July 24th, 2014


Well I guess something happens in your body when it learns depression. The heaviness
of limbs, the dullness of sight. So my heart, a faster beat now, and my body a smaller
size now, and my eyes, darting and sharper now, still feel a little bit disconnected
from each other as if they are just learning to be friends after a long time of fighting.
Laundry is exhausting. Someday I won't think that. Someday it will be a small thing.
For now it is an exercise of will, as still sometimes, leaving the bed is. Three months
ago I was driving to church and I realized: all my hair, the hair that knew every heart
ache I had faced, was gone. The new hair, cut close to my skull, was innocent of wrong-doing
and had never hurt or been hurt. The body wants renewal. And so, in that moment suspended over all
things, I knew renewal fully. Redemption is not the erasure of all the wrong, but rather a lifting
in spite of. And, gripping the steering wheel, I laughed. Today, the smell of cut grass
rises to my window and the breeze coming in lifts my now-longer hair from my cheek with
the tenderness of all the lovers I've really loved, and how fortunate, really, we all are to be
alive, in spite of any pain that is a byproduct of all the possible joy. I will lie silently no longer.




Let all your words be stones
in the city you are building,
and all your actions be the mortar.
We will rebuild this world yet.
It is not too late, your skin is not
too thin, your arms are strong and
sunned, and your legs are powerful.
Soon the blueprint will rise. It will
be a smile that starts the revolution,
so be very brave and look kindly
into the faces of people you've vowed
to hate. Be very still and listen for answers
when you yell your questions to the sky.
Tighten your belt and lift your eyes.