Jesus give me something to say, or Your Spirit to pray, or else take all the things You gave me and put them away. a bright gold coin in a pocket of dirt. a black book on the nightstand of the american family, never having been opened, afraid of what they might learn. for it seems every time i feel pressed to speak i can't find Your wisdom or else ( Read more... )

fingernails white, polished and perfectly even, to match the marble tile, chosen out of a thousand. 'it sets the mood,' she said, with a memory shuffling it's feet in her excited eye. remembering when she went to the seashore and gathered a pail full of the prettiest, pale shells to give her dying brother. she'll start to cry now, or else shake her ( Read more... )

i believe the Son of God gave warning, 'while you men were asleep, it was your wives that came and restored my life!' but her legs are so long! the sun is too hot! the summer is almost gone! humming with fingers in the ears, forgetting how to listen. so i stand, with the rest of man, chasing the dress that was pinned down the best, denying that ( Read more... )

i was a five year old with my pale legs pressed against the heaving sides of the faithful horse that had carried my body across that long and lonely stretch of prairie. but i was actually just prancing about the kitchen floor holding on to the top of a wooden stick and opening the refrigerator door. i thought the cold air felt nice. it really was ( Read more... )

i go for tea. cinnamon if i can get it. i wonder, do i drink the tea because everyone else does? or did i start because everyone else did and then learn that i liked it quite enough to drink it on my own. even when no one else is with me. save the cute girl at the counter that tucked the bag full of cinnamon chips and orange peel into the corner of ( Read more... )

that night at the lake. where the sand was just shapes that fit and our words were only what we meant. i didn't think it at the time, but i'd never made anyone cry, except maybe my mother. you were the first love i ever had. i was afraid of you friend, and i remember the day i thought we'd never speak again. i remember the fourth of july. my ( Read more... )

gentle hands grasping the harsh terry cloth, scrubbing at the stains on the oven, like the tar on the teeth of her youngest who says she can quit when she feels like it. dabbing at the dust in the corners of the countertop that have been there since before her husband decided he no longer cared and left for someone that wasn't over forty. biting ( Read more... )

child, my child where have you gone?
i rest where the light is not so strong.
sometimes i see it drifting through the grass, but the dead cannot bear to look at life to long.

O' my God, what have i done?
heaven was in my hand.
and i gave it up for idle plans.

Son of Man, restore what i am.

rejoice! rejoice! Emanuel.

i often think i would like the south. i don't know for certain, never having been below virginia, but i have the idea. the idea where the old man across the street is not a neighbor but a friend. his white hair and shaking hands infinitely comforting. where the girl that sits, chattering, across from me, in the open air of the restraunt over the ( Read more... )

'God, am i gonna die ( Read more... )