sorrow – Accepting This

One Year

February 8th, 2022

It’s as if my thoughts are bound up by the fear of permanence
The idea that if I acknowledge the weight of today
It will sink me into a pool of brutal reality
Where the water turns to ink,
turns to sludge and before I know it
The air that I’m breathing will
morph into a textured sorrow
That resembles something like
quick sand, like a bad nightmare
I could be overcome,
overcome by every emotion that has
been woven through out each of these
365 days with out you on earth

Everyone experiences grief differently
but I believe there are some similarities
like how the phrase
“It comes in waves”
seems to ring true for anyone who
has lost someone that they love deeply

For me,
the waves are still here
Your sister said that
she lives with a lump in her throat
and that is truly what it is like
going on everyday in this place where
we can’t see you

I am torn between reflection and movement
I want to remember you,
to watch videos of you
to listen to your voice and
find photographs that I never knew existed
Want to bring up your name so often
because the truth is that the basis of my being was
built right beside you
My first encounters with joy, adventure, sadness, and concern
were experienced with you
All that which makes this life worth living
are seemingly wrapped up in stories where
you are the main character
the protagonist, the embodiment of vitality
and the ruler in which I measure nearly
every relationship

And then there is movement,
this constant need to keep on going because if
I remain in reflection or even visit it at all
there is the threat that I won’t be able
to continue on, I am working to reconcile
the presence of your spirit and the
absence of your body

The weight of today is like the
weight of the year
It is too much to hold
so I let it scatter,
diffuse into the pockets of time
where I can be still and know
that this Story is still good
It is just drastically different than the one that I wish to read,
It is desperately different than the one that I would’ve written

A year ago today,
I was looking at the ocean for the last time
that I would see it with the part of me that
you took with you in your death
Yesterday, I looked at that same ocean
eyes searching the waves with a hope of
reclaiming fullness
And a simultaneous desire to lose
the rest of myself
All that I know is that
all that is left is what has always been
The only thing worth anything
to love and to be loved
to find rest in the impossibility
The assurance that death leads to life
time and time again

The waves are still here
They are angry and crashing,
cyclical and comforting,
weeping and restoring,
Always seemingly surrendering
I will learn from them
I must learn from them

The Things You Carried

Inspired by John 19.28-37

–

When you go to the cross,
will you take my shame?
I’m living in leftover layers from my past,
consumed by oceans of regret,
caught up with what I should
and should not have said

When you go to the cross,
will you take my pain?
my flesh fails, my body aches
my hands are weak,
they often shake
my anxiety, it creeps up on me
makes a home in the back of my neck
snakes around my nerves
and strangles my dexterity
many days there is not much left of me

When you go to the cross,
will you take my loss?
flashing visions of the ones I’ve loved,
tremor through my mind in moments of panic
I see their mouths gasping for breath
I call out to them, don’t go
not yet

When you go to the cross,
will you take my pride?
I hate the way it controls my life
sneaking into every scenario,
claiming ownership over my disposition
calling attention to my selfish condition

When you go to the cross,
will you take my sorrow?
It’s rooted so deep in me,
pulling apart those moments of joy
like a frayed fabric, I want the whole
piece but it won’t let me have it

When you go to the cross,
will you take my sin?
I’m a wreck and I always have been
a part from you I’m left in the mire
covered in ashes, headed to a blazing fire

My separation from you is real in this moment
the darkness sets in the hour of your crucifixion
it was my mocking voice that put you on that cross
and then your skin was broken, you bled for us

After one last bitter sip,
you cried the words “It is finished”
your body hanging bare and beaten
your mercy for me made alive
in your death you have made me new
this sacrifice I cannot undo

When you rise from the dead,
will you remember my name?
I am your child,
you have made me that way.

