Turtle

 Sometimes I feel like a turtle
Stuck in a shell of my own seam-stressing
I wonder how to get out

And live and walk

The world feels frightening

And confusing

And God I wish I knew how to see you

Among the dross of the enemy’s mediocrity

Into a bland old world that has nothing meaningful to offer

And everyone’s cold cuz they’re looking

Looking for a way out

Jesus you explain it all

The way things are

The truth that keeps me sober

The life I must hold onto 

If I am to make any sense of it all

Why be drawn to the senseless when it makes sense with him? I’ve never found a more rational explanation

Though I’ve searched to try to understand the mystery of people running from him

I love Jesus and his ways

He is simple.

He cares.

He loves everybody!

Too much pain

 How do I put this feeling into words

It's as if my back is

bare

Exposed in air

Beneath 

the cold hard empty

I was happy once

I long to return to the past and

force it into my present

How can I ever be happy?

Will my sorrow ever be joy

Without forging a smile and a new way to see the world

That only works until something happens

And I'm back in deep sadness

As I remember my little one

How he cried! 

He was in so much pain

Too much pain for such a tiny body to endure

And I wondered where you were in the mess

And the sick

And my pleading

Did you enjoy seeing me there

Terrified

While my enemy laughed and derided me

And I felt the naked icy cold shame

prick my neck and flush my cheeks

Were you there as I screamed into my pillow

Crushed my ears until I could not hear my son's frantic cries for help

Just wanted to die than be with him unable to do nothing but hold his trembling body

And you

you just...

let it happen.

You watched.

You said nothing.

You did not even give me a glance or comfort my soul.

You had the doctors put me on numbing medication

You had my husband go on meds

And for what?

What good has come from so much evil?

I am still alive but I might as well be dead

There's no joy in me.

I have become a professional at hiding my sorrow.

I know you're good

But I have so much fear in following you again.

You have led me to so many dark places that aren't comforting but cold icy and scary

They are dark and challenge my faith in ways I did not know were possible. 

I just want to go somewhere safe to safe waters and meadow, the kind that David talked about in his stories. I want to understand how you feel about me and hear your heart. I tell people about you but really I don't know enough about you. I like knowing that I am in the presence of the one and true God, the alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, the Savior of the World, my hero, my true husband, my rescuer my friend.

You're more beautiful than the sea. You're more lovely than anyone or anything I can imagine. And you care about me in a way that no one else has ever done, nor ever could. I wish I could feel this close to you all the time, but I feel like that's a dream that will never happen while here in this horrible world. 

Take me back, to a place my soul was before. Carry me in your ships of gold to the place that my soul needs to be. I miss your comfort, when I wasn't so worried about the outcome of my life, or my husband s anger, or Joshua's temper, or Eve's health and screams. I miss your sunshine meaning something to me. I miss the joy of the harvest, and staying at home in peace with the animal and the plants. I miss the goofy ducks and you, knowing you in a way that I haven't for a long time. I would rather spend all my days with you than people here. You are so good to me and love me and comfort me and I'm sorry that I haven't spent a lot of time with you. I know we've been too distant and it's definitely not your fault. I'm just so scared to hear what you have to say to me. What you'll tell me to do. It was so scary when I tried to follow you but got it so wrong. When I thought I knew what it would be like with Joshua and it was anything but. It was so so scary. I want to spend time with you. I wish you were closer to me. I want to have a deeper relationship with you, and I think you're the only counselor who can make me well. I miss you. 

I don't know how to handle my life and I wish you would tell me. And show me. And teach me. I know so little and I feel like I am playing dress up mommy all the time because deep down I am still that little girl that prayed to you when I was four. But I don't know how to move forward. 

Please help me God. Please help me Jesus, my one and only God.

I saw a raven

 I saw a raven the first day 

He was alone looking for food in the shade

He hopped from place to place

Finding things he could eat

And I remembered that you feed me

I saw a raven the second day

He was alone hopping still

I was in a hurry to get to class

But he was happy hopping in the mulch

And I remembered that I don’t need to worry about the future.

I saw a raven the third day

And he was surrounded by pigeons

Proud creatures with shiny full plumage

The ravens feathers looked haggard and sparse compared to them

While the pigeons strutted and bobbed confidently around each other

The lone raven looked for food and found it

And I remembered that it’s ok to not fit in

That I’m still beautiful in Gods eyes

The Rooster

The rooster screams the same old song
Shrill clanging 
But the song doesn’t change

An unending alarm, a bell that won’t stop

A hunger for someone Anyone 

to heed the sound

But the Song stays the same

Piercing screeching on it goes

Gripping with its taloned toes

To the same old fence with the same old song

Wondering who will tell him he’s wrong

Wishing he could change your mind

But the song stays the same

Farmers yell “enough already!”

Yet it’s voice continues to pierce their ears

It’s a voice no one wants to hear

And he keeps on going not knowing what’s near

As the leaves drop round and it snows

Why did God give a painful song

To a bird who’s job is to not live long

To make all around cringe and run

From a noise that cannot be undone

That mixes pain with fear and doubt

Where sorrow screams and wrath comes out

What point is grief if it does not change

And leaves destruction in its wake

No one wants it to persevere

And no one close to it can hear

even the singer wants the song to change

So Why does he sing the same old song

Why scream rooster, on and on?

Sex at the Butcher

 Nothing but the skeleton that my skin and tendons hang on
My bony hanger that supports a heavy coat

The hanger tips

Pills can’t erase the irascible sensation I feel in my heart

Of acid slowly burning and chewing through this aged carcass

That they all think is alive 

It moves like a marionette

Forced into contortions from another’s hand

What a good job I’ve done in selling it!

Stamping a high price on rotting meat

Like it’s worth anything

Strings have bound it into something package-able

And I wonder why I wanted them to come off

What would I do then?

I think I bought their lie too.

That my blood to them was more than a meal

That my pain made them feel something too

I am a lamb in a butcher shop

Carnivores

Is he watching me?

Faintly steering his neck in the crook of my direction

Is he watching me?

Behind a thick foggy veil of silence that cloaks his steps

Is he watching me?

And the eye in my head is burning

Burning yearning to close its lashes

so I can breathe enough to live

Brave fantasies trickle into my consciousness

Of breaking free from moratorium

And his eyes slipping into his gut where they belong

He stares on.

Or is he watching them?

Greedily lapping up their innocence

While I am idly brushing their hair

Cooking their meals

Tucking them under cotton sheets 

Drapes for burial I fear

Am I digging their graves?

We live in a fortress

But the harpies still glide swiftly nearer

I fear we are their carrion. 

And if not us then who?

Can the hunger for prey 

Ever stop in carnivores?

Wonderland motherland

 Wonderland motherland

The soil is deep and heavy

Murky waters ebb and ripple

And I go swimming there

Underneath the dark water-sky

Into the reeds of past indiscretions lie

Memories half memorized

A moratorium of wilting flowers that never die

Wonderland motherland

The place I long to see

The ugly truth that gets dumped into

Pools, deep pools

That even air cannot reach

Should I continue the hunt in the deep?

Cuz if I stay too long I could

Become a ghastly thing aglow

With a body made for a depth like this

and gills that handle muck and filth

But then I’d leave the pretty things

The breeze that hits your face at sea

The foam that dances merrily

Upon the crests of ripples

Making Melodies

And up above, there is no place

For ugly fish with armored plates

In the sun there is nowhere to camouflage

And the sky has no need for shadow fall 

Beyond the bright blue