One more beat

2012-02-16T11:01:00.001-08:00

I never knew, I never knew, that I could love someone the way that I love you. So, please, can this time be different. I'm on my knees begging. I can't watch the same roller coaster climb and let the anticipation build only to arrive and be told it's all over, no more carnival for me, no more anything. Done and over kid, get out of here, move along. That's what they keep saying to me. But I know I'm supposed to be there. I know it in the marrow of my bones in a place they can't even see. I know it deep into my veins where needles can't reach and no one can change. Except my fickle heart, but let her run her course, she'll be back soon enough. One more beat, one more beat. She'll be back, just wait one more beat.

Would it be enough?

2012-02-15T06:17:00.000-08:00

I want to write the words, like on the page, so thick you can hardly swallow them, so thick they burn with truth. Frozen cookies for breakfast, Jesus miracles, and the beginning of the weekend...these are a few of my favorite things. And they make me write. But I'm afraid of this burning truth. Afraid I can't face the words like a woman, because I fear I'm still just a girl child, running around with no where to go, surviving off the illusions of acknowledgment. I want to go stand on the corner and I want the rain to fall down and I want them all to look and know that I'm in love. Like the stuck in your heart forever kind of love. And I want the fire to prove it, but I don't want to feel the flames.

Would you still write me elusive words on pages if you knew? Would you still dream big dreams and ask the maker of the stars if He thinks you should love this girl, if you knew she was partly a woman? Would you still promise to save the long breaths with lips open like two children in the dark if you knew there were 100 like them with a man? Would it be enough if I told you they weren't like yours, they didn't take my breath away for years and years and years? Would it be enough if I told you I'd always come back, just hold me, just call me baby?

And I play the song for the thousandth time. She says it just like I want to. She says it won't be easy. That no one is perfect. But she says "promise I'm worthy" and I can't make the same promise. I can't bring any worth. Everything good I did or am is all Him in me, the longing for splendor. "I know it ain't easy giving up your heart" she chimes. And I used to want to scream "give it to me!" because remember I was a girl-child with barefoot green feet and obsessions that kept me sane. But the more moons that shine the more I want to wait. I want to hold out and make sure it's real. I want to believe that if I keep breathing you will too and no one will get scared and jump up and leave. But I hold my breath in fear all the same.

You write me letters and I write you back on pink lined paper and dream of days when they will all fit in a box and we'll look back and remember what love looked like--then we'll laugh because we didn't know then, but oh, mercy and grace we know now. She reminds me the best love letters are the ones simply breathed and lived and laid down with a life. Seven years later I check, and we're still breathing, though the shallow inhales that are barely there have kept most everyone confused for days. The doctors especially, scoffing as they doubt the maturity of the lungs that breath in half breaths just to keep living. My body thirsts long for air, but I'm afraid if I drink in a breath I'll stop breathing...or maybe that I'll breathe forever, and forever is a long, long time.

Remember when I wanted to paint words on my body and you said no and I said okay and I thought then maybe, that my body was your temple too, because my burdens you will promise to carry. Am I thinking ahead of myself? Do I care?

Out of the Heart

One more beat

Would it be enough?