B's Poems

"I'm seeing somebody,"

I say over and over again

to my friends.

I want to say it to whoever will listen.

For a moment, I wonder,

will they ask:

"Is it a man

or a woman?"

Because despite my vehemence,

despite my departure,

I think they must be hoping

in their heart of hearts

that I will have seen reason,

that my heart has been softened,

that I have finally stopped putting

my feelings above God.

What friendship is it

to wonder if they're actually happy—

for you—

or if they just feel they've failed?

What friendship is it

to wait for the drop of a shoe,

the "I know you know this, but—"

the "I feel like I wouldn't be a very good friend if I didn't—"?

But belief is ignorance,

and bliss, I've heard mentioned.

Don't they always say

to believe someone when they show you

who they are?

I think I've done a lot of denying over the years.

Because who are they, really,

when I tell them how much it bothers me

to hear jokes at my expense,

however informed,

and to have the answer be silence

(laughter!)?

Who are they except oppressors

when I have begged them to stand up

for me—

only for me—

over and over again

through tears

over how exhausting,

how isolating,

it is to be faced with that decision—

split-second—

do I tell them how I took that

like a knife to the soul?

Do I tell them I am no longer safe,

no longer free

as they imagine me to be?

So I say nothing,

am silent,

an oppressor too.

Or I open my mouth,

clumsy,

and fight to tell them how one sentence—

a phrase—

makes me want to burn up

into oblivion.

A fight to make them care.

But they are repeat offenders,

and I am alone,

and no one sticks up for me,

and I call them my friends anyway

I can't stay off my phone lately.

I'm scrolling through,

over and over,

stopping to watch hundreds of women.

They talk about who they love now,

who they used to love,

what they love about acting

on their desires.

Sometimes, they even sing.

All of it builds—

a physical ball in my chest,

becoming so tight

I want to sob.

I had forgotten how badly I wanted, too.

I had forgotten

the depth of my desire

to talk about the woman I love,

the woman I used to love,

Collapsed—finally. Folded.

All the times I've threatened to leave

are in fruition now.

I'm still learning to wear my freedom.

Tentative is the casting down

of the cloak that swallowed me.

Trepidation is wiping the tears

of shame, of sorrow, of solitude

from my eyes

to see

that which was mired

just enough.

"We love you, you can't do it."

"It's in the act, not the feelings."

"Don't dwell on the temptation."

"Don't feed it."

"Give it to God."

"Be free from it."

"Even Paul had a thorn."

"You're strong."

"You're brave."

"Your story matters."

Do I matter?

I'm told there will be suffering,

I'm told I am not home,

I'm told nothing compares,

I'm told I am not owed easiness,

yet I am told God is kind.

If this is kindness, I'll take cruelty.

I'll take lies,

delusion,

selfishness,

whatever you call it,

as long as I get to take my heart,

delicately,

to nurture and grow it

for the sake of others,

not to earn the approval of a god

who sees my discomfort,

my agony,

and turns the other way.

In that system, I am supposed to

be grateful when the pain is lifted,

sing praises that the sadness is gone,

place trust in the one who

watches as I squirm and writhe and hope

does nothing

tells me to wait.

He is supposed to be enough?

The one who evades me,

who frees himself of guilt

because my cries weren't loud enough,

long enough, exultant enough?

Because my cries were cries at all?

This is the being who wants good things for me?

This is the being who want my unwavering devotion,

the one who set his servants out

to hate me just enough

that it could still be called love.

And now I stand facing a precipice

I don't know how to cross.

Now I stand, having lost so much of myself,

that I no longer know who to be.

They say we gravitate towards

what we know—

but what do you do when all you know

is suppression?

How do you learn what it means

to let the truth flow through you?

How do you learn authenticity over

a costume, an act,

that earns you a new home?

It is said, also, that the life I want

is just a few brave decisions away.

I may not know much about this new life,

I am stuck in a loop,

my heart and mind producing feedback

in different frequencies.

One yearns for the past,

another dreads the future,

both are relentlessly uncomfortable in the present.

I can't help it—

the screaming, blinding, silent rage—

is brimming,

bringing me to a violence

I fight to contain.

Too many times, I am almost a mirror

of what this is doing to my soul.

The rips and tears are unimaginable within.

Outside, they would be a crime.

How can I want to unleash them on my best friend?

She must not know the crippling pain she causes me.

What would my ancestors think of me?

They suffered in secrecy without daring

to make a sound.

They fought as though their lives were nothing,

when really, they were fighting for their lives.

