The Rest of the Messy

The Rest of the Messy

(“Think of the bright future waiting for all the families of honest, innocent, and peace-loving people.” Psalm 37:37)

Have you seen the rainbow colors when
the rain leaves thin layers on the messy mud
on the side of the road?
Have you looked behind you, a car slowing down,
and an old friend sharing a word or two?

This day broke for me, and I broke with it.
Bound and tied until afternoon by the
the brain I wish I could exchange. Pain
breaks

Me

When I would rather walk on the beach.
Find a conversation in the wind.
Open my heart complete.
Plant a garden, share a beer,
laugh until the ache exits the
next morning,
or the morning after that.

I would have you know all of me. But most of
me is unknowable. I would be the last rose of the
summer, still red as blood in the center with the outer
petals browning into autumn.
I would dismantle the walls. I would smash the glass.
I would raise the roof higher than the sun if only it
meant
my shaking self never had to fear shivering eyes,
the fear of surprise at what you might find in me.

This is not to apologize.

But I speak only 3 words of a thousand that enter
my mind.

I’m not that innocent. That’s why my walls still stand.

At once, though, one face or two can coax the bluest
truth from me. And once or twice, I’ve admitted it all.
And once I fell after I turned the lights on for someone to see
more clearly.

And once, maybe twice, I have spoken the scary part
out loud. And someone’s eyes did not blink at my confession.
And all I want, all I know
is that
I fear letting you, or anyone see,
the rest of the messy, the mud,
the unknowing of me.

Will You Pick Me Up?

 Will You Pick Me Up?

(“Because you are God’s children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into us to call out, ‘Abba! Father!’” Galatians 4:6)

And so, a day begins the same as most days begin.
The sun rose, but I rose too late to see it.
The pains that have trapped me in a body
too old for its years
keep me pinned to my pillow too often to
count.

I do not mean to complain,
though I know how it sounds,
but how do I reclaim a decade
stolen by trips to medical centers and
uninvited spears that kept me locked
inside myself?

Papa, will you pick me up,
will you tell me how to sit on this planet
while the nerves in my brain
flash like fire? Papa, will you pause me,
put me in a parenthesis where I can explore
the mountains or the
bookshelves seventy miles away?
Papa, I don’t mean to cry so often,
and my reasons change with the turning
of the wind;
still,
(is a wish the same as a prayer?)
my feet that love to wander both
thoughts and ground
barely leave the few acres they can
walk around.

Papa, will you wake me in time
to sit around a table with beers and
friends and
guitars and
dangling ends of conversation
before the next thunderstorm sets in?