

And it’s beautiful. 

Remind Me Daily

Parched skin thirstily swallows the ink, letting the black bleed slowly in as my pen traces dear thoughts onto me. From my heart, jumped to my brain, the thought electrics its way down my arm on the back of tiny nerves to control the hand that holds the pen. A circuitous route connecting both body and soul. They meet in the sweetest communion.

The word “trust” etched into me, cursive and swirly, breathing free and bold, a proclamation of priorities and faith, alerting all, giving everything, withholding nothing.

The ink traced onto my skin seeps into the hair-fine cracks that map the surface of my hand, the cartographer having engraved even the tiniest swirled detail. And it reminds me that without trust, my fragile soul would painfully shatter.

Like Christmas decorations, those brightly colored red balls that distort your face when you get up close and glitter and light up the tree. Clinging onto the branches of the tree, the ornament dangles precariously, forever on the verge of falling. I’m like that ornament. Trust in my Savior is the only thing that keeps me clinging, keeps me from shattering, keeps me from despondency and desperation.

Trust.

            It means giving so much away and not snatching it back out of His hands, determined that you could do better. It means silent prayers whispered into pillows when tears water the sheets. It means facing the future without cringing and acknowledging that He alone will forge the way. It means joy and freedom on your back like wings that pick you up and take you anywhere, anywhere but here. It means your Savior.