Duality Read online

  I’m sitting in my own apartment.

  I have red hair and tattoos.

  I have people who care about me.

  But most importantly…

  I care about me.

  So when I think of you now,

  Now that you’ve left this Earth,

  I raise my glass in a farewell cheer and whisper:

  “Zany, I made it. And so did you.”

  I would love to be that girl

  The one that wears all black.

  Maybe she’s from New York City.

  She has a “don’t give a fuck” attitude

  And people respect her because of it.

  I would love to be that girl.

  I would love to be the girl that is cute.

  The one that is tiny,

  Can fit into clothes from the kid’s section.

  She has an adorable laugh

  And her kisses probably taste like sugar melting on his tongue.

  I would love to be the girl that is mysterious.

  Winged eyeliner, black lipstick, chokers and leather skirts.

  Darkness that exudes power and femininity.

  She intimidates and excites at the same time.

  I would love to be the girl that is carefree.

  Effortlessly beautiful without makeup,

  Long blonde hair, and naturally tanned skin.

  She has a California attitude and athletic body,

  And a kind but gorgeous aesthetic.

  There are so many girls I’d love to be

  Except for the one I am.

  Some say it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

  If that’s the case,

  I want a parking lot love.

  Parents swinging their kids,

  Mom holding one arm and dad another,

  Lovers giving one last embrace, one last kiss,

  Babies asleep on shoulders,

  Arms around backs.

  Content through any excitement to come,

  Or fatigue to fight through,

  At any portion of the journey.

  I write a lot about fire

  About souls and trees and freedom and fear.

  I write about people

  Who have inspired and loved and lead and hurt.

  I write about Jesus

  And try and think and delete and rewrite.

  But I avoid writing about the darkest parts of myself.

  And I think and hope and pray and wish

  For the day that I’m not scared of what I may find

  In those poems I’m too afraid to write.

  I am not an easy person to love.

  I will drag you with me to the depths of my darkness

  And the next moment, blind you with my light.

  I will realize mid-argument that I am wrong

  But I will keep going anyways, shame spiraling in my stomach.

  I will cry, and hope you still love me

  Amidst my pain and fears.

  I am not an easy person to love,

  But you will never doubt that I do love you.

  Hi! Hello!

  I am a very normal person

  Who definitely didn’t just spend ten minutes in my car

  Working up the courage to come out here.

  I’m simply sipping my coffee

  Without thinking about

  If you thought my tone was “weird” when I answered

  your question

  Or wondering if I’m making that awkward face again.

  I’m definitely not over-analyzing

  Your response to my question that was a little personal

  And now panicking that you think I’m weird or

  overbearing.

  I’m a very normal person

  Who would love to hang out again.

  But I need a nap first

  Because I’ve been doing mental gymnastics with myself

  for the last hour

  And trying to appear

  Very, very

  Normal,

  Which to be honest is completely exhausting.

  The entire concept of a

  “Hopeless romantic”

  Is that they are doomed from the start.

  Hopeless can be beautiful or tragic

  Depending who falls and who doesn’t.

  Am I beautiful

  or tragic

  or both?

  Can you be both hopeful for love

  And hopeless in wanting it?

  Most things happen for a reason,

  But not everything.

  Do not fool yourself into thinking that your pain

  Was pushed upon you by a greater force.

  Sometimes things happen for no good reason:

  Car crashes,

  Cancer,

  Miscarriages,

  Lost jobs.

  These things do not always happen for a beautiful,

  specific reason.

  Sometimes they just happen.

  And there is not always a hopeful way to turn tragedy

  around.

  There’s only recognizing the good that existed

  Before and amidst it

  And in the days to come.

  Time is a Romantic

  I think people come into our lives for specific reasons

  And specific amounts of time.

  So often I’ve blamed timing for love not working out,

  It not being able to grow.

  “If only we’d met a year ago.”

  “If only he wasn’t rooted in New York City.”

  Time became the enemy of love.

  If she was in our favor,

  Maybe it could have really been something.

  We really could have made it work

  If only time was on our side.

  But what if she is?

