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

see the way

see the way, see the way

it all just. fits right into the palm

of the earth

the way the your name is tucked like a caramel in the back of my cheek

as i idle in traffic with the window

down.

i turn the radio up,

trying to drown thoughts about you

again. again

i am tired of the way it's a never-ending

record. as if i haven't

thought about you every day enough already,

this repetition is - getting to, getting to my head.

just a reminder that you're still gone.

i've had the same songs on repeat

since the day that you left.

i remember driving home in the hot afternoon sun - 

a day just like today -

crying my eyes out. ( not surprising at all, i do it all the time ) 

five more minutes.

if i could take it back to the bar, when i was

standing outside with you on the other side of the line

\i was looking at the stars but you were the only thing on my mind-

sorry, i don't mean to be so cheesy, but,

i would have stood there forever, tracing the cracks in the sidewalk

with my feet, shivering on the edge of a goodbye.

if i could take it back---

the radio isn't helping me 

forget about you, not even for a split second-

oh, i wouldn't forget about you for a split second.

no, sorry, stop -

i really miss you. that's it. 

/x

partial but whole

i. 

and it's like a deflated tire
upon the pavement, yet only i am the
one who seems to notice any of it.
tell me.
the rumble, the herd.
i just want to know.
i am sick - it creeps and haunts
like the loneliness in a parking lot.
still, yet eerie.
these lungs are not rising today -
though i am seeing small things.
the boy is now becoming a man.
steadfast. taller. even more sacrificial.
i weep beside the firs, swimming
through memory and memory of their faces.

learning the art of trying again,
i felt like i had lost all my concrete
burned hands could ever muster.
but now and then the moon
peeks through swallowed clouds and i
think it's the sun come to set again.
mistaken, but hilariously so.

ii.

living.
it runs from the good to the bad.
in my mind, it runs like chevron.
the colors mix, they toss. and it
all comes back together by the
work of His hands. think of it
like kneading bread. the yeast
to make it rise.

living.
this is what it is about.
smeared diamond eyes
peeking at me from underneath rain hoods.
the oxygen feels rich in my mouth.
hardship caught red-handed
amidst a smirk. i'm not one to
show my emotions on my
sleeve, but there are moments
like now.
written like the ebeneezers.

just watch how they dance from
one thing to another, glory arms
they were given. i see him in
the small moments. quietly i sit.
but the compressing pushes
the coals of his character
together - you will know them by
their fruit. so i watch, and so i see.
He who promised He would
complete a good work in you...is faithful.
take a look back.

living.


iii.

laughing into a new day even when my lips are
sealed shut.
i can't remember half of what they said, but i was looking
into their eyes.
i'm still there sometimes.
caught in a glance. stuck in the iris.
i can't help the way they
weave themselves into my heart.
i fall easily,
(but i also get up easily too)
caught up in an uneven
Balance.
i don't mind. i don't mind. my cheeks slip
into a smile because of this love.
blessing in abundance.
bending beneath the weight of His wind
and mercy, oh,
how He loves us.
rough hands in the attic in the middle of the night,
passing cookies like communion.
how He loves us.


/x

winter allergies

you roll these Tuesdays in the back
of your mouth like the peppermints you've gotten at
restaurants since you were a
child, taking things for granted you swore
you never would.
bitter store signs change
their name and i choke on the smog that's found
its way into the town.

you don't try anymore. and you say
you're not running away, but this slow walk is
more painful. i don't see your face around the corner
anymore. they don't know what you're up to.
it's just me on the end
of a payphone last May being sent to your voicemail next
Fall. they started calling me a stranger
when i wrote different names into the boxes on my
calendar. the vinyl i play on my record-player heart
is one of whistles in the
dark. maybe it'll be the sound that grounds your feet.
or maybe it'll be a l'appel du vide earthquake
and we'll never connect eyes in the
deep ever again.

i keep trying to clear my throat but i cough
out blood lined with the remnants of your
name, like the piece of a flannel that got caught
in the brush.
i am wanting, i am bated with- (hope)
this common cold frosted into the craters of my lungs.
summer will drift in soon,
and thaw the sickness that comes every year.
until then,
/x

windows

i bleed my favorite colors into the depths of their little eyes

it's the secrets we hold closest to our hearts that never see the light of day

so maybe if i carve a window into my ribs, they can

stick their grubby, glorious faces up against the glass and the dreams

will swirl in a wind of bright dust that has never faded

and it will be hard. because there have been times where i have trusted people

like when she told me she would - but never did. time after time. and  even though

my throat was sore from heartblood crying,

she never knew. and him? he wrote me a letter acting as if everything was normal

until the last line when he said he was leaving forever

the people that i trusted most? i was twelve. and they left me in a parking lot all alone

