as the embers kiss the sky

watch their firefly eyes dance in rhythm as we sit
around here, this soft firepit where we all make our home
"i," i think as i soak in the scene. "probably won't remember this moment
when i am old."
but, the thought does not upset me. contentment draws near
to my chest, for not all moments need to be graven in time.

/x

someday

 

isn't it funny, the song of today?
you're written in the back of my eyelids, almost mistaken as a dream,
yet still a memory. 
i almost sent you a melody that sounded like you, forgetting
that you wouldn't like to hear from me. i promise it'll all be new again someday
(i whisper that last part to myself).

we ruined bob ross paintings in my kitchen,
giggling in between the sunlight coming in.
"i know all about drugs," she slipped in. and i'm still learning to be new again,
whispered her gentle hands.
grace is not preoccupied with the prideful, so we bend our knees in the resumption.

do you ever have those moments, where you think back to certain days,
and the memory feels like you died a thousand deaths?
i see fury, i see bitterness, yet it is all sopped with the acquaintance of loneliness.
how is it we can be face to face with a close God
yet have swollen fists and bloody eyes?

find your answer in his side, thomas.
in the scars on his brow. how can a son bear the weight of a close God who turns his face away?
because grace is not preoccupied with the prideful, and it takes
sacrifice to make all things new again.
isn't it funny, the song of today?
it speaks of someday.

hey friends!!! 

just got married, moved to a new state down the road from some friends, got our first apartment (!!), and might be training for my first marathon ever. :) life is grand. hope all is well with you. 

/x

november 2

 i lost you some

                        where

in the fog between last winter and this summer

i reach for you, but my grasp falls

                                                        short

rushing, arms flailing, i keep pulling in the rope that

once tied me fast to

                               you

when i reach the end it's

                                                               cut

your silhouette ripples out of my

view and i'm left with no good goodbye and only a crumpled heart

i screamed in his arms

when you left your hard bitten words in my hands

as if every single year we had meant nothing to you

i'm alone      i tried to scratch out every untruth in the absence

joseph, continuous in my head

                                                              no, you're not

it's been months

since

propinquity.

i smooth out the crinkles in my crumpled heart. it looks better than it did in august,

but there is no erasing 

the canyons that agony carves.

altruism peeks out from the crevices. not spirit of my flesh,

but flesh of the Spirit, coming to mend the fissures 

brought by wreckage.

in my memory, i am speaking, yet all i see is my moving mouth.

like those childhood nightmares, it is 

silent.

requital has become a lost art. although, maybe i was chasing after things that had already departed.

did your farewell disappear into the void? did i sweep it away without notice?

was it voiced to me, yet went over my head?

this misunderstanding cuts into my pharynx on the way down.

i taste fresh blood any time i dwell upon this

unclosed case.

how do you love when you're supposed to let go of love?

/x 

i miss you so -

 i miss you so
much the tide in my heart 

hasn't stopped dropping.

i know you are not out at sea,

yet i spend my time writing

love notes in glass bottles

and chucking them as far as i can.

i find them on the shore,

later, when i am aching,

as the water leaves them behind.

i look for

you in everything. as if

you'll be there when i turn the corner.

you aren't gone. forever, that is. you 

will come back, but i keep opening

my mouth to say something to

you then close it softly.

lovesick fills your absence within

me. it is a tender, sensitive thing

to juggle with.

if i'm not careful, it sneaks out

of the corner of my eyes and

wets my cheeks.

i miss you so

my love. 

it is written all over the way i grieve

every ordinary goodbye.

/x

so far

          

                 

    january.

started off with you. a warm day tucked right into the pages of winter. heart going through high tides and low tides. i didn't declare a new year then. i didn't quite feel myself, yet i couldn't tell you exactly what was different. i cried when they were to my back and wiped off my tears before i turned around. i hid the bleeding wounds of my heart... yet, yet, yet. disappointment can be a doorway into grace. 
    roses looked up at me with their blushing faces reflecting mine. so many roses. and the sky would blush in the evening when i would step out of work too, tired eyes staying awake just a little bit longer before the sun took her rest. it spoke of spring coming. i hoped before i even knew it was hope.
    right before it tipped into the next month, scrutiny slipped into my arms and cut me quick. i was left gasping for air and i spent three nights sobbing before i fell asleep. i can't present my words clearly and as readily as a lot of people can. there are days when your weaknesses are used against you. take the hit, control your breathing, and then move on. 

    february.

the deepest inhale that drops fast and slick to the bottom of my lungs and cleans everything out on the way down. i felt like myself again. looked into their little faces and loved them before i even had a chance to step away. belonging. there is a belonging you feel when your passion is being fulfilled. scream that the Lord is faithful into the night sky. i sacrificed sunsets for longer hours and it was a good, good thing. i hardly even noticed i was missing them. afternoons were spent running around a parking lot, hot sun beating down. 
    restored. there is blessing in obedience, and sometimes it arrives faster than you expect it. i go to look at the wounds january brought and find that there is reason for the breaking and removing. i pray i always look into my Savior's eyes when i can't stop the tears. He knows me. His way is better. 
    sunday naps in the grass. smiling sunrises with a foot of snow. more roses. excitement and planning for every new day bringing unexpected opportunities. 

    1/2 march.

fierce hands that hold softly. there is understanding in those who are strong and it will reflect in the way they perceive and react to the things they lack. it was a quiet way to turn older, yet i was so content. there is so much loss that has slowly fallen away. no avalanche. no funeral ceremonies. absence. i'm mourning. 
    "isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different?" c.s. lewis. i ran my fastest mile ever, couldn't help but have a coughing every time he made me laugh after that because my lungs were dying. my muscles are as toned as they've ever been. this is a peak i'll look back on in twenty years and yearn for. 

    

/x

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.