Duality Read online

  after death,

  Then I supposed I could have slept past sunrise

  Instead of rising with the birds to read the gospels.

  If I am wrong, and there is no treasure of heaven to look

  to,

  Then my loved ones will have to be content

  With my life and love on Earth

  and not what comes after it.

  If I am wrong, and there is no God,

  No savior,

  No Christ to redeem me…

  Then I have still spent my life learning how to love,

  How to be kind,

  And how to work through the pains of this broken

  world.

  If I am wrong, and this is all there is,

  Then I have no regrets

  Because I modeled my life after an embodiment of love.

  I used my life to study love in action,

  A Christ who, even if I am wrong and does not exist,

  Or check all the man-made boxes of a “savior”

  Has stories that urged me to be a better person,

  To value gentleness and much as bravery,

  And to believe in the impossible and the minuscule,

  In faith, hope, and love,

  But most truly love.

  No one has ever found liberation huddling under an umbrella.

  Nor have they found it in rushing to the nearest overhang,

  The closest doorway.

  Rushing to find shelter in the storm

  Guarantees that you will arrive disheveled.

  Unkempt. Rushed. Agitated.

  Instead, you could pause in the midst of the storm,

  Look up,

  Revel in the power of the great, big thing all around you

  That seemed so scary at first.

  Because with rain falling on your cheeks

  And the cool drops refreshing amidst pain,

  You’ll wonder why you ever thought it was a good idea to run.

  May your skin remain thick for all but the ones who matter.

  May your mind remain clear despite the noise of loud emotion.

  May your head remain high because you can’t move forward while looking back.

  And may your heart remain soft despite the world’s attempts to harden it.

  Fractured Fairytale

  The princess was ruling over her small city.

  Happy to do her royal duties with an immature prince at her side,

  Then suddenly she was stripped of her role

  Had the rug pulled out from under her

  And was left in the dirt without so much as a word.

  She called out asking for help,

  For an explanation

  But the one that had sworn an oath to her

  Broke it at the first sign of war.

  And instead of a helping hand,

  She was met with a silence as still as her heart.

  She cried,

  Not too much,

  But enough that her tears flowed into a river that carried her downstream

  Away from her city

  To a kingdom next door.

  When her tears finally dried she found herself somewhere foreign

  And the water from the river

  Had washed her anew.

  She could still recognize herself

  But it was a different self.

  She picked herself up from the riverbank and dusted off her dress.

  She took a few wobbly steps and a few deep breaths.

  She looked at where this unexpected path had led her.

  She took in this new kingdom,

  Bigger than her last city,

  More interesting than the town she’d grown too used to.

  Still humble and quaint, but a brighter kingdom

  That had more promise than her past.

  The princess took her time,

  Nurturing her skills,

  Reminding herself of her talents,

  Her kindness,

  Her worth.

  She went step by step to a new empty castle,

  Past apartment numbers and stairwells until she found her own.

  Somewhere along the way she lost her tiara,

  The last piece of her princess life from before.

  But she built herself a castle brick by brick,

  Making new friends,

  Diving into what she loved,

  Treating her body and her mind like the beautiful vessels they were,

  And most importantly,

  Remember who she fucking was.

  The girl found herself on a new throne.

  With a crown to replace her lost tiara,

  A gown to replace her torn dress,

  A kingdom to replace kisses,

  And the role of a queen

  To replace nothing but the parts of herself that she had outgrown.

  (Including the prince who was too scared

  Of a woman who knew what she wanted.)

  You see, she never “outgrew” her princess phrase.

  She just grew into her new role as a queen.

  And long may she reign

  In her kingdom built from pain.

  What if it’s all a lie?

  What if the way that I feel is a glitch in the norm,

  A blip on the radar of normalcy,

  A small digression from everyday life?

  What if it’s not real?

  What if it only “feels” right?

  Amidst the loud voice of fear,

  A smaller, shakier voice whispers.

