WHAT I’M SAYING
What I’m saying is, we weren’t ready back then.
I think you knew it, too.
All I could do was hold out hope that one day we would get another chance.
This is our chance.
I’m not letting you go this time.
What I’m saying is, we weren’t ready back then.
I think you knew it, too.
All I could do was hold out hope that one day we would get another chance.
This is our chance.
I’m not letting you go this time.
spearheads and arrows litter the atria
fatigued from filtering poisonous blood
canaries on the battlefield trilling danger
picking through the body’s decaying cavities
akin to a festering wound, a mindless disease
carnally bestowed on the altar of pleasure
desperate for the antidote or noah’s flood
warfare ravages for another millenia
It doesn’t feel like
irritability, though,
at all. It feels like…
being on your knees
in Times Square begging for help
and being told
No.
My world shattered when I found out
about you. The image of regularity
I clung to was ripped from my hands
and torn before my eyes. I can never
go back to how I was before. But,
sometimes glass is meant to break,
and maybe I was meant to find you.
“I don’t know how to explain to you why you should care about other people.” I read that online and it stuck out to me because all my life I have cared about other people as a default setting. It’s never made sense to me when I see others speak such hatred and vitriol in forums on the Internet or on the news or protesting at our local Pride event. When I see that someone gunned their neighbor down in front of their house for being who they are and loving who they love. Or when I see people denied opportunities because of an unjust system. And as much as I curse and shout at my brain for the rigid thinking and the need to know more and the ruminating thoughts I also know that my brain in partnership with my heart gives me great empathy and love. It’s hard to see others not feel that way. I’m not trying to say that I’m some saint. And I don’t pretend to be perfect because I know that we’re all growing. But canonize me if that means that I will always be known as someone who speaks kindness into this world. “I don’t know how to explain to you why you should care about other people.” But I can sure do my best to show you.
seventeen years, i have waited for this.
lying in wait for one perfect summer.
i’ll charge into the daylight with a scream
after a lifetime of silence.
and you never even knew i was here
until the second you wished i was gone.
but i was designed unafraid.
i know what i came here to do.
and i will fly in the face of danger
so long as it serves my purpose.
i don’t ask for mercy;
i just ask for this moment.
from dirt i came, to dirt i will return.
and you’ll forget me, in time.
but i am omnipresent; i am life-giving.
and i’ll ask for nothing in return,
just for one perfect summer.
cicada song
firefly song
The aria that calls up June
in the mind. Was the memory
hazy or was it just
the weather?
dry wind song
grill sizzle song
The sun tries to kill us
from millions of miles away
only to be stopped by a layer
dozens miles above our heads.
bonfire song
green growth song
lawnmower song
And the hum of x-rays,
gamma rays underlying it all.
Sometimes, I pray while making toast.
When I kneel to pick weeds
and find a nickel buried
deep
beneath rocks and dead leaves, I pray, too.
And sometimes,
if my throat clings dryly to a scream,
I’ll pray again.
Right now,
sitting on this broken-down front porch in my grandmother’s chair,
I’m praying that
I never forget the way her mother-arms wrapped around me
or that summer( miles away now)
that Laura Ingalls Wilder taught me all about sucker slugs and chiggers.
You know, in my 20s,
I never knew what it could be like,
what it could mean to feel delicate
with velvet skin,
so I’m praying
that I keep summering
in this self-love
for a few more days
or weeks
… maybe forever.
Also, my stubbornness is quiet after I pray.
