purposed perspective

there is a dance within my spirit that has not been there for a long time. these days feel almost nostalgic, flashes of the past blink through my mind too fast for clarity yet slow enough for the idea to stick. purpose shakes my hand and i laugh because, for some reason, i almost feel too inadequate to do what she asks. yet, there is no way i can turn and take a different path. if i've learned anything, it's that footsteps don't work in rewind the same way. 

i love living this life.

the perspective you strap to your eyes makes a lot of difference. i have met people who keep their perspective small and focused. friend, that's alright and all, but i want to see more. i want to get a little dirt on the lenses and take it off every once in awhile to clean it using my shirt. there is so much out there. i want to be willing to take my perspective off my face and hand it to another who needs a prescription better than what they had.

every moment is a chance to hand out something that i have been given. i long for the day that i hold nothing back. i know there is so much more to pour out...so much more to lavish, to give in abundance. why do we hold things so tightly to our chests? there is a monotony in standing still, in tight fists, in closed eyes, in refusal. time to swallow bravery and love. it starts in the inner man and will spill out in action in word. smile with gentleness like it's second nature, even though it's not. hold in that complaint until it crumbles into gratitude. look them in the eyes and take time to say something worthwhile, even though no one ever did it for you. the time you have is not as large as you might think, use it well. 

but be wise. not everyone will soak in the water you pour out. there is no use spending so much time on someone who will never drink. those type of people are different than the ones who are just hard to love. 

love fiercely but don't love purposelessly. 

/x

long processor

my hands rub raw off the holds, so i give in before 8 and we head

home - is different every time i get back. i take the switchbacks on the backroads

but it seems they're building houses and the fields aren't as empty anymore.

i'm trying to lay out the problem before me into organized 

pieces - is all i see right now. hurt feigned as infliction when in reality

i think it was mostly my fault. i've never been good at apologies and i'm farther

than arms length from anyone who could help me out at the moment.

she screamed in the backseat and the certain pitch broke nothing but my

trust - for some reason i can't put together. it's more than that but less than i know

how to place rightly. i remember being caught breathless by dream lake, the softest

smile within my bones because there's nothing like the rocky 

mountains - for her, are something else than they are to me. i realized that a little

too late when i asked if it was worth the hustle and she shook her head,

shook my trust, once again. i wiped away the hurt off my cheeks on the way down.

my heart rubbed raw off the night, so i slid out of my chair before i needed to

turn around. have you ever not been able to hold the tears back? cuts like that bleed

different - is how i wished it turned out. the more settled, the more tight my throat gets

and i'm just riddled with sorry. i can keep the steadiness at surface level, but there are bits

of who i am deep stuck disproportionate. you came to know, but time wasn't on your

side - of disappointment is where we both land, i guess. the depth of my land takes the 

strides to learn and to decipher. i would have loved to sit beside you and not before you

to tell you.

there's heart in the way a cowboy knows his hills. there's heart in the way you load

the dishwasher before you go. there's heart in the way a door is softly closed.

there's heart in vulnerability, there's heart in hiding. i am so full of heart i hardly know

how to hold it in. come back again. this time to be, and not to go.

/x

before my eyes

this year. 

    (last year.)

my heart is humming a song that pulsates through and through in the way my

eyes dance over the creases in your face. i do not know how to read you,

but i have never been more willing to try. your face isn't a tell-all, so i resort to

your voice, high low, hesitations. your response, quick slow, intact. your hands,

near far, loose.

learning yet not coming close to even a speck of the fullness. 

you're a type of river. steady so goes my gaze, and steady so goes the change carving

you constantly. i can grasp the idea, but you run through my hands before my fingers

hit my palm. 

i trip up on the stones in your rockbed after wading for so long, and i am struck with

a thought that i hardly know who i am anymore. funny to say that for a girl whose 

confidence has only rocketed and started to steady after all these years. the notion doesn't

scare me. if anything, it's a semblance of soft pain. similar to a bleeding heartbeat,

but bleeding is the

wrong concept.

growing pains? oh, i thought those stopped once you hit a certain age. turns out,

it shifts into a different gear and it's not quite so much pajama pants two inches too short

anymore.

still, when i look into your eyes, the song my heart hums is one i cannot silence,

even though it is one i still cannot sing. it is such a wonder to watch you carve

through the dirt and the roots and the mountains and the valleys. it is almost as if

i am tucked within a canoe, traveling upon your waters as each turn speaks

more of you who are. and as it goes unavoidable, each turn molds who i am to

become.

/x

friends! it has been such a long time. many apologies. but!! i finally got my hands on a laptop again and i hope to be settling back into this home of a blog. xx 

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

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