They got me the freedom and permission

some of them

did not dare to dream of.

I threw it all away so I could be

locked down

by a power a thousand generations

could never hope to best.

Would they be ashamed?

I am.

Swallow me now,

I want to cry to my despair.

The next instant,

I beg God to spare my life.

Burn it down,

the whole thing.

I face a day full of feelings

and claims—

shouts of misplaced pride and arrogance.

They come from people who move the world

backwards through time.

They celebrate because they are succeeding.

I put on the colors,

thinking I can separate last night's loss

from the hope I have in restoration,

but where is my hope?

The only thing I feel separate from is myself.

I am cloaked in a shell,

trying not to let sorrow and fear rule me.

I am foolish to worry about the power of man,

but aren't I also heartless to ignore its destruction?

How can I have hope for a situation so volatile,

so demeaning?

How can I turn the other cheek as humanity

is stripped from my neighbors so efficiently,

so systematically?

They came with an agenda while stoking fear about our own.

The family is at risk, they said,

yet they are the ones ripping families apart.

How can the members of all nations bow to God

when those members are being driven out?

Justice is dying, compassion and equity with it,

and like Elisha, like Jesus,

I can not bear to leave those bodies lay.

But what can I do?

Is there any way for me to help?

I can pray—and I will—but

I don't want to rest in the waiting.

I want to act,

to show up,

to help change.

Do I have that power, though?

Do I have that courage?

Each chance is a risk of being arrested,

beaten,

barred from work.

Do I have too much fear to take it?

I'm not even really the one they're after,

I tell myself.

I let it keep me complacent—

three-fourths of me conforms,

seven-eighths for doing nothing

with the one piece of my identity

that dissents.

I am turning my back on the Jew,

taking so much care of myself,

that they are all I walk past.

How am I better than the robbers, priest, and Levite

who left the Jew for dead?

I am not, I am nothing,

and all I can do is ask God how to protect them.

Protect the Jew who I leave behind,

the Samaritans who are better than me.

Give me the strength to stop and be

a good Samaritan too.

Help me to not be filled with a burning hatred

for the others in the process

but a righteous anger focused on your will.

Help me love my neighbor better

and also my enemy,

and help me have faith and hope

that you will see these things carried out

in a way that aligns with your Spirit.

I will not fear humans who die,

I am primed by celebration

of infants

born to the type of family

"everyone" hopes to have,

the kind that is cultivated,

desirable.

No one says it's more important

than the other types—

in fact, they say the opposite—

but everyone oohs and ahhs

over bald, squiggling creatures

in a way they don't

when we are called the body of Christ.

Then the pastor speaks of his encounter with God,

completed solitarily.

He speaks of how life is God,

taking your face in His hands

and telling you:

I love you,

I am proud of you,

keep going,

watch out for that temptation,

be aware of that threat.

He tells us to imagine it.

I don't tell anyone I imagine

looking away,

spitting in God's face.

Our relationship is ruled by hostility.

The back of my throat burns

as we pray and stand to sing.

The first words leave my mouth

in a wobble,

and I'm crying as I sing about a merit

I did not earn but that belongs to me.

I shut my eyes as declarations of finality

wash over me.

And then we are singing

about our souls praising God

because sparrows nest within Him,

about a single day with Him being better

than thousands somewhere else,

and I'm trying not to sob between verses

as I realize I am uttering a prayer.

I want my soul to praise,

I want to experience better circumstances in His court.

And for the first time,

I want to hit my knees in front of everyone.

When the song is finished, I regret that I didn't,

and I'm not sure why I cried.

I turn to my friend,

the one who put her hand on my shoulder,

only for a second,

because she must have seen

my bowed head,

my hands wiping my tears all over my cheeks.

I hug her and tell her I don't know

what happened to me.

I am doused in gasoline,

a tiny spark putting me up

in flames.

I hear her phrases

over and over,

see her rock back and forth

with laughter.

I looked for a flaw

so I wouldn't look for her mouth.

All I thought about was kissing it.

I wanted to tell her everything about me.

I wanted to know:

would it scare her?

A filmmaker,

reassuring me,

giving me time,

checking on me,

explaining to me.

A rock climber—

how strong is she?

I spill my confession

to the girl I love.

I don't know who else will understand

I still have feelings, too.

She thanks me for my honesty.

Does she still know I want her more?

In stilted speech, I tell her this girl said

she votes with her dollar

and hates voting for Trump.

Does she know how that electrified me?

