My Heart’s Thin Veneer

My Heart’s Thin Veneer

I’ve stood at your doorway, my toes tickling your threshold,
wondering if I should knock, if I should see if you are home.
I know you’ve told me to come over any time, but I still feel
it is such a risk
to let you see me out of my element. You may ask me to
leave early,
or not to come inside at all. It’s almost like a wedding where
the groom has only heard of the bride and
worrying what she will think at her first look at
the one who has written the words line by line. His
face might betray how afraid he is that the door will stay
closed
well after rapping softly on it asking for entrance.

I’ve told you about my heart, maybe a half of it, maybe more.
But now I stand at your door knowing this time you will
see all of it. The falls. The lies. The uncomfortable way
it shies away from dropping the façade it wears. So far
you only love half of me, and the other half remains in shade.

Would you dare to embrace the darkened shadows
I’ve hidden from you? Would you let me in the door
not knowing? And yet some unbidden hope tells me
my heart may be already welcome inside your own.

I’ve protected it with words as thin as onion skin,
I’ve ventured to this door with a resolution to say
all I am afraid to say. You may think I have said
it all
already, and that may be true. This time I’m knocking
like it was the first time we met. This time I’m hoping
you and I both know what it’s like to be lonely. This moment
I might be brave, or I might slink away. Would you invite me in
once I dared to hold out every thought of my heart?
Would it be like the start of a song with every stanza
unrehearsed and every note belonging to you?

Here it is, my anxiety on display. Here it is,
knowing all I want to say, and knowing the
risk there is in unveiling everything.
Still, I cannot wait to hear your footsteps coming
to open the door.

Embrace My Soul

Embrace My Soul

(“For those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.” Hebrews 4:10)

It is true,
the trailer won’t unload itself,
the house will not build itself.
But what if the soul grows in one
single embrace?

I get it,
the dishes won’t wash themselves,
my room will not clean itself.
But what if love is the effortless act
Of simple dying?

I cannot work,
my body won’t allow it.
I can barely write the words on the page.
Not that my fingers are stiff or crooked,
my mind has been seared by pain like a desert
and words like arrows telling me I just need more
jesus.

If just once they would sit in a chair next to me,
if just once they would share a bottle of wine,
if just once they would keep their mouths shut,
if just once they gave no advice this time.
Do I live too far away,
does my countenance frighten you?
All I know, I was just a stamp away and no one
ever wrote to me.

Are my tears too heavy for you to lug around,
do you fear my doubts will somehow undo you?
Are my words now too concrete for you to swallow,
do you pray for me while I cry invisibly?

I never stopped working and maybe I should.
My body will allow it no longer.
I no longer work, hear no voice on the phone,
no tone that enwraps my soul. “I love you” rings
more true than
“you need more jesus”
or “I will pray for you.”

Do you see my words, how artless they’ve become?
When I write in the middle of the pain
how can I ignore the silence I never heard from
Just one visitor, one victim of my hard labor,
or (maybe this is too crazy) one person who spent
a whole day imagining how a body like mine
could still house a healthy soul. 

I want to point to Jesus,
the suffering he took, the dying he imbibed,
I want to think of him with eyes that enliven
my hope again. But is it too much to ask,
too much to explain, that I wish his followers
bring him by when they came?