Quite Unconventionally

 Quite Unconventionally

(“To my dear friend Gaius, whom I truly love.” 3 John 1:1b)

My dearest Andrew,
You asked me recently if I thought you were a true friend and
if people considered you
ugly.
I cannot read minds, I can barely read my own,
but this much is sure,
you have captured my heart like
a wood-burning stove on an autumn evening.
You are the one who takes my weeping heart for
drives in the hills when you know I am trapped
between walls and fences. And when things got
really bad
(for you or for me)
there was cabernet in glasses and a couch to cry on.
You are better looking than most dare to be;
our hearts are made of the same stuff and we love
quite
unconventionally.

My dearest Sandra,
You told me recently that you thought you were not pretty.
And, why, I wonder, would you consider such a harsh opinion?
You say you have a voice that no one wants to hear,
and yet I cannot wait for each time we get to chat.
You have captured my heart like a walk in the woods,
like a field of wheat waving in the breeze while we
unpeel layers of trauma without fear. You are the one
who takes my fearful heart and, with the voice of a child,
gives me more space, more grace, than most would dare.
And when things got
really bad
(for you or for me)
there were the silences that filled the moment fully,
and I sat on your swing remembering everything good.
You are more beautiful than most dare to be,
our voices are made of the same stuff and we love
quite
unconventionally.

And the Train Careened Off the Tracks

 

And the Train Careened Off the Tracks

(“You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day.” Psalm 91:5)

And the train careened off the tracks.

Maybe we are ugly for a reason,
maybe our crazy has hardened our faces.
I don’t know how to live normally,
there is too much that is contagious and
I live uncontained.

I visited the stage on the closing night
when several friends were players.
The music of drama, the greasepaint of comedy
have always enchanted me
and I wished I could join them in their
costumes and paces. Below the trodden boards
and after the curtain call
I walked past the limelight and loved
the champagne popping, the fogging machine
locked away for a season.
And I spent extra time with the one who,
though transferred from show to show,
removed from touch to memory,
had been my heart from Shakespeare to
silliness on high school afternoons. She
cried like we might never see each other again.

Sadness is not the same as fear,
tears are not equal to despair,
but the night remains restless while my
heart is tucked away beneath invisible arms.
Dreams come easy when the mind spills
from daylight frightening to night-time lighting
(just a covered bulb in the corner socket will suffice.)

And I ushered my thespian friends into the
next train hoping it would keep us all together
until the morning shone on our worn-out faces.
Settled in and lounging, drinks in hand and
kisses while the rails rocked us like a cradle
all the way

Until the end of the line when,
uninstructed about braking such a machine,
I sent the train careening off the tracks.

I awoke and you were gone; you had not died. But
still I miss you, whether in the long-waves of
memory
or the shortwave of dreams.