Mistaken Identity
Tag: free verse poem
Almost Like Closure
Just one step closer to closure at a time—
one more court date over,
one less long wait slower—
one more inch along the way
toward happily afters and all better now—
or maybe grief is more a door
that never closes like a lock.
No permanent click,
no absolute end,
no gavel drop of perfect justice
to put the heartache behind bars.
It comes, and it fades,
and you learn to live
with a shadowed nuance
that sits on your shoulders on certain days
more so than others,
finicky like fog.
Over time, you learn to use your headlights
and pull your way carefully down the road,
even inside the densest cloud.
You might drive twenty-five miles an hour
when you have to,
but you never stop, not now.
You have somewhere to go,
goals shining like cities on the maps of your mind,
and you know that the light
always clears up later.
You squint through the grey
and the unanswered questions,
the rage and regret,
memories that won’t settle,
and in spite of it all
your foot hugs the gas.
You keep driving forward,
your heart full of past.
Which Comes First
My husband is moaning with headache,
and I sit in noon stillness
and hold him close against my shoulders
till his breathing calms.
I do not move,
though the minutes do,
because he needs this rest and these arms.
And my ravenous boss
and the curse words steaming up from customers
and the deadlines and the hours
and the phone and texts
and the coming recession
are all screaming from edge to edge
of my psyche
that I’m off task,
I’m lost, I’m indulging in a luxury
and we both just need to suck it up
and keep working,
keep giving myself to everyone else
to achieve a higher reach,
a wider stretch of influence,
but I have decided to disavow
myself of the lies.
This is my family,
my life, and my right.
I don’t have a cradle or a kitchen
big enough to fit all the homeless and hungry
and angry and sick,
but I have this one hug I’ve been saving up
for someone just his size,
and he needs it now.
You can keep the infinite, exhausted sea,
because I’ve got my one starfish,
and he’s an ocean to me.
A Supplication
Oh God, give us courage,
but don’t make us use it,
give us peace in a lullaby land.
Give us truth with no lie
that we have to stand up to,
no deception we don’t understand.
Make our enemies flee
before we even meet
and our friends always think
that we’re cool,
and though we break it freely,
make our families
always keep the golden rule.
Yes, we accept that
at times we’ll be tested,
and we know we’re supposed to rejoice,
but that will be easier
if You only expect us
to circle some multiple choice.
Make our dreams come true,
make our ministry grow,
make us feel like the heroes we are;
give us so many blessings
we’re no longer tempted
to envy the Instagram stars.
We’re only asking
with pure intentions
and worship-centered hearts—
we do want to follow,
but we’re so out of shape,
and You’re moving too fast and too far.
Velveteen Lady
At least I’m honest about it
you say, like it’s a small thing,
a participation prize
that we all know hides
a pitiable case of insufficiency.
You wear honesty
like spit-up staining
the sleeve of your t-shirt,
a little embarrassed
but aware that it’s there.
Sometimes I forget you’re serious,
sincere in missing the obvious—
so let me say it like this:
the truth is all there is,
the universe, the only gold,
the missing link, my trembling soul,
sacred starting place of hope,
but most of the empty hearts I know
will kill and die
to deny its light
because they’re too insecure
to be seen inside.
Yes: the lies end up lethal,
every time,
and if you don’t believe me,
try on friendship with a mannequin
to see if it fits—
tell her your secrets,
cry once or twice,
wrap your arms around her waistline tight
and speak your dreams,
your fears like you think she feels
anything along with you.
Hold her like a lifeboat
as your heart goes under,
gasp your last breath,
and then tell me again
that telling the truth
is a minor accomplishment.
All that we have and all that we are
is the truth,
bloody and human
and lovely and raw,
and it’s all that I want from anyone.
I’m not impressed by the perfect mom,
not holding out for any diva dream,
just hoping to find
any set of eyes
that will actually
look back at me.
I want someone real.