  What if it’s true?

  What if it really is everything you ever dreamed of?

  What if this is the end of all the what ifs?

  I am still trapped in my own darkness,

  And I know you can’t lead me out.

  But instead of trying to pull me from my pain

  You took my hand,

  And took a seat,

  And waited by my side as I sorted through my dark.

  (And I can see the stars now…)

  Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks in it.

  I suppose it’s time to finally

  Let go

  Of the things that were never

  Meant to be mine.

  I have been searching for myself

  In people,

  Achievements,

  Recognition,

  And success.

  I should have been searching for myself

  In the sea,

  In sunset car rides,

  In winter mornings,

  And within myself.

  Sugar, spice, and everything nice;

  That’s what little girls are made of.

  But pain,

  spite,

  fighting for what’s right,

  That’s what women of valor are made of.

  You are the sum

  Of the women who raised you,

  The warriors that trained you,

  And the souls that inspired you.

  Don’t waste their legacy.

  You say God wants this or that,

  Pain and shame,

  A humanity pruned to a specific color and style.

  I say the god you claim to serve does not exist.

  Have you even read the holy book you are so determined to beat others with?

  Or are you cherry-picking the phrases that will make your perfect pie,

  One you think is sweet but in reality it is crow

  And you are the one picking up the fork.

  The God I follow, the real God,

  Would spit you out of his mouth

  Once he tasted the poison you’re spewing onto others.

  Please, please,

  Just let me tell you.

  Let me tell you how I’m finally becoming someone that I am proud of.

  The woman you see in front of you

  Is not the girl I’ve seen in the mirror all my life.

  It has taken 25 years for me to be proud of this sou
l

  And to be gentle with this spirit.

  Do not silence me while I share my story.

  Stranger to friend to lover.

  How odd that once I asked you

  “How do you do?”

  And now

  I can tell without a single word.

  Weak and Strong

  When Paul, in a letter to the Corinthians, says

  “When I am weak, therefore I am strong”?

  I just can’t get on board with it.

  Not right away.

  Because I don’t know about you,

  But I don’t feel strong when I’m weak.

  I feel beaten down, trapped by my own mind

  And the lies that have convinced me that they might not be lies,

  When in reality they’ve just changed shape to scare me even more

  Like a shapeshifter taking up residence in my mind.

  And I can’t cast it out of my presence when it lives within me.

  I don’t feel strong when my bed seems more appealing than the sunshine,

  Because if I go outside, my fears would still follow

  And I’ll have to add a layers and layers of

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  Until I’m sweating from being in so many layers in the sunshine.

  And where is God when my mind is playing tricks on itself

  And my heart is sinking in on itself?

  Because I could really use some of his help right now.

  I don’t feel strong when my heart physically aches

  Because it can’t handle the thoughts that bounce in my mind like a twisted trampoline,

  Sending my moods

  up and down

  and

  up and down.

  I don’t. feel. Strong.

  But do you have to feel strong to be strong?

  Is it possible to be something you don’t always feel?

  Because your feelings are not extensions of your soul,

  But rather your soul trying to process the pains of this world.

  And it’s only when the walls start to squish you,

  Push in on your body that feels so weak,

  That you can finally stretch out your arms and shatter the bricks and scream:

  No! I know I have strength!

  Somewhere, somewhere deep within.

  You will not control me.

  And you think it will be enough because finally,

  Finally,

  You have had enough.

  But the bricks crumble and bruise your legs and scrape your arms

  And you feel drained from your outburst,

  And you have no more energy,

  So you drop to your knees,

  And that is when you find relief.

  Face to the floor, crumbled on the ground.

  Because it took the closing walls to remind you that there is strength in surrender.

  And surrender, so often mistaken as weakness,

  Is the strongest release for our pride to experience.

  And I’m a firm believer that there is no room for pride

  In a soul inhabited by a savior.

