sitting in michigan x

i wait for a call that almost sounds like home

but it is the weeping of the sea as she rolls 

over the shore and aches as she pulls back

the layers are revealed, and the grown 

turn cold shoulders

yet i am still small, kneeling in the sand, 

shells piled like jewels 

in my hands

the sky is sobbing and i am trying

to figure out why

everyone here cannot see the gift

of a God who cares enough to refine

there is a pulling in my chest, 

right between the bottom of both my ribs

calling for the chance to be pierced 

hard enough to bleed

they are all searching. searching for

something to fulfill. and i -

i am constantly racing to unclog as if 

i were a drain overflowing with junk.

here am i! i want to scream. but even

that conviction isn't quite reckless enough.

i can never seem to feel the right

thing at the right time. i am

the clock that chimes three minutes too late.

/x

i don't need you to love me

the light feels thick from the stars, strangling me into
a muggy heartache.
you don't have to love me, i murmur, always always
twisting in the night. you don't have to love me.
but no matter how many times i say those words,
i can't quite make my feelings obey in submission.
in a lot of ways, i want you to love me.

i want memories where the heat of the moment
lights up our faces, casting gentle shadows.
the blurry memories. the ones where you can't quite
remember what you were laughing about, but you
just remember your heart was in high tide.
it doesn't have to be a lover's kind of love. she
talked about soulmates, and how they can come for
those moments where time stands still.
in a lot of ways, i want to believe you were one.
because when i throw a glance over my shoulder,
certain pieces of time peek at me like glitter in the
sunlight.

but i don't need you to love me
for me to love you.

/x

hey punks! lately my favorite feeling has been the freshness that comes when you move on from old feelings. what about you? 

everything is okay (even when it's not)

soft. it washes over me like

sunlight, like a ghost like the way you

don't say my name anymore you

never said my name.

they say let it rise, it is okay

to burn.

so goes the fire, but i

disengage.

no steps back but my nerves crashlanded 

now i'm running my hands through the flames running

away.

pillars of smoke look like clouds and 

suddenly it's a Tuesday we're naming the

heavens. a glance of gold don't blink twice

the burning tiger is

dead.

smoke meets my lungs and i cough

maybe i'm just getting over a cold my hands

are cold why is the sun so bright

intentional amnesia except misdiagnosed

because i still remember everything i still

remember the way we laughed.

nice to meet you my name is Alright

my name is you're right i'm not but i can't

acknowledge that.

x

happy tues to fellow nines 

(and the rest of you!)

all my love

vague

this is my moment.

i run my hand through the soft, cold beat of the clouds. turn my head to the left. i see glimmers of blond. something strong.
now i'm running through a murky brown. flashes of white, twinkles of black. there's a window in front of us, and it was a beginning though you were the only one who knew it.

clench and throw all i got. but i don't. i just roll my tongue around in my mouth, and try not to be too honest. no one needs to know. they already know. i wish they didn't. why did you come?

there, on the roof. she tried to tell him something. but words? not this time. yell it loud, baby. sometimes that's what your soul needs more. it's better than a hook to the punching bag. probably because that's where i get my knots, right in my lungs. nothing like a good slap of air to knock it all loose.

this is my moment.
i remember the small things. i hold them in a pocket, only for me to know. the flashes. the feelings.
isn't it funny how there are some things only you know?
handfuls of time only you have experienced?

no one else.

it's only october. only only only only. it feels like it's been a thousand years and only a week at the same time. i've never had the kind of memory people call good. there are some things as clear as day that have happened over a year ago. and then there are some things that happened just yesterday that are already taking root in forgotten land.

i was just on the train ride in the airport, going back home. but there were too many people in the train and my back was to the pole so i had to be steady on my feet. funny how you think you have it, then you're stumbling around.
i can't make sense of any of it.
the walls of the tunnel flash by, and there are all sorts of colors and smells and places. marbles in a basket. he was tall. she was short, and had a sheepish grin. a laugh slipped from my lips, and was lost in the pollution of noise.

already gone.

this is my moment.
why am i so afraid? why do i feel so small? why can't we just say the things we feel?
why are things so complicated?

if every moment is our own, why do we act as if it is someone else's?
that's not selfish. is it? i don't think it is. but right now, i can't make sense of anything. there are shades of blue that give me the deepest sorrow and the deepest joy at the same time. everything is meshing.

vague. yeah. that's what this is. but that's how i feel.

forgotten how to write

i've forgotten how to write / it seems.

i pick up that familiar guitar in my hands, 

expecting to say something of importance, something in my heart. 

but it's been eighteen years 

and the dam that was there when i was born

 is still there now. 

i approached it as Jericho, but seven days did nothing. 

seven years have passed, and still nothing. 

i have a journal with small poems

that just make my heart sick (perhaps an overstatement) when i read them

because i could never say it / quite right.

no, wait --

s t o p.

could you stop protesting and just LISTEN for a moment?

i am tired of words right now,

tired of sound.

tired of people telling me how / when / possibilities.

just listen.

i drove in the desert heat to a picnic table in

the middle of nowhere,

and sweat on a bench eating blackberries and

watched the clouds dance and sway quietly along

their bright blue stage.

i had meant to pray.

to abide in the presence of my Savior, pouring out my heart.

maybe to listen and hear a word from Him / (trying not to be a hypocrite).

but the sun just covered everything it could,

and i was hot, and the wind was hot,

and there is no good word to describe it all except hot hot hot.

i've forgotten how to write, after all.

but a man walked with his daughter,

laughing and calling after Maddie. both of them

bore weapons against the heat (just squirt guns and hope).

i grinned at the trees away from them, trying

not to spill the secret that i was listening.

i think he knew.

i don't think he cared.

i guess you don't need to know how to write

to be spoken to.

