to love x

what is it like to love you/.

i.

hands. trace the ridges, the whorls, the valleys

of yours. my, how they are familiar to rugged labor, yet how tender

they become with mine. how kindly they are with

the littles, as you prod their sides and

belly laughter spills forth. how you hold them open to a little

girl's and she clings tight,

and how you use them to throw him up onto your shoulders.

secure yet extending, balancing the unfolding.

ii.

the blurs. two hours on the phone feels like ten minutes,

giving me a taste of the sweet honey of eternity. 

last summer scooping water out of the tent,

the memory of who we were still rippling in the water. how fitting.

that's when i knew i loved you, even if it's tucked in a bleary throwback.

lingering calls, moments between you, old car rides.

iii.

unequivocal. removal of uncertainty manifesting trust through

a steady consistency. hand resting to be held. unembellished honesty,

not just in your fixed eyes, but set brightly within your heart.

meeting every morning with your words. 

you greet my tangled fear with gentleness

and the knots are safely loosened.

i cried when i opened that package and found

your hoodie tucked neatly in it. you're not always here,

but you're thinking of me.

iv.

the nearness. tucked in close enough to hear the blossom

of your heartbeat. i laugh within the flower fields of

your arms, joking about the frogs when i hear

a gurgle from your stomach. it had been nigh six months before i saw

you in Texas, a dizzy spin goodnight,

leaving my heart swelling to the brim in gladness.

every tired prayer before the sunder of the night. watching your

weary eyes over the phone. commitment of letters.

v.

starry eyed. outside a bar in salida. processing unit 61 on the couch. 

parked in my car after church. laying on a driveway in kansas. touring the

 cadre barracks. leaning against a boulder in grand mesa. the longer i stare at the murky sky, the more

stars dot the soft milky way. some nights hold the brush of meteors

and other nights are hushed in clouds. each sacred to me

in their distinct apollo 11 ways, each the evincing of your character.

more smitten with you than a star tilling over into

the sweet rebound out of supernova. 

/x

impurities

the turning and compressing of spiritual organs

toss and dream of unsung realities.

is it the cooling of the iron i am bestowed with?

or the churning of the coals?

it's not too bad at all (until it is.)

but i have learned the methods

of getting over it -- getting over

(nothing.)

it is my miner soul but i continue

to just let the stones pile up.

but He --

He collects. He rids the old. He takes

all that is (if surrender is

present in my pocket, to be upon my

sleeve) and He compresses.

gems require the burden of 

crushing to find all their

richness. -- so must we,

in the hands of the Lord.

/x 

this is just some unmarked journal passage from last summer. probably july.

lack

the sun sets ever so quietly behind me over the mountains,
but it's dragging a rope with it that's attached to my heart. the farther it falls,
the tighter the rope gets. a chokehold on inner turmoil.
the gold races along their little feet in the grass as they wrestle and tumble. i swing my legs back and forth underneath me,
just watching them. and feeling things i don't even realize i'm feeling.
i'm running through the motions, but it feels like the me now watching through the eyes
of me seventeen. i love them all so much it hurts.
it was a murmur that people with the best virtues make them vulnerable,
yet here am i -
my arms clutched around my ribs, trying to hide the fact my heart is being pulled to pieces.
it hurts so much i might burst, but i cannot let them see.
i want them to know, but the weight of it is something i'm not willing to bear.
i don't want to be like this. i want to be bold and brave, willing to lend my hand to them
without them asking for it. willing to let myself be rejected.
there's something wired in me that retracts and silences.
something within me that makes me sob my eyes out all alone after they leave. because
there was a chance and i feigned blind until it was over.
that doesn't say much about the girl who claims to love (i do. i don't how to make it clear.)
how do i tell you it isn't as easy as you want it to be?
you'll tell me what to do. they will. but you just don't get it.
look through their eyes - a slithering tongue in my mouth, they fall back into a robotic uneasiness that shuts off any chance to make it hit them. they take the path of disconnect,
"it's not for me."
they're broken, don't you see? and i'm over here sniffling behind my hand because i don't know
how to tell them that their certain steps are actually feeble.
the dark greens toss with the small purple wildflowers, and i am handed a bouquet by the little girl
who had been set upon ripping all of them to pieces just minutes before.
just a fragmented art of alteration from rebuke.
in some ways, i am cut from the same cloth as them, stripped even to the bone.
even if it's just a hint of legalism, i take two steps back and almost turn on my heel.
it's not much like living if freedom isn't provided.
i know, i know! you say that's where liberty is most found, but i can't help but feel
claustrophobic in limitations placed.
extend graciousness to my hesitation, for i am not eager to step into the pool of monotonous
that lacks the abundance i know that there is behind sacred truth.
yet don't leave me where i sit! bring me to my weary knees that i may pour out my spikenard
upon the solid feet of Him who is so precious to me - (first yet i was regarded precious, blood spilled
on my behalf).
if it takes the sun with a lasso around my heart to make it spill,
let the noose tighten until every ventricle and atrium rupture into a holy mess.
when called to bleed, may i bleed. when called to weep, may i weep.
when called to die, may i die.
for i know the voice that calls me, and i know that there is plenty given to the one who gives plenty.
less of me, a shaky exhale. less of me.
and more of - who?
Him.

/x