Posts for 2020 (page 108)

Remember me? 2014? 

From the Mall Fashion show?

I pulled your belt a notch tighter

and snapped you right in half

and fed you to the other models.

Good to see you too!

Love your hair.

the courage it takes
to follow a road
straight to a new town
new people
new things
the unknown
of finding joy

What if cats walked along the telephone lines?
Wouldn’t that be terrifying?
Skulking along in the sky above you
Like bad tempered birds.

(A spoken word piece by Rivka, recorded and ever so slightly altered by Jerielle)

i buy a face mask with a clear window in it 
so strangers can read my lips 

i mouth “no thank you”
or “rest in peace” 
sometimes “it’s a dead-end”

the window fogs up if i have too long an idea,
so i don’t.

field of sunflowers
heads lifted up in worship
full hallelujahs

sometimes
all I want
is a long road
and enough songs
to get me 
there

and other days
I want 
more than kings
all of it
even it if ends
badly

Lungs burning for air,
stacatto heartbeats tearing 
certainty in twain

I love mornings where time 
only exists when I realize my coffee has gone
cold while talking with you 
about life and dreams and how the world should be.

I love afternoons with sweat,
and dirt from the earth we work together
planting seeds and anticipating new life–
hoping for the growth to outweigh the loss
of our season of toil.

Yet — we also have grown mature enough to accept there are lessons in loss as well. 
As we take a break in the heat of the day and reassure one another that it is all
an experience and risk worth taking —
You remind me this is a safe place to rest.  

I love how the summer nights sneak up on us 
unexpectedly — with the splendor of cotton candy skies the color of fire— 
darkness  rolls in, but we are not without light. 
the moon shines as the stars dazzle, and the fireflies remind us of the glittering gold found in the treasures running around us— screaming with delight. 

I love the dreams that carry us to bed— 
shattered and longing for sleep.  
It is in these dreams that the world is defeated, and we renew our strength.  
It is in the darkness, that we find what arouses our souls & plows the way for the work of our heart.  It is beside you, I choose to be, as we- toil, rest, play, dream, & sleep.  

This is how you build a home, my love. This is where love grows deep. This harvest is not for just a season, but for the generations we will never see. 

Traitor-

This destruction is my own,

I will not be rebuilt by the hands of those who tore me down.

You don’t get the option to make Amends. 

The girl you burned has risen from the ashes. 

I drove a car today
for the first time
in months.
It felt strange
to go down the highway,
it could have been
any other day,
and even stranger when
I went through town
observing the large
volume of traffic and
seeing full parking lots
and people
roaming around,
walking on sidewalks,
laughing in groups
with no masks
like we aren’t
amid a pandemic;
like everything is
just as it was before.
I couldn’t look away
from reckless risks
and the disregard of
a viral threat holding
so much at stake.
People have built
their castles in the
air wishing it over.
I dropped off groceries
for my parents I had
bleached from a
pickup order
earlier in the day,
and turned around
to come home
making the stretch
through town,
noting no change,
and onto the highway
winding the hills
back to the
sanctuary
of my farm.