Remain.

I am spring turning summer or the fall turning cold.
I am the difference between the young and the old.
I am the rings of a tree, every year multiplying.
I am the not yet success when you are still trying.
I am the time in between the lightning and thunder.
I am the seconds it takes to recover from blunder.
I am page twenty-five of a very long book.
I am between the first glance and the vows that they took.
I am the threat of a plan that's about to unravel.
I am the biting of nails before the bang of the gavel.
I am the breath in your lungs while you're still underwater.
I am the roadtrip you take to go visit your father.
I am calming a child before the whimpers are gone.
I am the whole night while you're wishing for dawn.
I am a manicure that has not fully dried.
I am the terminally ill before they have died.
I am the bridge that's before your favorite part of the song.

I am Waiting...



and have been for so long.

Partly body, mostly soul

From the cradle to the grave

Every day and every trial
I'll exist within my body
It has been with me a while

The bones within me know no purpose
But to steady this mere frame
And my blood, it swims right through me
But it doesn't know my name

My teeth don't really feed me
Though they take what they can find
And if my eyes could see no longer
Well, I doubt they'd even mind

My lips will work together
In order that you hear
All the thoughts I have within me
That they don't know I hold dear

These other vessels for conversing
Will let me hear when there is rain
And they will let in many words
But they will never feel their pain

My fingers do as I command them
So as to grasp the world at hand

And my legs don't choose my goings,

They just run, walk, kick, and stand

Yes, my skin is back to dust

After it plays its earthly role

So I praise the God who made me

Partly body, mostly soul

Mending

Griping for lack of miracles is erroneous. A demand for tangible promises is foolishness. Training for a softer sooner is ridiculous. Life incognizant of death is recklessness. I am not a body with a soul. I am a soul with a body. No rough-housing, no horse-play says my soul to my skin which is quivering in awe and fear and shame. Such feelings are understandable. My skin's days are numbered, after all.



* Started in Sept. 2008. The idea then turned into "Partly body, mostly soul."
"Mending" was finished, titled, & posted on 2.18.09.

choices, not answers.

i never understood
"He gives and takes away"
until today.

pensively isolated
and feverishly aware
of the pull on my mind,
i was honest that night

and you are too.

i asked you

to take it away.
take it away.
take it away.

being that you are who you are
you were able to do much more:

you took it away.

but you gave something too.
and i cried and cried
that you gave me you.


and now i know.

love note to God.

Tell me why it is that I
Will leave you be for days
And just refuse your perfect love
In caravans of ways

Some days it is intentional
Because I am ashamed
And other times it's lack of strength
To list the wrongs I've framed

I guess there's just a part of me
That cannot comprehend
How I will stumble miserably
But you still call me friend

My heart goes beating just the same
At the times I do not I call
But why is it that I dismiss
You make it beat at all?

I wish to know you so much more
Though I've known you for so long
I want to cling to every note
Of your immaculate love song

I ask for you to take away
The things I need to lose
And I thank you for the wisdom
To know what I should choose

Losses bring some chaos
With utmost certainty
But the chains are never strong enough
That you can't set me free

My mind is much too simple
To fully realize
The peace that overwhelms my soul
Because you hear my cries

When lying bleeding on the ground
I beg for you to come
And when you're here to rescue me
It's myself you save me from.

loves me the most.

Inconvenient,

rudimentary,

specializations in idolatry

are specks in my eye

at half past five

& I'm running through knolls

that nobody knows

to hide from

the one who loves me the most.

When I was thinking you up
I felt a flutter of luck
Upon your waning smile
When I was thinking you up