Wading

Listen to this while reading

My words are like honey,
they stick to my teeth, to my fingertips
They sink to the bottom of a glass,
get gulped up in the quickness of drinking
the speed of everything

I don’t want to wait to do something better,
don’t want to hang in time and comfort like
I am unaware of reality

I’m getting to know winter in a new kind of way,
not so sorrowful anymore, not so heavy
My depression has become nostalgic in a way,
hints of it rise up when something reminds me of it
I told him the other day that I feel guilty for being content,
and then I remember when contentment was my most frequent emotion to envy

Constantly peeling off my human tendencies, my tendency to feel unworthy
to feel anxious, to feel unwanted, to be self-destructive, to be abrasive
My tendency to slink into fear, to become irritable, to distrust and to complain

I’ve made a sincere attempt to maintain happiness, but I can promise you any bit of joy I know is divine intervention

I’m developing a theory surrounding hardship,
one that is often spoken of but hardly acknowledged
Something like each moment of pain makes you more relatable, if you let it
each broken up circumstance makes you more glad in the whole parts
but only if you hand them all over, the pains and the breaks, and the inexplicable times

I wish that we would speak of our imperfections more often,
but not in the effort to receive pity
not in that self-deprecating kind of way,
no… maybe we could just speak of the ways we are lacking
to realize that we truly are
and to be open to the possibility that we will never be perfected
despite our trials and triumphs
And in this imperfection I rest,
because there You are in my weakness

I want to no longer want
I want my desires to vanish and reappear as selflessness
For my longings to dissolve and to be aware of
real, true needs
To be aware of each person as a soul, a body and a mind
to allow my convictions to settle like dust on my organs
brushing against me so I do not forget

Do not forget that these days are fading
that these times are fleeting
that these thoughts are washing and wading back
into an ocean of your being

Still Intact

Let my words be large, let them overflow because my
Dreams are saturated and enlightened and I need to grab
on to something now

The man I love told me that my emotions are compulsive but my actions are methodical,
so let that be true, let me feel deeply but act in patience, in worthy commotion
I want to give, that’s the core of it
he said being selfish is exhausting and
everthing in me agrees

My heart is breaking and simultaneously being repaired,
each moment of realization that she is decaying
and too many things are toxic, and challenging
my heart sinks beneath the surface and succumbs to
hopelessness and then it rips its way back up to the
light again, strapping itself up with encouragement
My God is Greater, my eyes seek Heaven, my soul knows rest

So rolling forward with bandages on wounds, regaining strength with
Each new hope and possibility (solely found within the realm of
believing) I take my thoughts and I marinate them in truth and I speak
them back to myself as best as I can

I spent five days wandering hospital hallways,
I saw the brittleness of reality and the opposition of health,
And then I spent five days on the road, traveling with a dear soul and
I saw the world in ways I never have before
and even in new perspective I can get swallowed up in old trains of thought
and even in virginia mountains, tennessee alleys, and texas deserts
I can see that I am small but the desire to live greatly is embedded deep within me
I know that my sentience is only developed through experience

To live greatly does not mean largely,
no, I do not need more than I have
To live greatly means to live in empathy,
to live with kindness and a capacity to see differently,
to live with flexibility, I have my dreams but I’ll be alright if they
are taken from me
To live greatly is to live selflessly, to stop saying “God make something of me”
and to begin to live in the identity that He has already given me
Free, adored, consecrated, new

I am new each morning because of His redeeming glance towards me,
and how can I avoid speaking about this grace in my poetry?
It is the greatest thing, and with all of this ridding of the unnecessary I am left
with the bare bones of life and my God is the spine

My grandmother has called me her Rock, but I am a small stone
her life has been full and I try to absorb
every sound that echoes from her,
from the spoken memories of her Italian childhood,
to the movements that she makes
when the sun is first rising, and I can hear her slippers shuffling
through the crack of the door of our shared bathroom

Time is fleeting and my small revelations of existing cannot slow it down,
with an aching heart I’ve read love letters of past lives, I’ve watched new
uncertainties develop, I’ve seen injustice rise up like a plague,
I’ve gotten swept away in worry, doubt, and fear
and through all of these things, Time is fleeting

Let my heart break and be repaired, the days will follow as they always do
let my shaky voice settle in the confidence that this place is not our final home
let my prayers be consistent and ever reigning over the temptation to stay discouraged
To live greatly is to live overwhelmed and still intact

When the clouds roll

There are large black crows outside of my window every morning and every evening,
I catch a glimpse of them swooping past out of the corner of my eye
It is strange outside, humid and muggy
the clouds roll over the tree tops and down by their roots
the gravel and bricks have taken on a darker shade
Wet like the sky

