i want to learn to write truth.

"do not tell me words are useless when written language has been the most poignant and timelessly powerful form of communication know to man." (unknown)

"You see I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across - not to just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can't believe in it." (hemingway)

"I really believe the addict-the sex or the drug addict-is closer to the deepest truth than the mere moralist. I think the addict is looking for the very best thing in some of the very worst places. He's looking for heaven; he's looking for a transcendence of self-consciousness and moral responsibility; he's looking for the state of mind that the saints in heaven have and the mystics have for brief moments on earth." (kreeft)

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” (hemingway)

i am fragile and frantic and wanting some covering for my unprotected head.

i don't think new york needs to be so lonely.

but these days, my bones grind against themselves

and leave me like dust.

i need the pacific, and its oil to my joints,

and its peace to my self.

I'm a lefty

it's a little bit like being judged for my penmanship when i'm only allowed to use my right hand. everything feels awkward and uneasy in front of a crowd of faces i adore, and want to impress.

i don't like putting out so many words and winding up so naked. i don't like pouring so much self into molds and letting be dissected so sterilely.

what's worse, i am needy and afraid.

I still imagine he believes in me though his voice is gone.
Memories of confidence and the west coast keep driving me to prove why I am still good.
What will happen when I am done?
Will the accolades sound like his approval?
What will happen when I present 50 pages of reasons and 50 pages of distractions and he is still gone?
When he wanted nothing to do with it from the beginning-
No more or less impressed than ever before.

There are so many books filled with so many words!

Flowing and covering me and spilling again and again.

The words are alive, too! The best part: my words are becoming their words.

How exciting, this new world.

I've been living inside the walls of my head,
They are wallpapered with flowers: green, ivory, and brown.
My days are decorated with lines from a book.
I'm lost inside murals of poetry and romance.

I like this room. I am preparing cribs for children and learning stories to tell them. I have kisses budding and so much love.

Its quiet and alone, but I have so much love for the future.

the expansive west

i feel it,

as i'm walking home past the midnight hour

into the morning

weaving through the city

quiet and near tears

after i watched the almost-love pack up

and leave the show,

seeing so many buildings

and so little else,

i feel it.

the way of grace

I have to constantly remember that the way of grace is different than the way of the world; it is different than my way.

Quietly, I am willing to shoulder the burdens of my failure and retreat until I've fixed them.

Persistently, grace gathers me unto himself, telling me we'll fix it together, we'll fix it together.

Against all instrinct, fulfilling all hope.

what i love about jesus are his scars.

in living, i have found that the most beautiful thing is to be known.

i have seen girls' hearts break over ernest eyes that seek to know.

(but to the hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet,

bad love is better than no love.)

what i love about jesus are his eyes and his scars.

i have eyes and scars, too.

(he is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,

he and i, were are born of the same human blood, he sees my tears.)

i am sick from bitter bread and bad love.

i have scars from pretend knows.

(who, made himself nothing...and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself,

he did not think it too much to die like i am dying, so that i may stop dying.)

(by his wounds, we are healed,

he knows me, he knows me, he loves me.)

he does not give bitter bread,

he does not give bad love.

life and its burdens

i loved you because you heard me.

the hidden notes that strike below words

and into meanings-

life and its burdens felt light resting on four shoulders.

(and i, i think, heard you too.

except when the distance turned to echos of what we wanted the other to say.)

now i am afraid to speak again,

for fear that if you hear me,

i might never stop

to see that you put all of the weight back on me.

Le Ballon Rouge

i just saw a red balloon float float above the skyline outside of my window.

I LOVE HOPE.

even the smallest little pictures of children's hearts give me hope, hope, hope.

is it too much to say that we ache for life? all of our muscles are just so thirsty.

goodbye.

i miss you.
i miss you and today i thought of all the ways that i could have avoided this happening.


one by one i recounted every i love you that i felt in every step, my feet and hands waiting for your feet and hands to be there too. there is so much expectancy in love. in expecting you, i grew in i love yous.


my mouth, stunned and silent at the weight of words, held off. i remember how heavy my tongue felt in those last days before, even heavier after. before, i was ripe with so much promise. after, caught in an empty nothing. death always happens this way. one day something is alive, the next, it is not.


i am back to i miss you. there is no friend to take your place, because each place is so unique. what i have been missing is not the absence of just someone, but of you. there is no one else in the world like you, and now you are gone. this truth though simple makes me ache.


looking forward i see that it must be done. though i will always miss out on all that you are and though i may think back to you and be so proud to know that you are human- wonderful, glorious and terrible- i must go now. i do not like standing here in the empty road waiting for your return. i do not like missing out on living, waiting for your life.


absence is death of the worst kind. it teases and taunts; you are not dead, but you have died in me. you are not gone but you have disappeared. you still breathe, but i can not hear it anymore.


all of my anthems remain true, but i will let them go to remain and hang in summer space.


as long as it is summer, i love you.
now that it is autumn, i loved you.


i have to go away now. i must find new roads. i must embrace them now.
goodbye.

everything, please just come to life.

it's october!

everything, please just come to life, in the midst of death, and let these arms gather, gather, gather herbs for you from the garden and build you a meal that will you make you feel at home. we can have a fire and we can have some tea and we can read a poem and we can have eyes that smile, even in the midst of death.

everything, please just gather in a home so warm with laughter and i am not running away, i am just finding respite by the ocean. i will know as much as there is to know about the land, and wouldn't it be great to be a midwife? and honey, we will have children just because we can't handle how much love we have.

he will find me because my eyes, like a lighthouse, are sending search signals calling lost ships home.

it's weak to admit that i am needy and i am tired of being alone, but i am weak and i do so much better in love. i've never proved anything by my independence except that i am a wall. i don't like walls, and my defenses are drained from weeping, and here it is:

i am waiting for him to find me.