I'm embarrassed to admit it.

Her voice, raspy and deep,

resides within my ears.

I could hear it if I listen

to Sarah Pidgeon speak.

She had music playing all weekend long.

On the way home from the library,

I pass a record store.

It's different than the one that lived

for decades.

I think about what it would've been like

to float through the aisles,

to take her hand,

her body,

in mine.

Someone's fingers close around my throat.

I told a principal I didn't regret my faith.

If I had to go back, I'd pick it again.

I'm sure I lied.

I can't breathe like this.

I am trapped in a cage I want out of.

Did you even want to die for me?

Am I the reason you begged

for a way out in Gethsemane?

Am I the thing that made blood

drip from your pores?

You don't want an emotional martyr,

have no use for them?

If that's all I am,

is that all I am to you?

Useless, a dead weight, a hindrance.

These new descriptions

are a cannonball chained to a prisoner

tossed in the ocean.

I cannot free myself from them.

The lies are already believed.

Others line up for my spot

in the Kingdom.

They go willingly,

are desired.

These are the bodies you gave yours for,

the souls you tore yourself apart to know.

I tear myself apart,

I am nothing, empty.

My body floats along through the world.

This passivity keeps me moldable.

I can be formed by each hand

laid upon me.

Like a spark in charged air,

I come alive—

a feral creature!

No control over the emotion tearing through me,

ripping its way out of the vessel

that is my skin and bones.

I writhe and groan and twist,

clutching my head, blinded

by it all.

I am overtaken.

Then nothing.

The silence is so intrusive

it echoes in my brain.

The quiet rings.

I am catatonic again.

What disease has infected me?

How have I become this specimen?

Shall I let them slice me open—

a cadaver!—

for study?

I go through this life like the dead,

like an urban legend to be warned about.

Get the pitchforks, the torches.

Set the mob on me.

I am consumed in time with the tides,

with the phases of the moon.

Inconsistent and reliable,

as sure as breathing,

as breaking a bone.

Sometimes the spark is a mist,

drenching me in harrowing hours,

days,

with a drizzle like acid,

burning holes in this container.

I am learning to predict the weather,

to provide a percentage for the certainty

of my anguish,

to forecast for whoever

turns on the news.

Now there are apps that cut out

the accompanying words.

My explanations go unheard

in a world desiring succinctness,

convenience.

There is no convenient service I can offer.

Viewership is forever low.

So I remain,

passed over or hunted down

or bobbing along—

my three states of matter.

But is there real substance to me?

Do I take up space?

Am I given this permission?

More and more, it seems I am not.

I am told to connect,

to sink in my hook,

but no one will let me anchor

my baggage to them.

They are afraid I will pull them under.

They are right.

A phrase has been posed to me,

never considered,

and has reverberated through my skull—

a bell:

a slave to sin or

a slave to God,

we are all owned by something.

Which sets me freer?

I know the automatic answer,

but the real and true?

This is not as easily reached.

The phantom marks that God's law

leaves on my wrists—

red, smarting, permanent—

are just that:

phantom.

They are real so long as I see them that way,

real so long as I believe.

The indentations in my skin fade

with eternity,

with joy.

I count all my trials as

another day off of my sentence.

Soon there will be no shackles at all.

I could go back.

There is no one who owned me from birth.

There must be many "ones",

many prisons I passed through.

In each of these,

my master took everything,

every part of me.

The bruises and scars are not pretend,

not imagined.

Each day in captivity earned two more.

One day, I was sold,

bought with a price worth far more

than my life.

The condition was only my agreement.

I was promised more than just my freedom.

I assented.

The sale's terms were simple,

the transaction was not.

Off I went, a new life,

to serve someone I could hardly understand.

There was no recognition in the faces around me,

my fellow slaves.

Many jobs to learn,

many responses to the same questions asked differently.

Was I happy there?

I couldn't tell.

Days passed.

Many times I dreamed of being returned.

My parts were faulty,

I had a horrible battery,

I did not perform all the desired functions—

the reasons I longed to be given away

are the reasons I am kept.

This does not stop me

from looking to my guard,

begging Him,

"Peel up the wax that seals me!

Tear up the red circle that has

your name branded on my soul!

I do not want to belong to you!

This is not my home!"

How my cries are met,

I cannot tell.

Much like my happiness,

this remains,

I am living with one foot out the door.

My bags are packed.

I'm holding the keys.

Outside,

the bitter wind rips at the trees,

tearing limbs, branches;

they scatter on the ground,

the detritus of warning.

