Behind Closed Doors

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character, crying, heart, observation, pain, pretend

I wonder about her story, the girl behind the closed door. She says nothing for minutes after the lock latches and soles heel-toe down the hall because there’s nothing to say. There are only those first seconds after he leaves to let the silence keep on repeating the stale lies that she should leave, pack her luggage tonight, that dissonance seeds decay.

I wonder if, when the door closes, loneliness descends. If she stands alone in a space too tall and wide, suffocating tonight. Smashed inside her chest cavity, her heart is crushed under the weight of no sound. It becomes hard to breath. Through clenched teeth and tongue, the air whistles as she draws deeper breaths, craving oxygen so her lungs can fill, and her shoulders heave. It’s no use. Tears fall freely, trails of mucus, too. She breaks the silence in colors and cries, stained glass shattered beneath her bare tender feet.

An hour in the mind passes, three minutes on the clock. A victim of convulsions that tremor in the ends of the fingertips, pushing her stomach into feigned pregnancy in periodic dry heaves. She calms herself with self-help techniques from potpourri time in therapy, talks herself into relaxation that is like sleep but consciously.

If she stays, what makes it okay? She’ll wash her face, a cold rag on thin eyes. Take her made-up face into the world where no ones knows her name. Play-act and pretend in a place where she feels safe.  Until she returns or he leaves and she’s left again with this impossible voicelessness.

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I’m Through

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Christians, fear, God, Gram, grandma, hate, hypocrisy, judgment, love, pain, quotations, sayings, words

My Grandma used to say “I’m through.” when she was done. With her meal, with a chore, with someone who was bothersome. It was the way she said finished—and she must have used it often, made it part of her normal vocabulary, because when I hear the word used out of typical context, I can hear her voice with finality, even after all these years.

I’m through, and plates clatter on their way to sink and the dishwasher.

I’m through, the dustcloth is tossed to the bottom of the stairs, the paper towel finds the trash can, the bottles of cleaning liquid rattle atop the washing machine.

I’m through, even with people. When my Aunt—a grown-up, but still her daughter, wasn’t thinking logically, and giving Gram a hard time—Gram wouldn’t waste he time “talking to a wall,” she said. She’d wait until folks came around and made some sense with their words.

As Gram used to say, then, I’m through. I’m through with this judgment, with these archaic black and whites. I’m through with these shadows of love, with ignorance and arrogance. I’m through with the silence, the stares, the exclusion, the pain. I’m through with the thick black line you’ve drawn between us and all. The cold hellos, the dry goodbyes. I’m through with how you use religion to make us feel this way.

Bearing Burdens

Tags

burden, conversation, emotion, God, healing, love, marriage, pain, past, relationship, sharing, unity

I’ve carried my burdens.
Bore them for miles.
Hesitant, resilient to impart my trials.
To share too deeply,
With anyone, really.

It’s not trust, I don’t think fear
Not instability or feeling irresolute.
It’s the way I know it weighs down,
And how I’ll be to blame.
The way it will weigh love
Make your love for me swing low
With my trials, my shame.

When I give my sh*t to God,
He doesn’t flinch, move, budge an inch.
His heart hurts with my hurts,
But he heals as I wound, clots while I bleed,
Mends as I rip stiches with my breaths, gasp and heave.
I pile my sh*t on you, and you ache, anger, bleed.
It’s with me and for me, which should stop my re-shame.
It doesn’t, I throb, wishing my mess back into my own depth.
Wondering if keeping to myself
Would’ve just been best.

These breaths we take together.
Our steps, some pained, are measured.
This is what it is to share.
To come out from my corner, alone,
To say I promise, I’m weak, I’m yours.
For you to promise, I’ll stay.
Yours is ours.

Close Isn’t Comfortable

Tags

camp, conversation, family, frendship, Hiawatha Youth Camp, life, Mom, movie, pain, staff, summer, youth

Mom said your name. Your mom, I mean. It’s just that after so many years of the way we were, friends the way we were, I became so used to saying her name the way you say it, like she was mine. I see now that she’s not and that I just became so comfortable so close. It pushed you this far, I did.

Anyway, she said your name. Your mom did. My ears leaned closer, my body didn’t move. No one knew I was listening hard to the mumbled words she said next across the room where the lights were off and the staff was chattering. Something about something and then, she’ll arrive at midnight. The last name I’d heard was yours and I thought she still meant you. My eyes opened wide in the dark, my pupils like shutters, wide to let in low light. Wide to let in the thought of you, here with me and us, like every year before. Ashleigh asked what while I hung my head and confessed. I thought you were coming, but I’d made a mistake.

It’s fine, I said. Ash’s elbow leaned on my knee, we were about to watch a movie. She heard me sniffle, saw my sleeve up on my face. Of course you’re not coming at midnight tonight. You’re down South, done with this, all grown up. Close isn’t comfortable anymore; I pushed you this far.