My world has been changing lately,
weights lifted and others added on
the responsibility that comes with knowledge has the
ability to sink to the center of me and dwell

Nothing is very certain, not one thought is ever solidified..
and then, I think of you
In every new ideal you give me patience
in every new anxiety you hand over peace

Slow and steady, that’s how I’d rather live
yes quick to be quiet, quick to be kind
but I can do with out the immediacy of a strained life
The nervous tension of expectation will rise before
the contentment of a satisfied heart can settle

Leave me with words, and carefully brewed coffee
leave me with souls and the ease of conversation

Speaking of souls, my social anxiety had a better grip on me before
you, now I can almost approach each circumstance selflessly,
I’ve got everything I need and it seems that notion lightens
the impending judgement that I once felt accurate and overwhelming

My fear of misunderstanding is steadied by your
willingness to understand me, by your stubborn rejection
of allowing a night to end with out resolution
You investigate my mind with tact and endurance,
sifting through surface emotions and wrestling to the core
You give my inadequacy an undeserved second glance,
and come up with words that restore my identity in it’s most
strengthened and beautiful state

When I lift my fingertips to the curves of your face
It is to test if your silhouette is a reality
I’ve felt desperation so deep within me,
this fullness can feel foreign and leave me doubting
but joy in the morning has conquered over my weeping

When the clouds roll and the threat of mundanity
gravitates towards me, I will remember the
way that stillness makes a moment memorable
the way that intentional thinking can
tranquilize the anxiety stirring up within me,

And I will think of you,
and I will resign myself to an assured disposition
that allows these thoughts to be enough for one poem
that allows these thoughts to be enough for right now

The state of being subject

It’s rather interesting, the way
that the days go from high to low
to nothing really at all
And the weather changes,
and all of us people talk about it like
the temperature owes us some kind of consistency and when
it gets mixed up in february we find it a
conversation point and I’ve caught myself
saying more than once “can you believe this?”

Can you believe this? Can you believe that all the days
we’ve been living, have lived, and are yet to live
are just like the wind, coming and going
and how is it that we can go even one moment with out
asking ourselves some type of existential question?

I’m tired of seeing the people I love live like they do not have a choice,
Tired of saying over and over again, “it doesn’t have to be like this”
or being afraid to say those words aloud in the moments that matter

I’ve been spending my days getting rid of stuff,
all of this stuff that I don’t need and this stuff that’s been gathering
dust and taking up space and there’s not enough time to be weighed
by clothing, and half used bottles of nail polish, and baskets of literal stuff that I haven’t touched
for more than a moment – only to move it to another place

We’re constantly just moving our things around,
sliding an old letter from one side of the table to the other,
reorganizing our to-do lists so they look kind of more completed,
switching our anxieties from urgent to subdued,
hanging up our depression for the days that we can bare it

Oh it doesn’t have to be like this, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming
It doesn’t have to be disabling, it doesn’t have to be isolating
Life doesn’t have to be this great big burden that we bare with
no solution, no identified purpose and let me just be blunt –
If it takes a glass of clear liquid to get your nerves settled
you’ve got to admit that there are things to be fixed,
And you are not with out the choice to make a change

I’m talking about the moments that eyes sag like
a bag of wet clothes, and body aches and disposition takes on
the form of self-pity and imprisonment, you’re the one holding the key
and you are not serving the “greater good”, you are serving your pride,
and it needs to be met with reality that this life is shorter than anything
In the end no one will remember the great things you made
but they will remember the time that you gave
and the time that you took away

Let me just be blunt – we are running out of time
and I’m tired of seeing the people I love live like they have no choice

You can say over and over again that the next time will be different,
but your words will turn to poison with no action,
they will rot your good intentions and leave you feeling
less than before, do not believe the lie that we are inherently good
we are far from it, and we need to acknowledge that
saving ourselves is like trying to write a novel on damp paper
and saving ourselves will always be an eternal attempt

My words sound harsh but if you knew my intentions you would understand,
not everything is adjustable, not all things are in our hands
a lot of circumstances are invincible, and all consuming,
but we’re often wrongfully caught up in what we cannot do, if you could
understand what I mean when I say you have a choice
you’d feel a hopeful conviction to live with vitality,
to ignore the temptation of mortality.