Inside,

my friends call to me

one by one;

there is more to be said,

goodbyes to be exchanged.

They say it looks nasty out there.

These are the only reasons I have

for staying.

But it's getting late,

and I'm tired,

and the roads are bad,

and there's a spare room,

and another round of a random game is about to start.

My head is pounding.

The party has been so loud,

and all I did was listen.

I could not figure out how to open my mouth

to speak.

I need to go now.

I shouldn't.

I am coaxed back inside

to the warmth and laughter and light,

so unlike the storm that waits for me.

In another version of this scene,

I have stashed the suitcase

I did not want to spend my life holding

in the backseat.

There was a slam of two doors,

one for my bag,

to tuck it away for safekeeping,

one for me,

after a quick wave over my shoulder.

The wind presses against the metal

encompassing me.

It welcomes me with that intense crush.

I turn the key and ease off into the night,

each step in this process

something requiring a sure decision,

each something that needs crossed off.

I am going down a route I have always avoided,

hurtling towards a teasing gash in the Earth.

Always, I swerve at the last second.

Always, I am dangerously close to death.

My luggage flies behind me,

threatening to kill me first.

It is inevitable that I would end up on

this drive.

Whether I chose to stay first

in good company

or could not wait to invite my end,

it was undoubtedly going to happen.

There was never a moment when I would not

miss a curve in the road

and go plunging into the depths—

in one case inky black, in another dimmed golden—

before finishing everything

Bred from shock waves in tectonic plates—

megathrusts, landslides, volcanic eruptions—

emotions on the sea floor.

Little disturbances

when they start in the deep, reaching

barely to the surface,

undetectable.

They travel, in minutes or hours, to

swallow up my coast,

unmissable.

At times crossing the entire expanse of me.

At others crossing only part.

Undeniably,

I am left, drenched, in an

impersonation of low tide.

I look to the beach;

the dwellers are dry.

They ask me why I wore my clothes into the water.

Maybe the ocean did not crash down on me.

But—

how to explain why I could not breathe,

why my body was tossed around?

I walk through this desert of life—

scorching and exhausting,

it burns my nose.

I would not notice the pain,

except it's the feature of mine which

itches the most often.

There is a treasure somewhere, here,

I have been promised,

but the map was written by men

who speak in riddles.

Long gone,

I can not ask them to interpret.

My eyes lift to the one

who told them what to say,

but His words do not come out

any clearer.

I have not learned to speak

each language He has created.

Rather, I must gather His meaning

from gestures, must believe

He will let me understand.

What does it say that I dream,

daily,

of losing the map and

leaving the desert?

If only,

if only.

I am more than a traveler.

I am a creature unknown, roaring,

with shackles on her wrists.

Those that bind me make me plod along.

Their whips crack against my skin,

searing, slicing, sharp

reminders that I must walk

or die.

What would my rampage be

if I was released?

They are afraid to find out.

What breed am I?

What beast?

Displayed for publicity:

"Look what we have tamed!"

"Far from human!"

"Aren't you amazed?"

Alone,

in this cage I reside,

stored away when there is none

to gawk,

to mock.

How dare I ask to be saved?

"No—

you sit there, and you think

of how to bear your purpose.

It was made just for you.

Be grateful!

This is love in its highest form:

you, contained.

It is the only way,

the righteous way.

We have begged to conquer,

in days where your kind is too free,

to be unified.

This oneness can only take place

with you,

separated,

yet still part of us."

To belong is a wish I regret faithfully.

I miss my own culture,

the one my ancestors gave

flesh and blood to form.

I miss my own people,

the ones who taught me,

with intricacy, how to be.

I miss a home I did not live in long enough,

one without conditions.

My heart cries for them, but

I cannot go back.

Oh, how I would be known there,

yet I am here,

drops of my soul drying up.

It's a quiet insanity I am left with.

"Never" is a word people don't know

how to swallow.

Like "forever", it is not a thing we

understand.

Like "eternity", it is not a place we

can sail to the ends of.

I have wondered many times if it

can be explained to me.

How do I grow to accept it?

How do I come to not mind it?

Do I dare ever think I'll be glad of it?

Repeatedly, I am reassured

with the idea that I cannot know

if "never" will ever happen.

I have no control of such things.

This is supposed to be better than it.

I am meant to avoid it,

yet I want to know how to live with it.

It seems the only way to live with "never"

is to constantly hope it doesn't afflict you.

Does the same sentiment work

on someone who has been smoking

fifty years

and for whom cancer is as inevitable as

their next cigarette?

