Blogs
First Graders
“Is there a word for one step further than fear? When fear breaks through the walls. A machete swinging. While you sit glazed over in the rubble.”
What A Shame
“It's strange and extraordinary. To stand here looking over the waterfall. Closer to the end sooner than I expected. Feeling the threat of death spray my face”
NIGHTBIRDE
“Bullet holes and bruises And some kind of story. Some kind of miracle.
Some kind of bird that sang through the night”
A Single Firefly
“There is a single firefly flashing in the field tonight. Blinking slow and steady, watching for an answer back”
Winter
“The trees are sleeping, no kindling to be gathered. All we have is what we have built when the days were long. And they have shortened their answer. To only an exhale”
Whole
“If my spirit could make a sound. It would crumble freeway bridges It would shake the clouds so violently. That they would forget how to be clouds. Just like l've forgotten what it feels like To be whole”
A Break in the Treeline
“He strapped me down and spoon-fed me Injustice, confusion, and rage Until I was too full to move. He told me this is all there is.”
A Shy Visitor
“The rain taps on my window like a shy visitor. With groceries and fresh flowers”
White Stag
“I saw with my eyes. The white stag that we all stubbornly hope for. What we muster up the strength to believe in. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE”
Sun & Moon
“Nothing much has changed. Since I have been running from the sun. Many nights of rest I've missed. By chasing the moon around the planet.
Afraid that the sun will see and speak the truth about me”
A Place Called Here
“A place called here, is somewhere I don’t know very well. Here is the place between the past and the present. Here is the place where the memories are. But I don’t love them until later, when I am looking for their pieces between the seats in my car on the way to the next”
No Longer Human
“I’m sitting on white paper again. My blood is in a clear bottle with a blue top. It should be whizzing about inside me through loops and turns. But it’s standing still, exactly as it shouldn’t be”
Distance
“I can't put out the fire. But I'll stay with you while the edges of the night grind against your temples”
Shattered Wide Enough
“These months have put fractures through me, shaken my bones, shattered open my heart. The miracle about it is that my heart was opened just wide enough to let all the beauty in.”
Page One
“I can see now that there are too many paragraphs between here and there. That are written poorly, and too quickly-with haste and without reverence”
The End
“The End. It feels a lot like the end. How the clouds clap. How the skyscrapers sway before everything shatters. The sirens somersault on and on down the mountain”
Risk of Gratefulness
“We don't get to choose in this life whether or not we suffer
But we do get to choose what we are willing to suffer for”
Human
“They borrow my blood. And put it in a category. It's a passionate burgundy
But it's still in the vial. And I am still sitting here. Exactly as I shouldn't be”
Room For Air
“I don’t think it’s meaningless, the story that says God sculpted us from clay. Of all the things He made, humankind was the first that He touched. The first breath we tasted was His exhale. I don’t think it’s meaningless that the first time humanity looked up at the eyes of God, His hands were dirty and He was close.”
God is on the Bathroom Floor
“I don’t remember most of Autumn, because I lost my mind late in the summer and for a long time after that, I wasn’t in my body. I was a lightbulb buzzing somewhere far. After the doctor told me I was dying, and after the man I married said he didn’t love me anymore, I chased a miracle in California and sixteen weeks later, I got it. The cancer was gone. But when my brain caught up with it all, something broke.”
When Grief Comes Knocking
“When Grief comes knocking, answer the door. Let her in. Let her tell you all that was lost. Let her remind you how marvelous it was. Let her paint your memories in slow motion, let her sing your story with a cello. Let her teach you gratefulness and how to pay attention. Do not turn her away at the door. If you do, she will come back again knocking.”
If I Must Break
“The morning I got divorced, my dad met me outside the courthouse with a half smile and a squeeze, “You’re happy, you just don’t know it yet.” I had imagined that I would walk into the courtroom like J. Lo in some girl-power movie. I would stand with square shoulders and sharp eyes; dignified and articulate and lovely. But the truth is I could barely stand at all.”
Bald Girl in the Dark
“There is a Jamaican woman I know, with rivers on her face, who tells the story of God. In the very beginning, there was a vast and damp emptiness. The world was without form, and void. Only darkness in every direction. Sounds a lot like my world. Maybe like yours. Two days before my 29th birthday, I made a clay bowl on a potter’s wheel. I found that it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at it, one wrong move can make a carefully crafted piece suddenly unrecognizable, thudding around like a flat tire. Then the only choice you’ve got is to take the clay off and start over.”
To The Drunk At The Piano
“Your eyes are tunnels to the past. Your mind forever looking back. To sort between the good turns and the bad ones”
What Cancer Feels Like
“Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a single seed. The last pieces of my pride had to die. The last drop of my belief in the lie that I was unworthy of love. My paradigm had to crumble in order for me to find wholeness.”