something beautiful, something good

It’s moments before my twenty first birthday,
the humid august air runs through the open body of my
black 2002 cabrio convertible and I listen to the
CD player spinning sounds of heartbreaking hymns

I recently came into possession of recorded audio of
my pop-pop playing trumpet, converted from cassette,
once upon a time they nicknamed him harry james
because he played magically, igniting raw emotions
with every trembling note

tonight, the absence of his body on this earth
has taken the form of visions in my mind,
I can see him playing, using the same hands that
I used to hold in mine, the same hands that I would
lay thick layers of lotion on when they became old and cracked,
gold bond would gather around his wedding band

I can see his glasses wiggling on his nose
as he inhales, I can see his thick eyebrows
rising with the melody, sinking through the bridge

“Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life

If there ever were dreams
That were lofty and noble
They were my dreams at the start
And the hopes for life’s best were the hopes
That I harbor down deep in my heart
But my dreams turned to ashes
And my castles all crumbled, my fortune turned to loss
So I wrapped it all in the rags of my life
And laid it at the cross”

I can speak of restoration in an all together honest way,
and how grateful I am for this ability.
I can promise you that the bitter sorrow I have known
has made this deep joy all the more wonderful

I have a multitude of words within me that I am desperate
to write down, I have a thousand thoughts of thankfulness
for the way that these years have revealed the tangibility
of a loving, sovereign creator

How strange my collection of days have proven to be,
but how beautiful it is to be made new over and over and over again
I have found myself in awe of the goodness that has overcome
the view of how I naturally perceive this life

It is something beautiful, something good
to admire the present and a nostalgic past
something beautiful, something good
to extinguish loneliness with the truth
something beautiful, something good
to settle upon surreal peace in the evening
and to awake hopeful in the morning

a content poem for all the discontent that came before,
a content poem for all the trials that might await
a grateful soul, for always

patient stanzas

I’m thinking it shouldn’t be this easy,
that you or I should say something wrong
that the morning should turn to afternoon,
and with the evening conflict will come

I’m feeling it shouldn’t be enough,
but I’m left wanting more in the most
satisfied way, like the end of a good song
with the rest of the album to spin, echo and play

I’m hurting and sad most of the time,
but a smile often interrupts my aching body
and breaks my habit of anxiety
when I see you, it’s like a light turns on

I can’t think about my grandfather too much,
I can’t believe he’s really gone
but when I pray to god I see him with her
and I’m overcome with the thought of eternity,
more real than all that’s in front of me

These are simple words for a reminder
that love does not stamp out imperfections
but seeks out goodness past first glance,
that love is patient and thoughtful
and patience is the lack of anxiety in
time of waiting

Patient stanzas for a string of days that
were once ridden with such intense fear of the future,
I’m not so afraid anymore,
not all the time like I used to be,
and it’s easier to daydream now
because I’m more content with this reality

If I start my morning with praises,
end my day with prayers
I can see the goodness that’s waiting
and an abundance that wasn’t meant for
someday but for every new day

Simple words to say I’m tired but I’m not weary,
to believe that nights of stillness can live
among times of agitation
to comprehend that rest is the most
glorious, and contentment comes in the
form of deep exhales and admiration of the clouds

So, when my mind wanders to the familiar sorrows
to the leftover aches, to the visions of those I love weeping
when my nostalgia heats up like a hot glue gun
and my sentiment stumbles over my thoughts
I will try to remember the patient stanzas,
the eager hope and satisfied heart that rests on me now
the light that turns on, the peaces that melts like wax and
maybe then I will welcome the presence of repletion
in both times of drought and the
conclusion of a feast

sad stanzas

I was happy, and I just got sad again
hit me like a thunderstorm
Surprised by round, wet, rain drops
puddles rising up and flooding my feet

I’m slipping, or fearful of it
When I feel Joy I end up just waiting
for it to leave
It’s been a few weeks now, a long
month or so, and I’ve have this unshakable contentedness
but when will it loosen its grip?