this heart has been thrown to the ground and even the echo never comes

they are still small enough to fit within my sapphire shadow

so i take their trifling hands and tuck laughter into them in the form of

minor miracles. barefoot in the front yard, telling him that it's not right to lie,

his voice clearcuts across to my chest with an apology, achingly humble

then it all passes like the tide washing over the footprints on the shore

as we return to our game of tag

so even when i have to wipe the window in my ribs with a dirty cloth,

it is wetted with living water from the hole in his side

they are still so small, and the mustered hope in my soul is brighter than lightning,

teaching them that our fathers' callouses create safe havens

the fire plants a garden of ash for the strength & glory dreams to break forth

every swollen death in your kid heart will throw you against all that you know

but you will laugh with peach juice running down your chin on the hottest summer day you've 

ever known and when the breeze strikes the sweat, you will find all the life

that has sprouted from chasm repentance and crescent belief

/x

way out on county road 2

i push against invisible walls
that are heavy-laden with false hopes
the crops were few in the years of drought
that came when you fell into broken habits once again
i sat on the wet ground by a house of former glory
and wished that i would be willing to be torn down
to make room for the sweet clarity of fresh growth
the steps are more mold than solid wood
and the carpet is now made of dust and covered
with the sprinkling of the old ceiling giving up

out on county road two, there are
houses that are no longer homes and a girl
stretching her hand with freedom away from the ties of
fault lines of heartache that wanted to linger
i drove through a quiet town in Colorado but it looked like
Kansas and i almost felt lonely
if it wasn't for the way that the clouds twisted the light
into a strand of hope and the goodness of death
the path has been set and the hosanna has been cried
you can feel the churning when you place your
hand on the grave of what we surrendered
the brink of the third is set in my spirit
and the unwept hurt finally exhales into the
birth of healing

tomorrow we'll be sun-soaked, today i am hope-soaked

bump into rough billows of clouds,
tasting the powdered sugar from the heavens as if
winter was only a light dusting on top of my summer.
i sweep the kitchen with the door open,
and everything shivers from the bitter wind
but i am stuck, stuck, stuck -
in a daydream?
look closely. the cacti in our bathroom is dying from the cold,
and there is no space where the sun hits just right
for them to live.
he thumps his chest to clear a cough from his throat,
and the sound irritates my own lungs.
we are all eager, eager. maybe
if they use the right machine, they can suck the
hypocrisy from underneath my ribcage,
right near my spine, where it is caught on a truth
i was just trying to give to make things better.
brush my hair out of my face, but
my fingers get caught in the knots of conviction
trying not to stumble and morph into
condemnation.
every day, down monaco street parkway,
i gaze as long as i can at the branches of the trees,
trying to see the green budding underneath their
white coats.
this is a dream that keeps sprouting in my soul,
no matter what storms break against the shore.
sandcastles wash away, but i am founded upon a Rock,
and maybe that's why this hope
triumphs when it is strangled. i heard something, once, about
how death was defeated. i think, maybe, this is like that.

/x

hard into holy

i am coughing up blood, the color of confusion

the beat in my chest feels more like a knife turning

there are spots when i try to look at your face

clarity has abandoned the weak

feelings tell me that truth is just russian roulette

a game of chance, a game that leaves you hoping

but Something tells me we all know that's a lie

it goes deeper than the serial doubter's doubts

a steadfast stone, solid,

unchanging.

always true, no matter the circumstance.

peter looked Him in the eyes and declared

a feeling to be fact. knowing and kind,

He prophesied three crows.

only three, and by the third, he was pale and sore.

weeping over fragile foundations.

if He is God and He is good, comes sorrow under the shield of anger, then why does He let bad things happen?

you are still small, i sigh a laugh, even though my ribs

creak under the small movement of that.

because He is just? because actions have consequences? because He is sovereign?

we are eternal beings in finite bodies trying to decrypt

a message most of us are unwilling to hear.

you are not enough.

my splintering flesh is evidence,

as i stumble into walls of all of my mistakes, and trip

over rotten actions, still yet to be surrendered.

when have i ever been enough? born a sinner, the old man ruling.

but He is enough. 
that is all it takes to still my heart. the knife stops churning.
the arteries are cleared. my hands steady.
there is no hesitation in His spirit,
and He gives to those who are willing to break and believe.

the murmuring of the earth speaks of glory,
and i am finding Love twinkling in her eyes when she sits beside me.
i watch as he runs under the dark winter sky,
the Star in him shining brighter than the ones above.
i am amazed by His redemption in the pain.
give me hard. give me holy. let me see You.

/x

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