  What if time has always been rooting for us?

  Aligning our schedules to the best of her ability

  to put us on the same plane of existence

  As your brief but beautiful lover.

  In another dimension, without her help,

  Maybe I would have never met him and learned how to love.

  Maybe he would have never met her and learned how not to.

  We curse time and timing, saying she is the reasons love fails.

  But maybe time is doing her best for us.

  She is opening doors for us

  To spend what precious little moments there are together.

  Maybe time is the rebel herself,

  A romantic, not the one in control.

  She watches the Fates weave our destinies and says,

  “No, there is room in there for more”

  “More life, more love.”

  “Just…not all at once. In small moments of time.”

  She gives us these moments as gifts

  But the pain of losing them eclipses our recognition.

  She is the ultimate scapegoat for broken hearts

  Even though she knew bringing you together for a short time

  Would enrich your entire being.

  She teaches us how to say goodbye,

  Ready or not.

  And I’d like to believe she begs the Fates for just a little longer.

  “Let me give them just a little more of myself…

  Before they are destined to be pulled apart.”

  Time is a romantic.

  The only evidence we need are the hundreds of love stories

  Recorded over centuries that we can still recall today.

  It is her way of saying:

  “I have been on your side all along. It’s just that…

  I’m as powerless as you are.”

  She mourns the heartbreaks and the lives cut short,

  The ones she wasn’t allowed to give more of herself to.

  But there are moments when she shines:

  Your grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary.

  Your friend with cancer getting to see another sunrise.


  The exhale at the end of a well-lived life.

  It is hard to see in the moment, but can’t you see it now?

  Time has always been on our side.

  Holy Ground

  What is holy ground?

  Does it have to be ground?

  The water the disciples fished upon was deemed “Holy ground”

  When Jesus called them from it, then walked upon it weeks later.

  Is it still holy ground when I am angry

  At the one I’m supposed to be praising?

  It was “holy ground”

  When a man was suspended in air, lowered down through a hole in a roof,

  For just a chance to experience the holy touch of Christ.

  Is it holy ground when I’m on my yoga mat?

  A rectangle of rubber that I cry out upon in prayer and praise?

  Or the sunrise through a sleepy airplane window

  When I’m desperate to see a certain face?

  How can I determine what is holy when I am so far from whole?

  Perhaps it is holy ground at midnight

  In the nursery of the crying baby

  And the mother desperate for sleep.

  The parking lot of the grocery store is holy pavement

  When the reality of the mundane becomes too much to handle alone.

  Cracker Barrel brunch is holy ground

  Punctuated by biscuits and bravery in the hard-to-tell truths.

  Holy ground is not the church building.

  It is the experience of the holy, wherever it may occur.

  Holy ground is the

  burning heart

  of a broken soul

  begging for help,

  Because he can’t do it alone anymore.

  Holy ground is getting out of the boat

  And stepping into the air

  And away from the ground.

  PART TWO

  DIM

  There has been no new air since the dawn of time.

  Every movement of breath going in and out of our lungs

  Has been revived from a moment in history.

  That means the final breath of a Holocaust survivor

  Could be the same breath a baby inhaled the moment it arrived on earth.

  And the shouts of the people protesting

  Could be the same oxygen exchanged over peace treaties.

  The breath that he stole away from you

  May be the breath that he exhales when you tell him “yes.”

  And maybe the dying breath of the great warrior Achilles,

  Or a lullaby from a new mother,

  Or a battle cry of a fearless soldier,

  Will be my deep inhale before I grab the microphone

  And take back my life from the one who muted me.

  It’s proven very difficult to find someone I can be naked with

  Without taking off any clothes.

  I want to strip away my bullshit, my pride,

  Peel off my layers of pain and baggage.

  Kick off the shoes that walked me through past mistakes.

  Slip out of thin undergarments, the last bits of self-imposed protection

  Concealing my true form.

  I want someone who will remind me of my own worth.

  Pride-filled garments on the floor.

  Lights on.

  Nothing shielding the raw, aching parts of my being.

  Only the naked skin of my soul exposed.

