The Source

I eat on the porch swing, a rotten sky above. There he is, droning in the kitchen as mother clutches the staticky volume in one hand and pounds dough with the other. My baby sister plays in the fireside touch of my father's uncertain company.

Here I am, silent in the past, tasting the French nutcracker of my dreams. I hold my boyfriend's smile. It holds my thoughts. And my thoughts hold the embrace of a Prodigal Father. 

But they can't shield me from the burnt cider that slapped my adolescence. I choke on the lie of life. Jilted and ashamed, I see it name its price: me. 

My stilettos snapped. Their glitter, a ghost. My remains drip to a southern clot. 

It's 3:00 and children come off the school bus with atrocious posture. They pick up their pace as the nervous sun bows its face to me. "Why me?" you ask.

"Why me?" I ask. 

FDR speaks on the scratchy radio again and again. He sees me in my misshapen corduroys and overgrown toenails, hopeless, and I realize that I'm the flaw, the lord of melancholy thoughts. Mother still listens to the radio so I ask her, "Why?" 

She tells me, "There's a chance," and I feel the shame in doubt. 

Until the Beginning

Hands

Anxious hands

Filter soil where exhaustion bellows from the sea
Lauding the earth that scares her breath
Is she

This girl, this bane of gravity clinging a ledge
Stitches wear thin
The clasp upon her collar sheds
Marble falls past her quaking, tipping toes
Falling, she falls in a shrieking trench
Of joy, at the fingertips of hell
But look—

A sallow hue hangs on her pack leader

The waterlogged worm in trepidation and
Her pigeon sisters clad in flame

Fly overhead

Knuckles breathe as
She sees harbingers of jubilee sail!

Esther's Pride

The potter’s mossy strokes balance there, my guide among the dead. There, my eyes flitter softly toward the virid buttered plant. Anger crunches with the naked grass beneath my head. It’s nesting in my diaphragm - the moldy foam seething but not at God; no, nor at you. Its righteous nails meet my own paling, now pink blooded thighs. My lovely, you could never be the object of this dancing wrath for you, you are always protected here inside my chest. You were the fly that buzzed buzzed buzzed for his enchanting mate; you were all the colors; you were the breath in an icy bane. But not the baker’s loaf, left untouched for months. You couldn’t be.

A moral soul groans inside of you but no innocent one. If you spoke in truth, how have you evolved so apathetic? If in riddles, how thumps a true heart? When the clock’s luster was all but gone, I squirmed to know yet this indifference, however conceived, became a gift. Although a barnacle on my mind, you no longer squander my feelings. Liberty appears in the expectation of an infection. They say the child loses her swinging pigtails when her fickle man absconds but I never give away what I know will be forgotten. My desire in part becomes a letter beneath a sunburnt stampede but this horcrux has a sister not dark, not sinister: love independent of you. 

How did that hour hand lay a vanguard between the baker’s loaf and my eyes? It ticks, dust snowing from the iron; ticking, I hear it now. God, take me from the zany, debauched mediocrity. Mirth survives his humanity but God, please your face? 

My overgrown nails extend into the stratus, their harvest bewildered. Each grasp eludes my senses though my eyes can testify that the dewey shapes remain. This confused kinesthetic assays the topography. Ah, the virid buttered plant atop the lawn is now inside evening’s lair. But how can my body acquire harmony in the first dimension? A pillow beneath me, green blades tickling me, I let sleep beset. 

But then I realize I've forgotten to look at the stars. 

The Immortal Romance

My dear, why such intensity?
Why taunt me with your righteousness,
You conniving, rejecting girl?
I’ve wept and waited, wrung out limp,
Never to feel you in my grip.

Hear this, my one precious angel:
If I could but stop the heavens
Time strangled between these palms,
Would you dare hand me your all?
Or remain holding up this wall?

There you are, rabid blood pumping,
Secluded by a spineless plea.
Your fists clenched tight slowly open,
The haze displays a marker’s trace,
A look of horror on your face.

My mind is set, you’ve told me so,
This love may never come to pass--
If love perchance it is at all.
For though I beg to feel your lips,
You’ve given them for holy sips.

Elsewhere your mind has gone, dragging,
Yanking your roped up heart along.
A desert, my left rib, now cracks
But northward knows to look for you
Where red was sucked to join you two.

Revelation

a single fruit or three clouds?
children eat.
the sunless rays of existence
ascend among obsidian.

see, a myrtle tidal wave
awakens these nauseated chambers.
what twistedness lies here?
dismayed,
we idle captives prepare for war.

peeled eyelids flaked to dusty trash
reify
depravity munching on man,
a flock within a sanded cage.

but watch the orthogonal scene:
red, black, pale,
swallowed in the wake of white prints.

Courage ≠ Willingness

Stepping out in courage is difficult but maybe it's extra difficult because we are forgetting a critical part of it. Being bold for Christ isn't just saying to yourself, "I have to do this. I'm going to do this because I have to!" while grinding your teeth. It's not starting to speak for the Lord while looking at what others think. The moment you take your eyes (heart) off Christ, you will sink. You will get distracted. You will get self-conscious. You will fail. The moment you lock your eyes on him, you will find success.