white t-shirt Sundays

“My Jesus year.”

Seriously knowing

the power of words.

Let it be Jesus,

let it be You.

The broken mind,

and desperation.

Let it be Jesus

quietly wading

through my moments.

Lamenting,

“It took you so long,”

but then if it’s Jesus,

there’s so much weight around us. 

everything is weighty even when we make 

a way to have less gravity. 

maybe not the right things, 

though, 

are weighty, 

the hips

lips, 

and thighs, 

I’m not being touched like it was the first time.

how does a flashing box distract you from

my

first time

skin touches?

I am brought by love,

ushered in silky strength.

laced over pure notes of your favorite things.

I promise

always

to offer myself like brown paper packages tied up with string.

if you like.

but there are too many noises with which to compete

and I can’t distract

you like I once could.

but remember when you thought you couldn’t have me?

I was in pink tights and rolled up denim.

like all the girls.

and when there were many more choices for you,

you chose the one that was seemingly impossible.

choose me again,

choose me always,

choose me often.

do not become weary,

you are well

doing the things that put down roots.

i am your time and your harvest.

again to promise,

i will let my hair down

or, for you, i will curl it up.

I am bound with intention,

when I fit five outfits over my tired body,

and confidently -

walk past you with a smile.

what hurt the most.

mama’s heart.

cake uncut.

on daddy’s farm.

it wasnt his place.

sunrises to be given,

and never pocketed.

he would never know her depth.

she gave the most

conjuring a childlike response

naturally deep

leveling me at every wake

even when it hits down the road

it’s always close to home

and the doors of your house slam shut

and the whispers in the day

are unspoken voices at night

so get used to the rhythm

cause you will always yearn

for her face of innocent surprise

for her sense of humble pride

for the peace in her promising smile

she travels alone

back through the wooden pine

to meet you where

always wondering if you forgave.

forgiving you always and waiting to hear

“I forgive you” myself.

as if that communicates all the little raindrops that form the waterfall of

comforting, releasing and cathartic tears.

screaming in able pillows of

white,

spotless of dark matter.

words, whispers,

holy prayers.

never was I half hearted.

to hate the words now,

seems unreal.

it was countless imaging,

many regrets,

and feelings of

so low, baby.

this is what told me all I needed to know.

it’s the asking that is the lock and the key.

how could I miss your safe

tequila dripping down my neck

peppered with salt.

help me feel something of myself,

you in relation to me.

gulps of harder-to-talk-these-days,

and satiated in the hearth of

letting the words fall out.

hard and clean,

shattered just exactly right.

how we are not supposed to be.

is this vulnerability?

i told you mostly,

i shook well.

you listened,

each little piece,

every little breath of air.

reaching out in the darkness.

when it was too late to recover,

you swam through the sheets.

tired of trying,

waking up alone,

sweaty palms and empty arms,

to hold me home.

the paradox of our story.

i needed to be touched so badly

it hurt.

it haunts the memory,

of you of me.

upon waking:

the tucks came undone

without unraveling the bond,

the pillows lie motionless

abused,

in the floor.

they heard me

slump over quietly in the night,

beside your body,

lying open with unclenched

hands.

offering

the silent sobriety

of wasted efforts.

I didn’t know you moved

and then tenderly found

the saving grace of

two arms

when I think about my life, 

I am small and a pretty little 

kick in the ass. 

I was the fourth child of ten. 

TEN!

How does that even remotely sound romantic or interesting?

that which does not have to do with the individual, but with the whole. 

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the whole, 

but I do, however, find a greater meaning in the small parts, 

And time is such an expensive expanse. 

Where does it go when I am alone? 

Again the big family. 

“Through Painted Desserts” and “Where the Wild Things Are” 

(I got the children’s book at a 6:45 am yard sale today! “So good, so good,” like in The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) 

There are, knitting, grandeur-ing lifetimes, in the small things of the bigger sought-afters.

I’m doing this all new, because tumblr is protecting its users-aka not letting me back into my old account. 

remember the broken places like memories and keepsakes 

for present stabilities.

in mind increasing capacity for creativity, released into the veins of a broken society.

a world of apes into 

not-quite-yet-men.

colorless integration paired with a 

Fatherless generation.

always having to pick sides,

with Ma up north and Pa down south.

ain’t no love between the pair.

but they keep down the nine-to-five.

so, who care? 

it’s a miserable existence,

that is

baggy eyes and headlines.

sleep is for the weak they say,

but it’s all lies. 

imma hypocrite

but i got deadlines.

boss man won’t let me speak,

wife won’t keep me if i’m weak.

worn out pillows hear me weep, 

elude the morning,

keep the sheets. 

but yesterday was okay.

what happened to that?

the pink skies and cherry lemonades 

turned to Daniel’s 

ina bottle.

pills on the dresser keep me on my feet for 

the ‘morrow.

imma beatnik 

like Roman candles

Jack had pixie dust in his feet.

the earth engulfs the small

road the long,

carries the chills

i follow. 

sleep runs ahead, 

30 minutes tops,

back to a dark cup.

known and loved,

*two drunk men really giving an earful to a young lady-27 years down*

you: told your boss i was in peril. boss: told me he would find me a chair in the building (to sit with you).

from where has it fallen, therefore, to obtain the badge, the vibrtant colors? 

the telling of my being harassed to another?

or

it’s not your average swamp water, the musk sits with the green rocks.

and the river still sings through the pebbles. 

the sunlight is clean, it washes holy, holy, holier than the church folk

man-made-built-pools-of-colorless-blood.

there are no caps on how many dips are allowed, multiples are always celebrated. 

there is no need for “right” protocol, not when you find your knees by your alone-some. 

what I love about a river town is the coffee people.

the boy who found a seat in front of me at home. 

despite the earbuds deep in my ears, he speaks to me and points child-likely. 

what i love about a coffee people is their obvious desire for company among the strangers. 

it’s hard to judge and it’s hard to not find the window light.

simply, hope lives here.

and hope knows we need each other. 

three stools deep on both sides. my cell phone lighting my face, no doubt.

he came for another beer we don’t serve on Sunday’s.

“you work all day?”

pretending to interest himself in my work ethic.

“nope. just came in to eat…”

readdresses the television show, he continues…

*shakes shoulders side-to-side*

“just gettin’ warmed up?”

i begrudgingly respond,

“just feeding myself.”

the conversation ends.

his pleasantness of self increases the more alcohol he puts back.

but like i said, it is Sunday.

he’s touched me too much.

introduced himself a few times, always forgetting the last.

all your words hurt my ears, your hands are too heavy.

my back is too sore to waste on your beer tab.

back-and-forth.

aware you are one of many; reminds me even one bad apple.

is all it takes.

you trust one seemingly innocent regular.

a daily dose, that’s all it’ll take.

made of yuengling bottles sweating; cold beer is underrated.

the cat is pressed against the screen looks like she could jump right through it.

gray and white, like serene newspaper, she’s always curious of the headlines in the neighborhood.

her shadow against the wall catty-cornered from the windowsill from which she sits.

my husband’s hat hangs towering, tinkering above her tiny head.

he’s out of town on business.

It’s quiet like the Monday after the circus packed the bears and Ferris wheel away.

too quiet. need of rest under an open, window quiet.

and he’s a pillow covered in a smoov sheet. between asleep and awake.