  I’ve never been too afraid of the dark, of things that go bump in the night.

  Why be afraid of where the wild things are

  When my mind made its own monsters while I was awake?

  The boogeyman stood no chance against the terrors

  My anxiety tried to convince me were real.

  When your mind is the dark and your dreams are the light,

  Sleep is a haven, not a battle.

  It’s one type of heartbreak for a lover to leave

  Or a friend to reject your feelings.

  It’s a different type of heartbreak

  When you’re watching someone that you care about do something ordinary.

  (Maybe they’re doing dishes

  Or driving

  Or stretching their arms above their head…)

  It’s a different type of heartbreak when you realize

  You’re in love with them.

  And the first thing you feel is a sinking sensation

  And the first words to appear in your mind are

  “Oh no.”

  “Too much, too much”

  He said with his arms out, palms at me.

  The hands that had once held me

  Now pushing me away

  For being nothing more than myself,

  Which was too much for so small a man.

  Pain is not a competition.

  Struggle is not a one-upping comparison.

  Negativity is not a community-builder.

  Your version of frustration does not negate my own.

  “I have it worse” is not a conversation.

  Annoyance is not an excuse

  For arrogance, apathy, and knocking others down in an attempt to stand taller.

  “God is arrogant” she says. Her vulnerability permeates the room.

  This is not an easy conversation,

  Probably shouldn’t even be a conversation,

  So I do not speak.

  “I don’t know if I can believe in something like that,” she says.

  “‘I’ve created you, now worship me and do what I say’

  What about what I want?”

  I listen, intrigued by the irony.

  What she sees finds limiting, I find freeing.

  Her concerns are that she won’t be able to live her purpose

  My concerns were that I would never find mine.

  She is angered by the arrogance of a creator who demands recognition

  I’m comforted by the concept of surrender

  And a guide higher than my own broken mind.

  She is wary of a guilt-driven life

  I’ve learned (after 25 years) that guilt does not come from God,

  but grace does.

  I can’t say these things to her without sounding hurtful

  And it’s not my job to convert and change minds.

  So instead I listen, nod as she opens up,

  And speak the only truth that I can:

  “I’ve felt the same way.”

  These halls are where bells ring and lockers slam.

  Insecurity intermingles with exhaustion, excitement with the mundane.

  These halls are where teachers break up awkward kisses,

  Where athletes whoop and shout on game day.

  These halls are where the quiet kids duck into classrooms,

  Safe havens amidst the maze of the loud.

  These halls are where the teachers greet their kids,

  Where laughter echoes, and student work decorates the walls.

  These halls are hard for many people to walk,

  But for some they are also a home made within brick and mortar.

  Sometimes I can feel words buzzing in my veins

  Desperate to spill out of me into a flood of ink.

  Sometimes I’ll stare for hours at blank pages

  Trying to form feelings and fear into marks of a pen.

  Sometimes I feel all anyone cares about are the numbers,

  The likes,

  The quick worded phrases that aren’t from the heart.

  But all the time,

  There’s a tree digging its way into my bones

  A redwood made of words taking root within my soul.

  “Blessed are the poor in spirit”

  My spirit has real estate in rock bottom.

  “Blessed are those who mourn”

  A soft heart in a hard world.

  “Blessed are the meek”

  Does painfully weak and doubting myself count?

  “Blessed a
re those who thirst for righteousness”

  My throat goes dry at the 5 o’clock news.

  “Blessed are the merciful”

  But are there any left?

  “Blessed are the pure in heart”

  Although mine feels plagued by darkness.

  “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

  I haven’t seen many of those lately.

  “Blessed are the persecuted”

  Not just those who think they are.

  “Blessed are you, when the world goes against you.”

  When? Isn’t it always?

  Will I ever get a break amidst these blessings?

  When Your House Is Not A Home

  When your house is not a home,

  You’ll envy those of your neighbors,

  Ones that brim with hope instead of one that has the echoes of angry shouts.

  You got familiar with other houses by going on walks to escape yours,

  Or maybe your headphones provided temporary solace from shouts