Here it is, here’s one of those moments,
doom approaching but I’ve got no
voice left, exhaustion allows sadness to
seep in and I sometimes get sick of
my familiar sorrow – like an old friend,
one you no longer have anything in common with,
I’ve been trying for so long to shake this

I can only hope, that when I wake
the sun will greet me, the son will
get me out of bed

Anxiety is when all of the things
become too much, stacked up and pulled together tightly
Sadness is the unlacing of a sentimental
mind, the undressing of a daydreamer’s corpse
and the revealing of a realist heart

I’ve stuck with the phrase – “I won’t always be this way”,
since I was a child afraid of the dark
Thought that when I was big, I’d just somehow grow out
of it, but my darkness is in the form of daylight now
It’s the way the time keeps rolling onward and
the immensity of the past, present, future
becomes like a shadow cast on a wall or
a slight shake of the handle on a closet door

I’ve yet to grow out of it, but sometimes I can get a hold of it
It aches, but I can let gratitude root out the sting of sadness
I’ve been bitter before, but I’m not bitter anymore
let this all be sweetness that draws me closer
to the one that knows my heart before it weighed heavy
and after it was soaked

Stepped away from these words for a moment,
back again to say that this is not a denouncement of Joy
I know Joy to be true and real and alive
this is just an acknowledgement of what lives
naturally in me, what grows inside,
tangles up my head and soul all to be
found out by uncertainty and I’m certain I’ll continue to be

Not a Draft

My own body had to stop me,
time has been moving too quickly
hours feel like minutes, and before I know it they are gone
You are gone now
And it’s odd now

Stepping through reality like a daydream,
there’s too much to be done to just stay here
Guilt keeps coming upon me,
wrapping its uncomfortable presence around me
like a blanket but I’m already too warm

Guilt for not being there, for every moment spent away
when you are mourning I want to lay with you
Hold your hand, hold your heart, hold your head up

I’ve kept myself from writing, because these words should be of you
They should be about loss, about your body when it was here and
lifeless and I saw it and it broke me up
they should be about legacy, and a life lived well
and these words are just letters strung together
they cannot weigh as heavy as my heart, they cannot
contain the tone of your trumpet playing off
of a scratchy cassette in the light of stained glass windows,
lingering throughout that cold church on a hill top in maryland

Now, I’ve come back to these words with more to say
How do I convey the speed of these days, all melting into each other
lines bent like heated clay, I think I am content
but then again, I am sinking beneath the face of
commitment and I’ve got to come up for some air

If it weren’t for you, O God
I would be nothing
Not in the sense that I am now something, or that I am a success at all,
I’m a mess of a human, but if it weren’t for you my soul would be
like a bag of wet sand, gritty and slumped into a
stagnant shape sopping with sorrow and anxiety, but God you have saved me
from myself

I reach out for something to hold on to,
loneliness has always encamped herself around me
forever in my line of sight,
I feel her when driving on the highway
and before falling asleep at night
I feel her when I talk to someone, and I really like
what they have to say, but I know their words will come
to an end, and silence will occupy what once was their space

My grandfather loved me, I saw it in his eyes
his love alone rests on the outer edges of my aching heart
when I awake in the morning,
the leftover feeling of his absence cracks into
a thin film of sentiment and manipulates my
day into a constant glance towards heaven

It’s true, this place isn’t my home
It’s not yours either
so even if I’m always overwhelmed, I know it cannot be forever.

Is this enough for me? Can I at least let go of these stanzas above?
they still do not yet feel quite good enough
I’ll have to allow myself to take more days
and I haven’t forgotten about you, and I won’t forget about you
and I haven’t said enough, but I’ve already said too much

A love poem

love and admiration are two very different things,
their coexistence is not rare but it is distinct.
I admire the way you allow your father to speak to you,
even when each word strikes a nerve and resembles
the early mornings, walking to school,
when you would toss a mold covered english
muffin into the trees behind his town home.

love and admiration are divided
when care taking becomes a heavy burden,
like a sack of flour on a slaves shoulders –
he bears it, but it’s ability to become something more
will never be his to take and enjoy

I love you when your hands are too heavy to lift,
and the nurses outside the door are aggravated because
you’ve fumbled over the help button on your
life line remote hanging on the plastic bars of your bedside
one too many times

I love you with each forkful of store bought chocolate cake
that I lift to your mouth, and I pray
that your tongue would bring you life
That your tastebuds would ignite
the memories of when I admired you,
and fed you every evening after work
and fed you dessert, when you could use your own hands with out help