/x

hey babes. graduated high school. sending my school laptop back to the school so i'm not going to be able to post again until i buy a new one. but that's not new news. i mean, it takes me a couple of months to post these days anyway.

thanks for always coming back, even when i am a poop and don't reply to the comments. i see 'em and love 'em. 

faithfulness

it is suddenly a thursday, a daring blue sky sending kisses in clouds. the grass in our yard is too long, not asking to be cut because we both know that sometimes you need to let things grow while you rest. it has been a long season, full of full, long days. but look, the tide is changing. today i slept in without worry for the first time in months. my mom planted flowers in the pots on our porch. i didn't have to take a jacket with me when i left the house yesterday evening.

faithfulness. i roll that word around in my mouth, learning what it means. i asked her what God was teaching her on sunday. she laughed and gave me an answer, but i wasn't expecting her to turn the question back on me so quick. i didn't really have an answer - "He is teaching me a bit of everything." she was gracious enough to accept those words, commenting a bit upon them.

but here i am, only a few days later, and i have found a word to describe the gentle work He has been working in me, through me, and all around me.

faithfulness. 

in all things. man. if i could just pick out those moments in my life, and place them in your hand for you to see and to know and to feel, i would.

it has been this past school year, staying up late late to finish homework by the end of the day. it has been waking up at 5:30 and wearily getting out of bed to get ready to go to work. it has been squeezing in loads of laundry into the washer, finally picking it off the floor because your room has been a mess for a week. it has been playing guitar on wednesday nights and praying in the car in the morning.

but not all of it has been physical - it has been choosing to love when i don't feel like it, it has been checking up on friends, it has been replying to emails or texts or emails or letters (even if they are latteeee), it has been learning to surrender, it has been sticking it out through the hard things, it has been being honest, it has been asking the hard questions, it has been choosing forgiveness and asking for forgiveness, it has been humility written into my core.

it has been laying myself down for the sake of the Cross, for the sake of others.

you must understand that faithfulness was never about what you could get. what you could gain from being faithful to another person or to another thing or to God. faithfulness is about love and it is about lifting others above yourself and it is a continuous choice. it isn't a one time thing. it is a battle to stand firm, proclaiming Christ into the face of things that call you off of the solid Rock.

it is my King Himself, beaming grace. beaming humility. beaming love. all of these things are woven in to each other. you can't be truly faithful without any of them.

and don't get me wrong. faithfulness is full of sweet fruit.

because of it, cords have been tightened, hearts have been strengthened, trees have budded, finish lines have been crossed, rest has been earned, glory has been given, joy has grown deeper, cinnamon rolls have been made.

faithfulness. it is written into everything. i laugh when i look at the sky, a golden sun has been revolving for thousands of years. my God has fulfilled each of His promises. the flowers are peeking out at me, shy but bright. there are callouses on my fingers from the guitar. faithfulness is good, good, good.

hard, yeah.

stinking hard.

but those types of things are always worth it. He has proven it, and i will not doubt it.

/x

hello march. x

friday. 

- i hear the wind sweeping the sky, and i am tumbling in and out of soft dreams between my blankets, and the sun is leaning against the wall in my room napping. 

saturday. 

- stumble into the bathroom, grin at a face sleepy and solid in the mirror. survived my first day of being eighteen. it went exactly as any other day when i was seventeen. i hum to myself, the only one awake in the house even though it's already 7:30am. 

sunday. 

- always a quieter type of day when you are alone. i slept in as late as i could before my dad fumbled his way downstairs and announced that the cinnamon rolls were out of the oven. i laughed. because i had mentioned that i wouldn't mind them for breakfast, and i didn't think he heard me, but here we were. 
eighteen. it has been a series of the quietest and gentlest gifts that only i know of. His precious hand weaving His grace into the very folds of weekend days and weekday hurts. i am thankful. 

monday.

- i trace the raw branches with my eyes, we're ten years old, sitting beneath that tree barefoot and skinny legged. who knew the grace of God was stretching its roots into the very depths of our feeble hearts? i press my palm up the window of the past. most people wish they could get it back. i've never been that way. i feel the crevices and old valleys in between those good days. 
they have all brought me here, closer to the gentle hands of my Solid Rock. i wouldn't change that for those old juicy peach afternoons and 8 o'clock bedtime summer nights. 


my greenbean of a girl wrote a song !! ! go listen. pls. 

/x 

to the one i long for

To the one I long for,

hi my love.

today is long, a pen weaves between my fingers as I sigh.

It has been more than a long day.

It has been a long, long life. she is afraid no one will stay, and I am afraid I will have no one to stay for.

I hope for you.

you are not a promise

to me.

I am not promised your strong arms, heart that hurts when mine hurts,

striving selfless love.

these are confusing days, and I shove my face into my palms,

as if I’ll find your name

written into the wrinkles that tell fortune tellers miracles.

I will wait for you, if He wills me to have you.

so be strong and brave in these weary days. weary months. weary years.

may He be with you in your aches, as well as mine.

(and give you wisdom.)

so be it.

/x

love overflowing - i

stolen from addy. ur totes right. 

- things I've been loving recently - 

murmurs from the morning.

twinkle eyes from the past, eyes set on the horizon.

a kind and graceful God.

hands that don't let go, but grip yours tighter.

feet tangled in blankets, sleepy laughs.

reading Psalms aloud like battle cries.

winter rain sprinkles (never have i known this).

my sister's garlic knots. delish.

movie nights with my daddio. 

teaching the little girl how to hold things bravely. let those callouses grow, babe. 

/x

WOW OKAY. promise not to disappear so long without notice again haha. 

what have you been loving lately, babes?

make me a list. it'll be good for you to sit still for a minute and reflect. if not, hate mail is always an option. ahohooho.