On This Winding Journey

I’m sitting on the porch of a mountain cabin as a write this note. I’ve had a good day—traveled many miles for many minutes—read parts of two good books—caught up with a dear friend I haven’t seen in over a decade and met, held, and soothed her baby—and been reunited with a friend I haven’t seen in a couple of months. I’ll be playing in her wedding on Saturday.

All that being said, I should have a lot about to which to write. And I suppose I do. But nothing new is coming out of my fingers tonight. I think. I write. I delete. I think. I write. I delete. I breathe in mountain air. I start again.

And so…tonight I will post some poems that go back a couple of years. They are raw. And real. And they speak of love and heartache and belonging and identity. Maybe you can identify? I hope you can. Because this is life. And it is a journey. And we’re on it together, friends. And I am glad.

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On My Bad Days
1.25.12
It’s an awful feeling:
this deep,
undeniable
feeling of
hatred.
Thou shalt not hate
is the understood commandment
tattooed on my heart.
But.
Thou art too despicable to like
screams so loudly in my mind that
echoes of its lie
vibrate painfully through
muscle and bone.
I’m sorry, God.
I’m sorry, God,
slips from my tongue
as I
tearfully and exhaustingly
gaze into compassionate eyes of
Love,
knowing that
this poet of
worth and value
just cannot feel
any good
for self
today.
------

On This Winding Journey
1.27.12
I am
me.
I love deeply and for eternity.
Places, dates, songs, and pictures release memories that
repeat themselves in my mind.
I remember details and feel revisit emotions
as vividly as when they first happened.
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
When I hurt,
it takes me a very long time to heal and let go.
When I cry,
the tears are gut-wrenchingly deep,
as if I am crying tears for the world—
past, present, and future.
I am gracious–
But not so gracious with myself.
I despise those things that make me me
and thrust contemptuous impatience onto my soul
for the winding journey to peace through grief
that I know progresses as its own pace.
I am:
Me.
I am:
Trying.
And one day soon,
Peaceful,
Non-perfect,
Acceptance…
It will be so.
-----

Natural Disaster
3.27.12

It comes in waves,
This deep anger and shame.
Anger at you for being so careless,
Shame in me for believing your lies.

It comes in downpours,
These tears of heartache and grief.
Heartache from broken chards you left with cracked bone,
Grief for everything lost by falling with you.

It comes in floods,
This consuming rage and helplessness.
Rage for injustice in my pain, your happily-ever-after,
Helplessness to make justice so.

It comes in blue skies,
These realities of profound hatred and love.
Hatred for everything you are,
Love for everything you once were and still could be.

-----

A Story To Belong
1.30.12

The more I think about it,
the more certain I am that
we all just want to be part of
a narrative we support and believe in.

The more I think about it,
the more positive I am that
we all just want a story
in which we belong--
a physical,
emotional,
mental, and
spiritual
place of being where
we exist peacefully and comfortably,
even if that comfort is felt as
discomfort to someone else.

The more I think about it,
the more clear I am that
I cannot understand the depth of
creation and
how God can love all of God’s created when
we live in so many contradicting stories and
interpretations of the same story that is
said to be the
greatest story ever told.