I admire you when you walk me through crowded hallways
and bustling kitchens, through laundry rooms and
construction sites, and lead me to the elevator to send
me on my way

Love is not circumstantial
it does not ride on actions,
or hinge onto emotion
Love outlasts and outlives admiration

Although admiration means the world
It means lighting up because someone else is brighter
It is selfless in it’s wholeness and although often temporary,
it is sweet and seemingly taken for granted

I am living in a state of admiration – or at least attempting to be,
I’ve got this new kind of emptiness beginning to grow within me
distance has put into perspective the most important parts
of my existence, but I’m trying to admire it –
I’m trying not to ache for what used to be,
I’m trying not to be anxious for what has yet to come,
I’m trying not to let any days go to waste

but sometimes all of my trying leads to an organized chaos
my efforts will never be enough to keep
a steady distance from slight implosion

When you’re angry, I love you
when you are cooking in the kitchen with a towel slung over your shoulder
and humming along to duke ellington, I admire you

When you’re leaning forward on a wicker chair,
speaking to me of your greatest memory
in your most sad time, while you twirl your
golden hair glimmering in the fluorescent porch light
I love you, I admire you

You are here one day, and might be gone the next
but so am I, we’re like the wind and the mist, and
all things that come and go

You are here always, and when your body goes
your thought will stay
I don’t think I will ever wake up to remember,
that in each new day my heart will again break

A love poem for the empty days,
for the waiting, and for the many faces and
souls existing in another soul’s world
I love you, I admire you

the practicality of living during sadness, in the mundane

On the days that you can,
Do Not Lose Yourself In The Mundane
On the days that you can’t,
still wake up, fix your bed
make yourself breakfast, toast and eggs
open the windows even if it’s hot,
especially when it’s cold

On the days that you can
build something –
use words that build up each person around you
and if there is no one around you,
still speak aloud of the things that are good
Identify your heart and the ability it has to fold
beneath emotion and pressure
Recognize that you are existing and
that is enough some days

On the days that you can’t,
Don’t watch the television, read books
and if you’ve got to rest, watch a good film,
one made before 1970

Let yourself dream about the future,
but don’t get lost in it
Think about how you’ll someday have a home
With a kitchen that has windows from ceiling to ground
You’ll think about the places you will travel to,
the people you might meet
Dream about the future, but not with intent to forget the past
Dream about the future, but do not stop living now

Walk outside, crunch leaves under your feet
And breathe in
Stop feeling guilty for being sad
stop feeling guilty for feeling guilty

Let gratitude invade the parts of your mind
where there is no thankfulness left

When you have to go to work
Let your eyes see what they haven’t looked at before
When you are driving,
listen to The Beach Boys, or the soundtrack
to your favorite film

Drink Coffee, Eat Bread, Go Somewhere
Be alone

Don’t attempt to muffle your sadness with the company
of people who do not acknowledge that it is there,
or people who talk about other people

If you can be with friends, be with them
but know it is not worthwhile if when you come home
you feel more distant than when you left earlier that day
There are people who are for you, find them

When you are alone,
write down everything you’d like to do
(but it’s alright if you can’t do it all)
Don’t try to improve yourself for the sake of being better,
come to terms with defeat and the fragility of yourself
and then look up
You’re made whole, if you want to be

If you begin to feel restless, or purposeless
Don’t try to move fast all of the sudden
Pick up one thing at a time
Take each day by itself

When you look at a calendar,
and it’s numbers are glaring back at you
and it’s weeks are overwhelming
Remember that there have been many days before this,
and you are not the one who has to call the sun to rise

Listen to good music,
the kind that makes you feel a part of it
become familiar with lyrics and tones
and learn about the people behind the noise

Take photographs and keep them to yourself,
get them printed and when you go to pick them up
look at them in a parked car before you drive to the next place,
Realize that you’re creating a world that no one else has seen before

Some times it will all be overwhelming,
Other times it will all be stagnant
sometimes the idea of “there’s nothing you can do about it”
will be relieving, other times it will be a defeat

The practicality of living during sadness, in the mundane
Hold onto the idea that vitality is a real thing