Can they, too, hope it away?

I am not addicted to nicotine,

just to loving the only people

God does not want me with.

Why has He made them so desirable

when something can "never" come of it?

He knows the way my heart longs

for who I cannot have.

He sees the way her soul shines.

Why must it "never" shine for me?

My own is made dim from the way

hers sparkles for a man.

He is God's beloved,

but he is no one special.

I would wish to be a man,

but then my love would not be

so tender, so sweet.

I am made to care for her

in a way that only hurts me.

Is it pure to spend a life aching

for someone

with no satisfaction?

If the grief runs out,

have I made "never" my friend?

Is the war over?

Do we retreat to our own sides,

weapons stowed away,

so there are no more casualties?

Is a treaty drawn?

Do we let the blood seep

into the ground

as if it was never there at all?

What becomes of "never" if the grieving

I am on my own exodus.

I have thought this before,

bitterly thought there was no manna

for me,

no water

because it was not amassing

abundantly in my hands.

I am an Israelite.

I am confused,

full of complaint and distrust,

was convinced God was not there

because I could no longer feel full

from the delicacies of my past.

I was brought out of my own Egypt,

my body bound by desires I clung to.

Some still stick to my skin.

I was so furious the Red Sea

did not wash me clean

that I did not notice

I was spared from

every drop of water.

This was not enough for me.

I camped,

thirsting for water,

hungering for food.

Displeasure danced from my lips:

I left for God,

why was I not seeing the flowing milk and honey?

I fled for Him,

why am I not cared for in the ways I deserve?

I thought He wasn't listening,

thought He'd never respond to my discomfort.

Did this Promised Land even exist?

Did its Maker?

I wished I was back in Egypt,

that I'd never left,

that I'd lived a long life ignoring the wilderness

or died from what I was enslaved to.

It would've been better that way.

But He heard my anger.

He sensed the underlying fear.

Every Moses and Aaron who told me

to trust Him

was made sincere by the manna

He sprinkled on the ground.

I wasn't sure what it was.

I'd never seen it before.

Moses told me it was what I needed, but

there was only so much meant for me.

I had to go collect it every day.

My hands began to gather more

than what filled my stomach.

The doubt crept in;

I didn't think it would be there tomorrow.

I rested, finally full, finally calm,

and when I woke,

my stores were no good.

I needed more, needed new.

I had to go collect it every day.

I am still learning to do this,

but there are forty years left in my journey.

My feet have not yet been carried to Canaan—

they might never be—

but I will freely drink the milk

and feed off the honey

A soul does not become colored

on its own.

Purple and blue and black and yellow can

paint a nice picture but

not if they are added with

sharp stabs of the brush that

relent only when the

artist is choosing which shade to

use next.

He does not stop to catch His breath,

does not stop to let me.

The clay I am made of

is thrown to the surface,

the force reverberating through my body.

The people watching call it art,

but really it feels like assault

to have the air pounded out of me.

I am the reason it has to be this way.

His creative process has no faults, so

it must be that my canvas does not

accept light strokes,

must be that I am filled with

earthen impurities.

I am not allowed to be put back

on the shelf or

in the bin.

Who else would bring Him

notoriety?

fame?

He must make me into something worthwhile

or I will be painted over,

my colors forgotten altogether,

so I can become something else.

I will explode in the kiln,

my detonation piercing every

project around me.

The other pieces promise there will

be a moment

where He will begin to add tiny details

and smooth His thumbs over me.

They promise it will be worth it,

that I should have hope.

I have no reason to believe it won't happen.

Except

when I look up at Him,

I do not see a loving craftsman.

I see a looming presence who has

control over my finality,

movements that make me flinch,

more power to wield against me

than I can ever level with.

He is loving and tender to them.

I am the recipient of His violence,

the one who continuously

fuels His rage,

His burning hatred.

Telling Him this only stokes His fury.

If the others could see what happens,

if they knew what He does,

if they believed me,

they would tell me to get out.

If they did not think

I was stretching reality,

if they understood this is not just a metaphor,

they would tell me to run.

But I stay and am scarred forever,

grooves etched deep into my fabric,

lines cracked so widely,

they cannot be covered.

I am supposed to change the lens through

which I view Him.

I practice gazing up at Him in every

way I can,

but He is the same

yesterday,

today,

forever.

I am told this as reassurance.

Instead, it solidifies my fear.

They tell me if I survive,

I will stay with Him

for eternity—

their artist,