I will give you this:
I am lazy and mostly
without purpose,but in my favor I wish harm
on no one.I strive for days of scattered wonder,
a few hours now and then
to marvel at the sun
and the rain
and the ongoing
music of things.I want wine and laughter,
days in quiet rooms
with my…
THIS!
In many ways I feel like my emotions are haphazardly stacked up into massive heaps and piles and stored on the top floor of my heart. Stored up on higher ground away from the potential threat of rising water. I know that at some point I’ll have to sort through them just as if they were personal belongings stored on the top floor of a home during a flood evacuation. But as I climb the steps to that floor and then see everything, all the work to deal with and feelings to feel… Well, I become overwhelmed and only manage to reorganize a small stack of something—if that—before I just turn around and shut the light off and close the door and walk away.
You gulp me down like a glass of 2% milk. (I’m fuller bodied after all. No skim.) What little drops of me remain after you quench your thirst, spread thin around the rim of the glass and slowly sink down the sides to the bottom. It’s like I’m trying to cling to where I am and even spill out of the boundaries you contain me in, but gravity’s pull—though subtle—is too strong.
When you return for seconds and thirds, I long for that glass to experience gravity. I long for it to slip right out of your hands when it’s filled to the brim with me. I will for it to. I long for that glass to then shatter on your spotless kitchen floor, so I can dirty it up. So you can finally see you have made a mess of me. So your hand can be cut by the shards of your own glass when you try to clean it all up.
Picture the crimson of your blood dripping into the pure white milk that is me. See how you contaminate.
You contaminated me.
So I will not feel guilt for your blood that was spilled. I will not be ashamed to be this puddle on your kitchen floor when you sought to consume me in the first place. I will not be wasted like this. Nor will I be used to merely quench greedy thirst.
I will be remade. I will pour myself out into the mouth of my choice and I will nourish that body.
And…and I, too, will have a chance to drink and be nourished. When I do, I will not waste one drop. I will not gulp it down. I will savor it. I. will. savor. it.
Well I didn’t accomplish much of anything today, but I did FINALLY finish this little project. It’s a doodle of mine that I water colored and then “matted” onto some scrapbook paper and framed in a shadow box frame thingy. It’s not perfect, but I’m working on loving imperfections.
Letter from the Lost
Dear Friend:
They say the general rule of thumb when you’re lost in the woods is that you should stay in one place and wait for someone to find you. I tell you that’s wrong. Because I’ve been waiting for years in the wilderness of myself and I have yet to be found.
I have yet to be found.
So I’m moving now. I’m crawling out of this little lean-to shelter I constructed in the dark and damp pit of my gut. And I’m stretching my limbs and every single thing possible in the warmth of the brilliant sunshine—you should see how the rays filter through the branches and my fingers and even the fine, tiny hairs on my arms as if they were stitching up wounds. Oh, you should see!
I know the sun will set again. I know the black of night will cover me again and its cold breath will chill my bones. And I know that when it does, when the night escapes from the reach of day, that little lean-to will be built again and I’ll hide and huddle under it. But I’m placing my hope in the warm, round belly of the sun and not my own. So my hope is safely in the rise, securely in the resurrection.
I won’t return to where I came from, that much I know for sure. Sometimes that makes me sad. But mostly… Mostly that makes me happy. And curious. And afraid. And excited. And maybe I won’t make it to where I had initially planned, but I’ll find my way somewhere.
I’ll find my way. And when I do, I’ll write again.
Very truly,
Lost
Her back was to me as I approached her. She was sitting cross-legged on the shore in the sun’s warm wingspan speaking softly over the waves.
“…I wish I took chances like I took pictures. I wish my heart healed as quickly as my mouth. I wish I could love myself like you love me so I could love others as you love them…”
Three wishes.
“Hey, who you talking to? Yourself? A boy? The lake? A magic genie?” I jokingly asked.
“I’m not talking to anyone, but I am praying to God.”
—
This post is part of an original collection of story-like blurbs with poemish tendencies referred to as “Stories of She”.
Sometimes I feel like a windmill that is standing still. I guess I shouldn’t be so dependent on the wind to move me.
My Midwestern city is apparently having an identity crisis and wishing it was a Pacific Northwesterner—we have had rain and rain and rain and more rain. I love the rain…on occasion. But now I would like for the sun to share her glorious rays and, more importantly, I would like for the river to stop swelling. I do not want a repeat of the Summer of 2011 when all hell broke loose and the river flooded. (I always thought hell was a burning pit, but apparently it shape shifts into drowning valleys.)
Sooo…this weather has been “getting to me”. But tonight a friend suggested a run in the rain to one of our favorite watering holes. Was i game? Um…yup.
When life gives you rain, puddle jump your way to the bar!