In Your Shoes

Tags

friendship, geography, Gucci, Nike, Nordstrom, pain, sandals, shoes, travel, youth camp

Here’s the thing about shoes, they’ll walk the miles with or without you. I don’t know where these sandals have been. They’re not Gucci, so I don’t worry about taking them down dusty roads to the youth camp where we met, in the woods near a lake. They’re not even sale rack status at the Nordstrom on State Street, so I wear them when I play in the rain, even if the mud spills over from the lawn and dirties the bottoms, cakes onto the soles when they dry. They have a Nike swoosh on the thick rubber strap, but the strap broke away from the soles years ago and we nailed it back together, together. It may have been the last thing we did—together. Usually kids use duct tape for these kinds of fix-it projects. I don’t remember using nails, but the evidence would set off a metal detector if I walked through with these shoes. The way we used nails makes me laugh.

Walking in your shoes...

Your shoes don’t miss you. They don’t refuse to be used without you around. They’ll trek across the country whether your feet are in them or not. Your shoes aren’t partial. Your shoes would never leave me if I made a mistake.

And so I slip my too-small feet into your shoes day after day. They don’t fit match go together. They aren’t mine to wear lend leave carelessly around. Yet I do. And because I wear them everywhere, even where’s where they don’t belong, our soles share this space and I don’t need your permission. Your shoes will go where you won’t. And in them I will go.

The Stranger

Tags

Christ, church, faith, friendship, gay, GLBT, homorsexuality, loss, pain, prayer, The Marin Foundation

The other day I got a message: pray for my friend. So I did. She has some friends who are struggling with homosexuality. I thought, okay.

The core of me pulsed like the heartbeat that moves into your thumb. Something about this was specifically for me. I had spent some time following a friend who was following the Lord. His message and passion were tied up in a foundation, The Marin Foundation, that seeks to elevate the conversation between the gay and church communities. Learning about all the deep-seated hate here had sparked something in me. Something righteous, I think. There’s healing here, I learned. And I’m moving ashamedly out from ignorance, now. So when this message came, I was feeling heavy as hell.

I prayed about this stranger like I was a third grader again and the world didn’t extend far beyond the playground and this friend of my friend’s was my very best friend in the whole wide world. But also not like a third grader, not like Jesus, bless Mommy and Daddy and my puppy, Spike, more like I was caring deeply for the condition of her soul and for her dear friends, these mysterious brothers and sisters in our grand body of Christ. The depth of me was unknowable, even to me. Especially to me. I was praying like an adult–like someone who knew this stranger.

I prayed the principles that Andy has drawn from Scripture in his book; I prayed the practical applications. Will she love tangibly these friends of hers who are struggling? Draw caring mentors and Biblical support systems in swarms around this sexual confusion. Bring truth. Make bold folks that don’t say it’s alright to give in. Can You let no one walk away. Everyone always wants to walk away.

She wasn’t a stranger, this friend I kneeled for more than a time or two–this girl no one knew. I had been on my knees, crushing divots into rough crevice of carpeting, on two specific nights and in-between for my sister, but not just any sister, not just some stranger. This stranger walked with me when I hardly knew Christ, walked through my shame with me, came out and healed with me, lived this life in sorrow and in joy with me. And walked away from me. Or I from her. And still, my heart burns, Let no one walk away.

Review: a poem

Tags

child, loss, movies, pain, regret, review, schoolgirl, theater

I should’ve read a review about you.

Should’ve done my homework,,
packed my peanut butter in a paper bag,
looped my saddle shoes on the Welcome mat
before the stairs to the street and the school bus.

Now I’m the little girl with a stick of chalk,
the red-faced one with the marker at the board,
staring at an empty space
waiting to escape the turning in my gut
that rumbles, echoes before a bolt:
a brilliant idea,
a gold star response,
the square root of twelve
times old stripes by socks.

Do my frown and sinking eyes
hurt you to look away when I
slide into my desk-chair cell?
What if I’m the fearful little girl
who will never raise her hand again
in a classroom of all eyes on her
because she forgot to do her homework?

If I’d read a review about you
like web columns on the movies
we watch and watch and rent and attend,
if I’d reviewed the things you’d promise
the love you’ve left abandoned and behind,
I could make piles of chalk dust,
drawing until you made me stop.
And the board on that day
would’ve told me years ago to stop.

I should’ve read a review about you.

Finding Encouragement in the Strangest Places

Tags

blog, comfort, God, healing, longing, love, marriage, pain, Savior, sorrow, writing

There’ve been so many thoughts standing on the edge of somewhere this past week or so.  Every stimulant is a memory.  There’s so much writing going on in my head, on ripped off pieces of reciept paper, around the edges of napkins, even on the inside of my duct tape wallet, where last months poem has faded to almost gone.  I’ve gotta set my feet a bit more on the ground in order to get it all out properly. 

And, what am I doing exploring the blog’s of folks I don’t know when I have work for my graduate classes due many yesterday’s ago?  Can’t answer that one, but this post of a Godly dude stopped me from moving another inch.  Check it out here. [Posted without permission…is that legit?]

I hate when I read things that aren’t written in light of my thoughts or choices at all, and they seem to be spot on, speaking directly into my life!  For a second, it’s sorta creepy.  But then it’s like my customer at booth 42 said, “I don’t believe things like this are a coincidence at all.”  You’re right, Pastor Dan, they’re not.

I still don’t want to, but it’s time to open my clenched fists and be healed.  Father, go slowly, cause I’m still on the edge of breaking.