We will win.
Don’t be afraid
Don’t mind those
toes, bare
to the broken glass
Be confident
you’ll live
use and waste and
be carefree
laugh
as you destroy
all God made for our eyes
We can smile and laugh
and we know
we’ll be alive
so condemn and judge
hate, it’s just fine
never you mind
I can’t possess you.
I only obsess.
You leave me on the line.
On the hook.
I can’t possess you.
This is the end.
our birdfeeder
hung like gallows from the tree
and the screaming only starts
once I step outside
but out here I can breathe
something other than you
and the memory of choking
with you in the room
while you did nothing to save me
now I’m drowning in limbo
where it’s not gravity free
but filled with amber
like you want to preserve me
here forever, in a glass
on your shelf,
suspended in time
I just stood behind you
sat beside you
like a glass figurine
waiting to be broken
wanting to be mended
all of this was just waiting
but I don’t know how to approach it
now I wish I had heard the music
the sounds would buckle me down
and become a talisman
an electroshock every time it comes on
I wonder, did you notice it?
My little buds greet me
each new day.
Fresh hope filled stems.
I make you grow open
by the sun of my eye.
Till the cloud covers everything.
In the first light
when the sun ungloves it’s golden hand
and runs it’s liquid fingers through my skin,
the clouds hum a secret for me to hear
in my sleep,
like a dog whistle,
only audible to me.
And when I wake up
it’s like a vapor
hovering just outside my reach.
Before the pounding of the day
I see it’s traces,
feel it’s purpose sinking in
behind my eyelids.
But when that golden orb
looks me squarely in the face,
questioning,
I can give no reply.
Only, say,
“Practice makes perfect, right?”
The day of scratchings.
The day of sharp keys in tree trunks.
The day we meet a homeless man named John Lewis.
The day to smoke Black and Milds next to horses.
I could go on with you forever.
Never tiring of the crunch of leaves underfoot.
I would gather pine cones
and build a monument for you.
Scour the woods for
particularly bendy twigs
to make you a crown.
I would Instagram the sun
so you could always hold light
without having to bear the misery
of it’s heat.
We could camp outside every night,
or inside if you prefer.
We’d hang strands of fairy lights.
Put portraits up for company,
and rename ourselves “Shadowy”
and “Night Wind.”
We’d fall asleep reading by flashlight
and wake to the dewey glow of the sun,
running barefoot through the wet grass
to do it all again.
If we lay on our backs
with only the stars for entertainment,
I would live in that space
until Christ’s return.
Finally the sidewalks
are plastered wet with leaves
and my feet
feel like they’re on a
colorful road to heaven.
Finally the time
for cardigans and layers
and rubbing your feet together
when you first get in to bed.
Everything is turning
orange and red and cinnamon.
And the porch dwellers
awake from their slumber.
It’s the time for playing songs
and hot drinks.
For philosophical conversation
and pretending you’re someone else for a little while.
My life is a 5k.
When you go to buy groceries at the store,
you spend as much energy
as I would if I had run the entire time.
When you stay up
chatting with friends until 11,
for me, it’s like staying up
two nights in a row.
When you are stressed out by
two screaming kids,
for me, it’s like there are 10 of them.
This is forever.
I found God
in cracks in the sidewalk.
He was blowing in
with the leaves under the doorframe.
His voice is like our feet
beating a path down Moffet Street.
I found Him on porches
filled with firewood and lawn chairs.
He looks like spiders spinning
blushes through a field.
His breath chilled me
when I dressed as Autumn.
When my feet stood crooked
ducking through tunnels, climbing over fences.
Now God lives in Kentucky
and Kansas and Iowa.
Parts of Him still remain in Missouri.
He spread like dandelions in July.
Poured into little fingers gripping at grass.
I don’t know if he can be gathered.
