After so many years, I have learned it is best
to keep a $20 bill hidden in my car
or on my person
and a can of WD-40 whenever possible. 
There is no MAYDAY when our training wheels 
roll into the thick brush piles of regular everydayness. 

I have a new therapist, and she sparkles…
or maybe I am finally ready to receive that energy.
She is normal-looking.
On the street, you might nod and open a door
or walk past without recognizing her grace. 
But her presence
brought such ease to me
that I longed to break mid-sob and ask her
if it would be okay, 
if she would like to hear, too,  about
the glittering, happy memories
I do not want to leave.

I am and always have been 
a hustling kaleidoscope
of fractured rainbows
calling on the universe
to exchange my brokenness
for cinematic legitimacy
to share with whatever audience
I entertain. 
Could someone please
hand me
a magnifying glass?
Viewing the days
through the eyes of my eccentric fanciness
is a good time
– complicated, chaotic, but uniquely me nonetheless.

My authenticity was born barefoot,
in a flower-filled side yard, 
jumping rope with a garden hose stream
held by my grandmother’s summer hands. 
She once went to Ocean City, Maryland, 
looking like a movie star
and sometimes,
I wore the baby blue terry cloth shorts 
she brought back 
or maybe, the eyelet dress with bowtie straps
from the dress-up box. 

My reality has grown me into a thick-trunked, sycamore
an ever-changing but resilient woman
with roots deep in a ground fed and watered
by the mercy of God,
who pokes me
with a teasing love and guiding firmness
that I kneel before
in respect.
He is down with my ugly cries,
my jazz hands, 
my resting silence. 

After so many years, I have learned
that brightness waits,
hiding in the darkest corners,
ready to relight the lamp
that is needed
for our journeys-
to the end of days or the gas station down the street. 
It brings freedom,
but only if we are willing
to work for it,
to rearrange our bones and parts,
to sweat while making space
for the light to fill
so that we can claim it, again, as our own.