I hold far more respect
for the grueling tests
of courage and humility
than any white-toothed perfection
or college degree,
because I want relationships
more than mere rankings,
which makes safe people
the resource most precious.
I know that you know this,
but you also don’t.
Not enough yet.
If you can’t see
that the greatest gift you could ever offer
is your own bold heart, open and free,
all I can suggest
is that it’s time you learn
to be even more honest,
to finally acknowledge
the treasure you are
|since that, too, is the truth,
in spite of all spit-up,
regardless of flaws.
I have seen nothing in you
worth being ashamed of,
just a woman who climbs mountains
in her sleep
and then wakes unaware
of her heaven-close height.
Glass Half Masked
We grasp what scraps of summer we find
and wrap them around our fingers like rings.
Even the beach holds its breath.
Even the seaweed dreams.
No Cheek Left to Turn
Lord knows how to love
His enemies,
but I don’t.
Times like these,
it seems every friend
is a weapon,
every peace-intentioned word
warped into an act
of war.
Love is still what I
want, just not what
I stand for.
I would lock my knees
and hold my ground
if I found
a rock to count on,
but instead my
options are
to dare the
ocean to a
floating
contest—see
who ends up
sinking first—
or play hopscotch
across a schoolyard
minefield,
learn to fall up from
the earth
and fly.
Every time I try
to mend us up again,
we only rip.
But I would sit with you
still if it were
that simple.
Hand on your shoulder
blade, breath on
your neck,
we would grieve
this blood
together.
We would believe
that love makes
sense.
Unflattering Self-Portrait of the Artist
Lately, I can’t clean the anger
from the air quickly enough,
and it gets caught in my hair
like thick spider webs
stacked over each other
in sticky white layers.
They say to log out
for most of the day,
and I do,
but it isn’t enough—
because the anger has leaked
out past the screen protector
and settled here, offline,
beside me,
physical enough to pinch my ribs
when I try to focus
on anything different,
too abstract
to throw in the trash.
Lately, I think that
I am anger,
maybe.
Not the dream answer I whimsied up
in kindergarten
when teachers asked for
my future plans.
“I want to be deep hurt
darkened with bitterness,”
I didn’t say.
“I want to be others’ moral judge.
I want to be obsessively
never okay.”
The Familiar Dark
Nevermind the sunlight
with its whispers of another try.
Blacken out dawn’s maddening grin,
and in your everlasting dark
scribble over every dream
that dares to pry its way inside.
Simply plug your ears and scream
over hope’s sadistic singing
till you are left alone
under the comfortable
covers of despair,
cocooned in stillness
and commiseration,
not threatened by the awful glow
of any hard-earned glory
that you haven’t known.
Not One Falls
for the sweet Kichwa girl whom God has not forgotten
Oh our Father who art in heaven,
the soles of whose feet
are dirty with earth,
when an indigenous kid
is kidnapped and killed
and stretched out unburied far from home,
unmourned because of the native blood
that for fifteen rainy seasons danced her veins
in languages too satin, too delicate
for this money-punch crowd to comprehend,
she isn’t just another sparrow to You,
some native statistic out in the bush
who will never make the local news.
No, You stitched this girl together
from the crest where sunlight sparks on river,
from the birdsong that mixes with monkey chatter
and the stories that drift over open fires.
Now You sit vigil at her side,
cup her hair in Your hands and make lament.
You sing it the way her papa should have
and press Your scars, somehow still fresh,
against the wounds
that the world left open.
One day You will rise up
and avenge her death,
string her name like an arrow
in the bow of Your justice,
grown taut with patience—
but this evening You simply sit at her side
and cover her corpse
with the shadow of Your wings.
You will rise up, yes,
but there is an order of things,
and first You must show us
how to let ourselves feel it,
let ourselves weep,
how to love the least of these so much
we climb on their crosses with them
and bleed.
Backyard Apricots 