fresh from the soil:

he told me he wanted to hear my heartbeat. 
       but i couldn’t hear him. i wanted to be so many different people.

“i should not have hidden where my heart can’t follow.
cause this grace gets so far and too hard to swallow.”

occasionally it hits me that i
really have no idea what i want.
but i’m trying to remember

to breathe.

this is just a piece of notebook paper.
i left my journal back at home, quarter-way
full of boys with good intentions and
what my right brain heard.
she’s a little mixed up nowadays,
but i swear, i’m trying to fix her.
i’m going to make it right again.
my mind is racing through a lot of white noise,
scratching and scraping like fingernails
on the chalkboard of my eardrums,
but i’m still searching for the quiet whispers.
the remote is missing.
my heart is filled with a lot of open suitcases,
stuffed with a lot of things that don’t fit me anymore,
but i still find reason to carry around.
there are dandelions.
i wonder if God loves dandelions.
i wonder if i can pick a handful of
yellow weeds and bring them to him excitedly.
i wonder if he will put them in a shot glass,
the same way my mother did when i was young,
because it was little like me.
i’d like to fill all of my shot glasses with flowers,
because what they’re full of now just
isn’t doing it for me anymore.
my body is aching for warmth, my spirit aching to be filled.
sometimes i forget about springtime.
and winter has a way of holding out on me,
waiting until the very last, desperate moment to
finally reveal the buds on the fingertips of trees.
there is hope, i hope. eventually, i will bump
into the land again, and i will find a bridge.
or at least a tire swing to keep me
content enough for now.
i’m already sick of the tightrope i’ve been
walking since december.
being in love is a hard act to follow.
do you remember the night i told
you i couldn’t write poems?
you laughed and your eyes
sparkled as you told me
that my heartbeat was the
best poem you had ever heard.
grace is so hard to find on the
long walk back down.
all of my questions are going up,
only to bounce back toward me.
maybe i should have listened closer.
the telephone was turned off three days ago.
for some reason, i’m still calling.

integrity.
my friend lindsay.
tyler’s poetry.
springtime.
eyes that smile.
lit trees.
patchwork quilts.
street musicians.
the floor of eric’s closet.
fireflies.
bookstores.
serendipity.
chance meetings.
kept promises.
lightning storms.
andrea’s voice.
stars.
the ocean.
kites.
handwritten letters.
trains. buses. planes.
wallflowers.
caterpillars->cocoons->butterflies.
chances.
jonathan. with or without hair.
haley’s laugh.
ballet.
tire swings.
the month of april.
hope.
healing.

so, quiet. here we are again. just you and me, and the hum of my computer along with the sounds of my fingers tapping to the tune of these words. a plane just passed overhead. maybe it dropped you off, like a bomb full of hope and contentment, sent to comfort me tonight. its nice to see hear feel you here again, friend. i can’t think of any way i would rather spend these moments.

i suppose it is strange for life to go back to normal, or whatever semblance it was before: wanting to get an apartment, wanting to learn how to play piano, drink coffee and wine, watch movies alone, and explore the world on my own terms. did i force myself to reach this conclusion, or is the passage of time really enough to numb the repeated question: what if he never forgives me? moving on is so hard, especially once you’ve begun to pray and relinquish all your wants, if you can only have this one thing that is seemingly so much more worthy of your affection and fight than all of the small, trivial things. i was ready for the great perhaps.

i messed up. we got hurt really bad, and we both said things we shouldn’t have. no one knew where the lines were until they were crossed, and everything just crumbled so fast after that. where did all that faith go? am i still allowed to hold on to it, or do i just let it fall through my fingers? i used to be holding on so tightly. then things grew thorns, and i started to bleed. more scars. tiny carvings that new, pale skin will soon grow over, but the imperfections will always be there.

today was good, until i remembered again. crying even became less of an issue until yesterday, when i fought with my mom. we haven’t fought since august. maybe things really are going back to the way they were. i want to rebel. i want to throw my fists against egypt and my old reflection and charge ahead. but i have little hands and little feet, and there is an ocean between us right now.

