the periwinkle buds sparkle
sprouting like popcorn or pimples
butterflies break
out dark womb
unfolding papery orange limbs
she shot out into arms that waited for
her
birth broke records of ancient
earthen tupperware, volcanic store
too valuable to treasure too
priceless to score.
Wind whispered memories like linoleum checkered floor and strawberry freckled apron, coriander, colanders, and calls on the curly pastel landline.
the sock she pulled off during her nap she never took
is blue.
i remember how it protected her sole
until she decided
it was food.
rest it well, lost somewhere socks go
when they do.
calloused lions hunt clouds hung too high
hungry ocean swallows sky
little girl next door swings
big tree holding her sings
swigs of yesterday sipped slowly sigh
maybe it’s time to say goodbye.
he hangs his head, like droopy ice cream
drips with summer haze and
too many tips
from people this and people that
saying here but running there
confusion like a jello ship
simple like baby fingernails and
snailmail why isn’t the color
purple
seen by flying things
sometimes we
make up
what we think.
starving lions like
protruding ribs and stares
neglect and scares
what if they could see
what they’ve done to me
it’s time
say goodbye.
berry blisters and chocolate Sunday’s melt like ice mirrors in potholes and pocks. grace writes my name in opaque fluff through periwinkle lace, calls to me in the musty mold of depression and vomit. a circle of unicyclists, people trying to pass through mountains with hand drills, and I’m there, too. my heart’s in my hand, shiny pointy glass shattered in six billion two shards reflecting my somber mask, droplets pool on the pieces stillborn like an ancient swamp, preserved and stuck, stoic and sad. I smell the smell for the first time I’ve breathed. No, that’s a lie. I smell it again, again. Maybe yet to come more. The smell of hospital wafts like chemicated medicated chalk rubber gloves, slick and concealing skin, hiding what lies below every throb. discreet. (or so they think). no hospital gown—that other lie of a dress, like undressed mess bare and raw before the front of accreditation. the back ties barely glued conceal nothing as I sit square and cold like people do in waiting rooms, rocking themselves like mothers and moving sloths, remember. Just let it go, the fussy, hungry woman before me dictated. inject this in the spiral notebook spine holding you up some days: go to bed and rest, let go and dissect yourself until you come to the beginning of the circle.
do you know the leaves’ names (personal–not scientific)
in class of 1683?
how many breaths are left in your lung pouches?
esophagus closes like a casket
the sky bleeds in baskets
time, names, roots, numbers–meaningless if God slumbers
(He’s alive, keeping cells and molecules in place)
walruses blink
youth melts
paint runs
gravity’s race
sky water slips down like thirty-eight yesterdays
what even stays the same?
is there a sane anchor in madness?
where is order? who is peace?
how can death be displaced?
apart from origin, away from Creator, confusion and emptiness cause heart craters
empty eyes, hollow chests when we think we know best
have you ever made a boulder or spoke to form a glacier?
have you crafted a giraffe, do you know how to make the stars laugh?
were you there when heaven’s Miracle melted earth, rebirthed, second breath?
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.
“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so my ways are higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9
I have no idea what I’m doing.
I’m a wife but how do I be married? I have a kid but how do I be a mom? I have a brain but how do I think healthily? I have a heart but what does it beat for? I have hands but for what do I use them? I have feet but where do I go?
I don’t know. I can’t pretend to know
any longer.
I can use internet to know,
but he is just as confused as I am.
I can ask all the people swimming around me,
but how can someone who doesn’t know how to swim save a drowning soul?
We’re all pretending we know.
We like to think we know.
Deep down we all know we don’t know. Look at sad. Look at worry. Look at mad and fear and reaching for the remote. the cigarette. the bottle. the pill. the credit card. the pennies. the other person.
Look at
the existence of bombs.
broken hearts.
spilled blood.
Fumbling my way through is not my avenue.
There’s this book called the Bible. the more I know it’s Author and I become what He says, the more I stop stumbling.
There’s this thing, this thing that I never knew existed, before I met Him. It’s called peace. And it’s awesome. Being at peace with God is the best. Living His way by His grace, there’s nothing like it on all the earth. No amount of money, makeup, work, being “good” can compare or purchase this happy, this joy. This joy is a gift. Available to all.
receive by faith.
I have no idea what I’m doing. but God knows exactly what He’s doing.
the only thing I know
is Him.
and I’m okay. ❤
the key to writing is to write.
right on!
write on.
dressed in blue hospital gown, they shut me on lock down. stuck pills on my tongue—chalky and chemical. told me they’d fix me, told me to swallow. labeled me broken, stigma and shame have the same name; they slithered in that day and decided to stay. told me I couldn’t. God said she can. He’s healer and redeemer, the only miracle maker.
shimmer of hope, a bright blast burst onto earth as the star came down, the Son, to shine as our sun and give light to a dead world. we grasped for the light switch, through eerie darkness. but our fingers got lost searching the wall. totally incapable of change or salvation. we need to become aware of our hole before we can be whole.
God’s mercy shone, brighter than 62 trillion light bulbs, He blinded us with warmth, light, true love. (we didn’t know before we were blind. His light gives us sight!). by the blood, made right in the eyes of our Maker. night’s ended for those that surrender.
smooth, green bench frozen in cement rectangle,
like memories that scare, scream for attention,
lodged in crevices of file cabinets on lobes,
creeping forward to say hello.
tin trash bin containing yesterday’s debris,
today’s discontent, stationed at curb,
ready to descend.
seagull licks ice cream puddle underneath pay phone.
man in purple tie clips by.
a cloud observes, cries, floats forward.
at least gravity isn’t backwards.
