Story part one

I want to tell you a story. But it is dark and I am afraid that if I begin telling it, you will want to turn on lights and make jokes to lighten the load of this story. This is not that kind of story. It tells well when it is able to weigh you down without your consent. It requires that you are paralyzed with fear because if you fight back, the story will never be told properly. It is not one to be told from the stance of the hunter but rather from the prey who was not devoured. That does not make the prey the victor, merely one who escaped and recovered enough voice to cry out. If you cannot bear pain then I advise you to avoid this story. If you will need to protect every girl you see as a result then you might not want to read this story. If you will need to be comforted by the prey, then this story is not for you.

If however, you still have nightmares as your brain tries to make sense of what happened, then this story is for you. If the memory of the pain causes your chest to tighten and your heart to break ever so slightly then this story is for you. If you were there like I was there, then this story is for you. This is a story. This is our story. This is the story.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was taught to think yet required to merely do what she was told. She lived in a beautiful marble tower surrounded by ivy that climbed and wound around that tower in a tender caress. The girl enjoyed reading books about other girls in forests, fields and fairy tales. She read the binding off of her books and lovingly slipped the pages back into the proper order. Occasionally, she would slide a page into a part of the book where it did not belong and she would imagine that the story still made sense with this little anomaly. She also listened to music...all kinds of music. She was not a princess, so there were no musicians to play for her but she could command music to come from the black disks or from the box that magically emitted sounds and voices and notes. She was happy in her world but she was always aware of the paradoxes of her prison like paradise.

You see, there was a dragon outside of her tower. The dragon was a beautiful creature with wings and iridescent scales that shimmered in the sunlight. The elders told her that the dragon was dangerous and could destroy her small frame with one puff of fire laced breath. She studied the creature from a distance and was always careful to be kind to the creature that could destroy her so easily. She watched to see when the creature slept and when the creature rose. She watched the creature eat and noticed that she had great difficulty swallowing - but that seems logical when part of your design includes a cinder box instead of a voice box.

heart of a child

like a child
with a roughly
hewn red paper heart
that I will make into
a beautful card
with my fat crayons
and awkard printing
i will make it
with small safety scissors
that won't harm me
like your rejection
of my most sincere
effort to find
your love for me
in this small
roughly hewn
red construction paper
heart
with two words
and one comma
drawn awkwardly
by my unskilled
chubby child hands
the same hands
that will extend
to hold out my
roughly hewn heart
to you
hoping that you will
like it
and
love me

when i was a child,
i thought as a child
and i spoke as a child
but as i grew older,
i put away childish things
...like roughly hewn
red construction paper
hearts
with awkward letters
crayoned on the surface
and underpinned with
my hope
and need
for a love that would cherish
that paper heart
and my battered,
and barely beating
human heart.

Look Down

If you look down
you will see that you are standing
in a pool of blood
you will be angry
because it will ruin your good shoes
you will be annoyed
because it will stain your good clothes
and you may have to change them
and you will be upset
because it will make you late
for whatever good thing
you were rushing off to
when you stepped on me

If you look down
You'll see that where you're standing
is in my blood
pooling around your feet
pouring from the hole
in my chest
You'll be angry
because it will ruin your shoes
yet you stand on me
pressing the blood out
when you could just compress my chest
with your hands
to stop the bleeding
if you would just look down
and see me
but you're too busy
being angry and annoyed
by the blood that is pouring and pooling
and ruining shoes
and staining clothes
and making you late
for the good thing

If you look down
you will see
that you're standing on me
and over me
and you're hurting me
by bleeding me dry
and the evidence
is staining your shoes
But you just look down
in disgust
because you think more of your shoes
than you do of me
because they don't mind
being walked on

The problem is privelege

The problem is privilege

I am thinking about Mardi Gras - Fat Tuesday and the luxury of being "fat" in the first place. The problem is privilege. I think of how distressed people are about the fact that Lent begins on the day before Valentine's Day and they are upset that they cannot have the chocolate to which they feel entitled on the day of "love" and I want to scream, "My love is worth so much more than Chocolate!!" and if I feel that way, then what must God feel about my whining? The problem is privilege. I am privileged to be able to give up something. I have so very much to be thankful for and so perhaps this lenten season, I shall give up my sense of entitlement. My sense that my doing right earns some tangible reward. My sense that spending innumerable years earning degrees makes me somehow entitled to a job that pays something like an heiress' ransom for my hard work. (which, by the way, I will claim that I did for the love and value of the education itself). Perhaps I will give up my sense of entitlement to a healthy relationship with a perfect man who will love me enough to compensate for the ways in which I fail to love myself. Yes, perhaps I will give up lies and false notions and embrace the truth not just for 40 days but for every day. Perhaps I will give up my American identity as one who is deserving and at the same time dis-serving and I will remember to put on my God-given identity and serve...period. The problem is privilege. We are too fat already. We are too comfortable already. I have no need to scarf down donuts and coffee and drink hurricanes tonight in preparation for tomorrow. The problem is privilege - thinking that tomorrow will come and with it, the opportunity to give up that which others would love to have access to. The problem is privilege. I will give up my entitlement and I will begin today. I may choose to avoid sweets, luxuries, indulgences, but none of that puts food in the mouths of the hungry. None of that puts salve on the wounds of the downtrodden. None of that will serve to release any of the captives and that, I believe, is part of the call. The call this year is to recognize that the problem is privilege and the solution also lies in the privilege. I am privileged to be able to do something about the problem. It is a blessing to have the problem of privilege. It is a return on the investment to use that privilege for the good of those who are by any standard, the least (privileged) of them. Refusing coffee, chocolate and sugary drinks will strengthen the body and will possibly call some to a new degree of awareness of who God is but as for me and my privileged middle class house, we will renounce our entitlement and exercise our privilege to serve those who need to see the hands of God moving in their direction. I am privileged to be the hands of God. Privilege can be a problem - but it can also be its own solution!

Grieving

it comes in waves
the pain is searing
and then the tears fall
and then the sobs rack
and then I'm done
and then it repeats
several times
and I want to drink
until I'm drunk
so I can pass out
and sleep until it doesn't hurt anymore
but that's not how I'm built
I cannot sleep
because I was built to grieve
as a complement to
the way I love
and so it comes in waves
the pain sears
and the tears fall
and the sobs rack
and then I'm done
and then it repeats
and they ask
"How are you?"
I mustn't lie
and so I say,
"There are good moments,
and then there are these."
and then the tears fall
and it's awkward now
but I collect myself
because it will come again
in waves
pain sears
sobs rack
I'm done
it repeats
waves
pain
sobs
done
repeat

Creating the world

Creating the world

If words are the stuff of creation
and sentence completion is an act of bravery
and an act of defiance
and an act of power
Then I must think of myself
and write myself
and dream my self
Back to life -
Out of death's embrace
I dream in the affirmative
Tell me,
what and who you are
Create your world
one word at a time
I am brilliant
I am beautiful
I am compassionate
I am competent
I am tough
I am strong
I am articulate
I am capable
I am astute and adroit
I am multi-lingual
I am powerful
I am preacher
I am pray-er
I am wailer and weeper
I am mother
I am lover
I am friend
I am the elephant in the room
I am the reason he lies awake at night
I am gifted and gift
I am the stuff of dreams
I am imperfect in my doing
I am perfect in my being
I am creating my world
one word at a time
I am that which remains to be seen in its entirety
I am...