it helps to tell you
i come from brokenness
it’ll be easier
i can’t be a perfect man
that’s why I fell in love
with a perfect God
i’ll show you
that a life hidden in Christ
is worth living for;
when you find something
of supreme value
and believe it
your heart ignites
this faith isn’t a program
in religion
it’s a love letter
a divine rescue mission
a dead man
brought to life
a miracle
like you
He grabs my arm,
“He pushed the other boy first! I saw him. Will he get in trouble?”
I gaze at the fight, two teen boys grappling
over a snatched and guzzled Gatorade
on a day when summer heat creates fools.
He yanks my arm again,
I look at his 6-year-old face
assure of fairness, awaiting affirmation.
Maybe, I tell him…
Today in Massachussettes, a woman charged with manslaughter.
At seventeen, her texts urged a boy to climb back in the truck and
breathe deep the carbon monoxide.
Her verdict? Guilty.
Her punishment? Possibly twenty years.
While in Minnesota, an officer charged with manslaughter.
He fired seven bullets
into a compliant cafeteria worker,
a routine traffic stop turned nightmare
for the fiancee and child in the car.
Verdict for the cop? An acquittal.
Maybe not.
I know
a lynching when I see one
being a scared cop means
you can put 7 shots into a car
with a baby in the backseat
and walk away.
being brown and scared and
compliant with instructions given
by the police means nothing.
they can still put 5 in your side
and walk away.
So why are we being compliant again?
This morning at Vacation Bible School
8 year old Jacob
interrupted
50 year old Ms. Julie.
Jacob said:
“I think it’s crazy that there are shoes that cost more than a dog.”
Ms. Julie said:
“Well, I guess shoes last longer.”
And continued on with the story.
And tonight in my studio apartment
all my 23 year old self wants to say is:
“Give me a yard full of life, and I will happily walk barefoot.”
No bread from heaven
No rulers high above or below
Only dreams within, hands without
Waiting impatiently through the little moments
That make up the gaps between
The fun she expects of her existence
I know she cannot conceive
Of the years that will pile on before her
She lives as though it must be consumed at once
As though she knows her time is up
At age twelve
As hungry and determined
As an able-bodied thirty-something
Counting down the days to
Execution
Now, now, and now!
Waiting is painful
But it’s only a little lesson
On accepting time and its
Cold, finite terms and conditions
Energy looms in the rabbit’s hole.
Alice, the breaker-in-of-entries, is a thief.
Jabberwocky, the guard dog.
She never did understand a damn thing about Wonderland. Energy looms.
My circuits are fried.
It has been so long since I have cried.
Energy looms. I didn’t know when you died. Never felt your presence—too wrapped up in my own— You’re dead.
Did you ask me if you could die? Today is your birthday. Is a birthday still a birthday after the death’s day?
Man cannot travel through place.
Energy looms. Man cannot level the pace.
Energy looms.
Space is a blooming flower mankind would rather snip, slip into a vase filled with water; The center piece of an elegant dining room.
Energy looms in a fist, in an open hand. Contained in the blood flowing through the heart. Traveling to the rest of the body through capillaries and veins. Capillaries and veins Capillaries and veins The same path heart Path capillaries path veins The same organs insanity the same Energy looms.
Angelic.
I am in love
with the moving
transition between here
and there, the time that body
uses to adjust to living
in a simpler form.
Body, suspended between
two places that no longer exist,
shifting, with benevolence, in segue
that is, in fact, being, that
allows skin and sensory organs
to be poised for the next place,
be it five minutes or five hundred miles
where body next finds herself.
after Brandyn Johnson’s “Go”, with gratitude