// written on November 6th, 2015

years later

let my heart rest,

although time runs through my fingers
like liquid, or grains of sand
although each moment gains momentum
and my whole soul weighs heavy at the sound
of silence, or the sound of her voice
(I am older now than you ever were)

let my heart rest,
because the night can come smooth
or it can steal, darkness can be the overcoming
abyss that it is
but my heart, it will rest,
because years later I am echoing the
hope that has been written across my
bones and the vision of eternity becomes
more real with each passing day

It’s easier to become numb, and to let
the ache form callouses and corruption
of feeling and it’s no longer freeing
But this time, I’ve been broken up
and aware again* of the ability of loss and
(AGAIN*, all the things of today arise and remind me of old:
Pink Lilies smell like Funeral Homes Pink Lilies smell like Funeral Homes
That is NOT Her, she is NOT there, Her body was just a case for her soul
We Lost We Lost We Lost Gone Gone Gone)
The terror of grief and that
seemingly god-forsaken moment in the night
where gloom and desperation
charge at the idea of ever hoping again

The state of despondency is my greatest fear,
lurking at my bedside when I fight to get up in the morning..
and how my heart aches, so deeply and intensely
when I see that fear approaching the ones I love
and I can’t help but to cry out to God
to throw myself in between and pray that
my weary growl will scare it off from ever
grabbing a hold of someone else’s heart

There is a multitude of emotions
that trample over the people left after death
A range of detestable sentiments
and they will not leave you unscathed

But I will still say; hold onto hope,
destruction has no reign here
Do not let your heart
become hardened with worldly time
Let your heart rest,
for with every ounce of pain
there is new hope and wholeness multiplied.

years later, I am sitting by a fire,
listening to voicemails that are not hers,
and aching all the same
because I remember the longing that comes after loss

years later, I am seeing her absence
as more of a normality
and it breaks me up,
but this is no time to be broken

I am not a hopeless being,
and neither are you
lay down my doleful spirit
and pick up joy again
my heart is, and will always be at rest
so that yours can someday find fullness again

Look Back

never thought it was a good idea to Look Back
I’ve always known not to do it,
I learned this when I was twelve and the outside
was getting soaked and I knew it then that this
place was not a good one to be, I can write of those
Times where the floor was always cold and I
was always afraid to see my family
because I knew how sad they were and would be,
and every word that people would say,
After she left, stuck in my head I used to repeat
them, and above everything there was doubt
in the reality, for this couldn’t truly be happening

Round, wet, tears swelled up from
our stomachs and set free from the eyes
I think sometimes, was this the start of
a never ending stretch for redemption?
I think, were our hearts so low,
buried underground with her body,
that this was the beginning of the attempt
to dig ourselves back up to air and living?
this is heavy but this is how we know loss,
and as the days went on I remembered not to
Look Back because there everything was laid
out and time moves forward for a reason

Years later and many incidents
good and terrible, and in between have taken
place, new things have shared space with
an original ache but I never thought that
Looking Back would bring weight
that I’d pick up and desire to carry again
Turn my head to move
these eyes through the situations that
have brought on newness, I will not let go
of the idea that every morning is new
that is the only thing that lets me sleep at
night, a chance for a beginning that
does not hinge on Looking Back

But I am made up of each ounce and second,
each measurement of time and space
builds the canals and caves in my mind
and in the Looking Back I am reminded
to move on and up again

—

the poem above was inspired by something that I wrote two years ago. “If I were sad again, sad like I used to be” is a reference to a time when I first began dealing with depression, years later I wrote this after gaining some clarity – to remind myself of the way that sadness is a detriment to living with vitality, and that, if at all possible, it is necessary to choose joy:

“…and if I were sad again, sad like I used to be, I’d tell myself to think of the days and how quick they go by and before you know it you are writing to end another day and before you know it you are waking again and I’d say, sadness is worth nothing, just be joyful in each moment because that is all we really have. joy springs up out of a heart who is set on god – joy nourishes and knows sorrow but does not let sadness remain heavy and bitter. I’d say be joyful always – joy makes a lifetime of quick days count for something. sadness takes away life and health and all things sweet.” June 22, 2013

lament II

I began to stretch out my lungs in a capacity
to scream at God
I was to write down every insecurity I have in this faith
and then in those declarations He was to respond with gracious
wisdom and insight, in a soft peace He was to bring comfort and
say “My child, I am with you”

He did not.

