i’m listening to love songs
and wishing love was real
that fairytale firework love of
“i will die for you”
that passionate powerful love of
“i will wait for you”
that truthful terrible love of
“i will never give up on you”
i don’t believe it exists.
and if it does it’s
smoke and fog
i remember what it felt like to fly,
to soar, to glide along the elemental breeze.
it was pure joy:
i couldn’t stop smiling and the sun was warm on my face,
gold, god surrounding me.
it was the dwelling place of the gods,
and i dared enter,
i dared be divine for a litte while,
but the presence of bright sunny deity
is fire: warming and burning,
friendly fire, it kills.
so here i am,
bones broken and soul battered.
i remember what it was to fly and
i can still taste the unearthly sweetness
of air mulled by the sun’s rays, her fingertips.
tears roll down my face,
and they shine with the remnant glory of the heavens.
i bear the burns of a passionate God,
and they hurt,
but i smell like heaven.
i wanna be in the movies
and i wanna fall in love
and i want a gorgeous boy to fall
into my lap from above
i wanna perfect body
i wanna feel no shame
i wanna know there’s someone waiting
and i wanna know his name
i want bright lights and cities
i want glamour crack and cash
i want to be a movie star
wasted slutty trashed
i want starlight and seashores
i want mansions on ten hills
i want martinis / vodka tonics /
and thousand dollar bills
i want to crash from drinking
i want to feel a high
i want to forget everything
and then i want to die
and when at last i fall asleep
in total disarray
i hope that opening up my eyes
i’ll see a lovely face
he’ll take this sorry tragedy
and turn it into love
and the sweet-but-then-corrupted
will be the serpent-turned-a-dove
i am the triumphant home-comer.
do you hear me?
i am strong,
i roar with my father’s voice.
it’s been a long journey,
but look! my heart is in my hand,
mended, and better than before.
it’s been nine months and i am strong
i’ve been nurtured, grown.
a gardener has bent me gently to the sun,
watered me with pure rain,
loved me and cared for me.
so this is who i am:
determined to travel alone across the world,
i’ve worked hard to pay my way,
not needing help from anyone.
diving into people like they’re swimming-pool-water,
i’ve stepped outside a million comfort zones,
striding forth and shaking hands.
cramps, vomiting, miserable colds, and depression:
i’ve been mother’s hands and pharmacy to myself,
and beaten their sorry asses.
stepping cleanly over my own ideas of myself,
i’ve tackled domesticity like a linebacker,
enjoying the work of my hands.
expecting repulsion from fundamentalism,
i’ve looked it in the face and loved fearlessly,
laughing at the earnest bright faces of old children.
saying no to the well wishes of old friends,
i’ve conquered that oldest enemy of christian women:
the willingness to torture yourself for someone else’s comfort.
denying the wallflower of the last three years,
i’ve rocked and danced and headbanged and sung at the top of my lungs,
able now to be myself with no reservations.
refusing to surrender my home,
i’ve driven its roads for five days,
and have conquered it fully.
i have grown,
and that is enough.
i want to take my hands off this wheel
not suicidal just
want to fly
this night this home this love
fills my soul; i can’t contain it
i’m about to explode so let me
let go and you can drive for me while i
smile and close my eyes and
feel the road under my wheels
i want to scream – can you hear me?
i want to scream loud enough to rouse all heaven
from their seraphic slumber and they will
shout with me: high praise to the king of all,
even the demons will shriek because
the beauty is too painful to keep in,
it has to come out somehow,
in letting go or crashing or something,
and i will love you
fiercely and forever,
and die shouting your name
destroy me; i’m yours
this love is too strong for me
i lust to be pommelled by it,
just hold me down and
i’ll let go and
we’ll fly
crying like gulls in an oceannight sky
wheeling all the way down to
splash wings in murky waters
every moment i
wrap you up safe in a blanket
and leave you to sleep in the back of my mind.
when you cry it jars me;
i go check you, fuss over you.
sometimes you don’t even cry;
it’s my own instinct, i rush to you
until i remember that i’ve abandoned you
at someone else’s doorstep,
at the border between me and her.
so without touching your porcelain cheek i
walk away painfully.
alright it’s
been a day of throbbing headaches
and yearning hearts but
right this second a new day starts
one of this new life that’s been built
like a heavenly mansion for me
(after all that’s what
heavenly mansions
are: new lives full of families
and grace)
freedom like dawn and
strong long wings
rise: God-given,
liberation,
i am a prostitute purified,
a captive set free.
my father took away my ashes
and gave me flowers.
i wrap myself in God and sunrise
there is so much mercy
in this world
last night i dreamed of triumphant flirtation,
poverty in the face of charisma,
strong love in the face of puffed-up knowledge.
i dreamed of family of lovers old and new
i smiled and laughed and didn’t want to wake up
i pressed the snooze button an extra time,
hoping to go back to the tiny apartment
in which he had only one room and tried to cook,
to go back to the stadium of screaming girls
in the face of an insecure goldenhaired joel
and rest in the peace of god-ordained reality
(i say reality but it was a dream)
So I know my poetry gets really angsty sometimes, but I love how God brings me through cycles of brokenness and wholeness. When I pray to be broken, he breaks me. And then when I pray numbly for healing, he heals. Just to remind me that he’s God and he’s Father.
How sweet a God he is, and how strong, but – he is not a tame lion.