at some point today, i realized how many beautiful people are here, on my side, trying to tip the scale of my hurt and turn it into hope. i want so badly to believe, because they believe in me. i have cause to humbly rejoice in the midst of the pain and the questions. and whether that cause is the people, or God, or my own continued breathing through another rotation on this rock, i know it is real.

plow up the hard ground of your hearts. for now is the time to seek the lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you. - hosea 10:12

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, and habits can last, but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last. - C.S. Lewis

i think maybe, just maybe, i’ve found a therapist. i do need to get better.

eric says you help, and i trust him. so here i sit, alone and confused and waiting, wanting to believe in some God or at least whoever charlie was writing to in order to fill the void. i feel as though i fell out of some spaceship, and i have no oxygen and i can’t think or see straight because all my cells are being pulled in different directions and all i feel is blinding pain and panic. i don’t know what to do. grace is so undeserved in these moments. fear is the greatest adversary.

i feel quite spooked by you, to be perfectly honest. very rarely do i let you in, because no matter how high i build the walls, you cannot be contained. you float in and through like smoke, touching everything, seeping through cracks and pinching nerves that i never even knew were there. you steal my breath and words, and when words are all that i have, i hang on for dear life. are you really my friend?

picking up my headphones is tempting. anything to get away from this strange silence that forces me to look through questions and answers like scrabble pieces - one solitary letter at a time, weighing each of them to see which ones to pick and which ones to discard, and realizing that once upon a time, i was much better at spelling. there really should be a course on all of this in the first grade. instead, they leave you wide open to bullets and daggers and they never tell you that pain killers won’t even come close to bringing you the numbness that you’d rather have. i feel too much, and don’t act enough. its as plain as the scars on my left hand, but i promised them that i would never let that happen again. we promised a lot of things.

scrabble pieces. such a practical little metaphor. ha!
and actually, its a simile, because i said “answers like scrabble pieces.”
but i guess you’re not much for such trivial technicalities.

thank you.

am i doing the right thing with my life? i want to spread out in all directions, like rain in summertime or some pablo neruda poem that allows people to see light and truth that effortlessly spans generations. the hurting world is at war. i want to be part of the healing and peace. i want to be the love that hate would consider travesty. i want to overcome. but its hard when my own heart is so broken. won’t you help me in the reconstruction, quiet? maybe you are the only one who can.

so i’d like it if you’d give me a chance. welcome me with your smoky, open arms, big and soft like my grandma’s, except maybe less judgmental from growing up before the sixties, and also less afraid that something bad will happen if i venture too close to some forbidden edge.

move with me. breathe with me. calm me when things get out of hand. obviously, things have gotten out of hand. i need help. the kind i find that i can only get from reaching into you and feeling you reaching back to slow down my heartbeat once again. experiencing a myocardial infarction is not one of my new year’s resolutions.

i keep looking at my world clock, not believing it. not knowing what to believe, but wanting to.

please. help.

dear erin,

you’ve come a long way since you last wrote these things down. i know its raining where you are right now in more ways than one. there is a time for tearing and a time for mending. even some weeds look pretty. i don’t know what to do about those. travel light. its time to take control by letting go. you have come so far, and you don’t need all of those shabby, moth eaten thoughts and ideas you’ve been holding onto for all of these miles and late nights. it is okay to give them up. something better is waiting. please don’t be scared. please don’t give up hope.

we can never get this time back. yesterday has been forgiven. today, you get to be new. don’t waste these chances. you are too young to be so cautious. give in to the wind. be free. grit your teeth through the growing pains and learn to belong to yourself before anyone else. you are safe. you will never need permission to breathe. there is no call or sense for apologies. just move.

let love and whatever else happens happen. drop all of your weapons. release your pride like the trees let go of their deadened leaves in the fall of the year. watch your cares give way to freedom and salvation. be open to amazement.

you have beautiful people on your side. you will be taken care of. 

your friend,