I poured out my laments and rose up a banner of doubt, I pointed out the greatest questions of why and how;

I demanded immediate release of pressure that
is working up through my guts into my memory impressed
mind that has failed me time and time again
when loss is pinned up into the blue skies

I wrote down the way I felt when I would imagine her casket slithering into the ground
as they would project their well-intended sympathies declaring an ever good god

“how dare you belittle my wounds with band-aids,
how dare you glaze over my emotional destitution with clichés”

Those who have lost and lose feel they can relate to one another,
bitterness is predominant in these relations, but I would be lying
to say that God has failed me
To say that His hand has not saved, although at the time it very much did not,
His hand has rescued and continues to pull my heart out of the mire and muck
of my insolent sorrow

IF we believe there is a god who sees the beginning and the end
we are forced to accept that he is all knowing
IF this god is all knowing then why would he be absent
in our deepest pleas, why would he allow tragedy that speaks to no redemption, why
would he not answer

I cannot begin to describe why He allows immense suffering.
I have recognized that it is through hardship that Christ is most near,
I have experienced that in brokenness we are made full, but my mortal cries
rudely impose on my proclaimed hope:

What a selfish god..
That he would use my pain just so I would see Him better!
How egotistical, that he longs for me to be more like him so
because of this, I endure suffering

There is no existing being that could remedy my anxieties!
No, my soul cannot find rest in a deity or theology
My anger not satisfied by a man’s excuse for brokenness.

It is in this human truth where my voice is overwhelmed by an Almighty truth,
my doubts insignificant in the overarching grace of a true God,
who is not scheming, who is not manipulating my circumstances,
but who is RESCUING my already condemned heart from its current state

It is in this that every soul is asked to consider Christ as his redemption, and his portion.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall
I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

Lamentations 3.19-24

I have established this:
With Christ I have everything | With out Christ I have nothing

this means that loss, in its immensity,
is actually quite small and powerless although it reigns
heavy and dominant over our souls.
loss does not take us further from God,
it brings us nearer.
In actuality, the more we have,
the more that separates us from Him.

but loss, if not handed over to Him, can begin to build
a home in our lives. It will gather up every situation, good and bad,
and hold it captive – becoming not a ‘loss’ at all but a
selfish burden gained within our souls that is living off of despondency

I intended to call out to God,
to state my poetic laments and in return
find a solution – comfort and peace – but it is all too soon
to be taken from desperation to joy so I will
say to myself:

the Lord is my portion, I will wait for him,
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion

So as my heart breaks with those who are experiencing their own loss,
and as it breaks at the reminder of loss itself,
I will lift my eyes to a God who is not proven to be distrait
but all knowing and sovereign still

falling people

unintentionally adjourned my own sorrow,
dove into a tragedy that could never be forgotten, not today nor tomorrow
and it was covered in smoke and billowing clouds
dressed up in people, the colors of ours

i did not mean to open this door,
would have closed it but now i know more
this is where god becomes real to me
in the falling people and catastrophe

i play mind games all day long
my heart tugs at these filtering thoughts
fall into obsession with image and possession
of a history so plastered with loss

and this is when god becomes real to me
in the echoes of despair and despondency
in the trapped mysteries and wanderings
how can He not be true,
what else would there be
keeping me a part from death and the dark
from spilling out of my own skin

it takes heaviness to feel a difference,
and this difference I am desperate to know
i travel through numbness and awe,
passion and i am stripped now, i am raw

but this is where my god becomes true to me,
inescapable and unfaltering
stack me up against falling buildings and ideology
my god has never been so real to me

tangible and whole,
i am incomplete and alone
merciful and strong,
i am bitter and wrong

stack me up against falling buildings and falling people
up against stealing sadness and sores
up against ache and mystery
His love is enough for me

i can no longer hold,
all of these weights in my hands
dragging around me, are my burning stars and
bottled up sand
can no longer break,
or become more broken
stack me up against heat and rising trials
cut off relationships and empty miles
nothing will cause me to believe
that my god is inadequate,
that He is not enough for me.