  If weakness is what makes me strong

  Then my broken mind doesn’t make me a bad person, but human.

  If weakness is what makes me strong

  Then I will stare down the lies that plague my soul and say

  You. Are. Wrong.

  And I know the lies will reappear,

  Lurking in the shadows of anxiety and the need to succeed,

  But when I walk into the sunshine that I once dreaded and see them exposed

  I’ll turn heavenward and say,

  Fill my soul with the strength of surrender.

  I am too weak to do it on my own

  But the strength you breathe into me sustains me.

  In the sunshine, in the darkness, in the fellowship and the loneliness.

  And sometimes it feels like I am walking through mud to get to God,

  But if I can get to his voice I am washed clean by true love.

  And love ruins every fear.

  And love gives meaning to the mundane.

  And love crumbles the brick walls.

  And love gives strength to the weak.

  And love gives freedom to the enslaved.

  This surrender is my soul tearing my pride from within me,

  Refusing to allow guilt and shame build my personality, my identity.

  Because no self-definition is accurate for this soul of mine crafted by a kind creator.

  For if God were to write what he sees in me

  He would make my descriptions look as small

  As the perspective that we see ourselves through every day.

  The author of the universe reserved a chapter for me, all of me,

  My fears, hopes, dreams, strengths, weaknesses,

  And it has taken me twenty-five years to humbly approach him and ask to read it.

  So for Christ’s sake, I will delight in my weakness,

  In insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.

  For when I am weak, then, I am finally.

  Finally.

  Strong.

  It’s true what they say,

  “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

  But it’s also heavier

  Because it carries the weight of truth,

  While swords only carry harm.

  I get to decide who I am, she said.

  Not the stars.

  Not my blood.

  Not you.

  I am the writer of this story, she said.

  I am guided by a creator who wants to give me joy

  Who helps me craft fairytales from failure.

  I know my worth, she said.

  And it’s more than the blood in my veins

  This body that walks the earth

  And the words that you assume can contain me.

  Shattered glass still sparkles,

  If not even more,

  Than unbroken panes.

  Every creative being I’ve met speaks

  Of their physical need to create, to express.

  From dancers to painters to writers to music makers,

  Existing is not enough for us.

  We feel half alive when we smother this part of us

  That so desperately wants to fly,

  To get drunk on being.

  Life is too short to not let every part of you soar.

  Sunlight behind

  Starry eyes in front,

  Arm outstretched forward.

  Your hand asking for mine,

  Asking for the sliver of trust that I’d buried in my darkness.

  No words. No shame. No lies.

  A promise in your palm

  In the rays of light you’re leading me to.

  I take your hand

  And the warmth reveals itself instead of from the sunlight behind

  From beneath my chest, buried under the darkness

  A light I’d long since forgotten.

  When does hope become peace?

  Hope is a term focused on the future,

  On what is to come.

  I think it lends itself to the idea of peace as well.

  Hope is for the future.

  Peace is the present

  That comes after hope.

  How do you perceive me?

  A dramatic, moody woman?

  A stranger from the internet?

  Someone begging for attention?

  What if I told you I was all of those things in one

  And even more,

  And not a single one of them are bad?

  The only way to live forever

  Is to make sure that no one says your name for the last time.

  We gain immortality through a set of syllables

  That define our identity.

  Things you are not:

  Your parents

  Your productivity

  Your grades

>   Your salary

  Your achievements

  Your mood

  Your fears

  Your generation

  Your failures

  Your loneliness

  Things you are:

  Beautifully and uniquely

  yourself.

  To be known is holy,

  For to be truly known, you see the quirks and the pains

  The longings and the fears.

  You do more than love,

  You never stop trying to understand another person’s heart.

  That is what it means to be truly known,

  To be more than loved, but understood,

  Mind, body, and soul.

  How many people can I say truly know me?

  I can think of some who come close,

  But no one who truly, deeply, complexity, does.

  Maybe no one ever will. That’s okay.