Jumping Cats

Jumping Cat's

This made me laugh inside for a minute

And I'm a big fan of fireworks

You aren't so omnipresent

Finally, after all this time,
Just this much time,
Not very long after all,
For the first time,
In a long time
I sat for over an hour and nothing I was thinking was about you...
Because I was watching a movie.
I think back now and realize that since that hour
I've had a few meals that weren't about you
I've watched 2 movies that weren't about you...for the first time now.
I put on 3 shirts that weren't about you
I played songs that weren't about you
I spent time with a friend and her 2 year old kid
& while looking at him all I saw was you
But since then I haven't seen you all the time,
like I have seen you in everything, every five minutes,
for every day of the last three years or more
You're still here buried in my love, woven in, tainting my outlooks,
But you aren't everywhere
Finally, after all this time

Just this much time,

Not very long after all,

For the first time,

In a very long time

Rainy Monday

I'm a rainy Monday when the world is new

When Christ is new in me when the old is left for dead

I'm not your grieving Father

I'm not the break in your broken home

I'm not too silent but you should be speaking

I'm the intervening distance

the beaching hour

The light, the water, the sand is good for me in the holiest of ways and the most down to earth
I think He knows what we need, when we need it and how we'll take it because He first loved

Oh brother where art...

I think I'm praying for my brothers at night when my heart hurts
when I finally stop aching over my own broken hearts,
when the sun burns me down so I remember more than I forget
when I'm running in the salt, wet to the knees but dry inside
when an exhausting beach is so much rest to my sore, sore fight
when my throat is parched, my heart is full & God must be moving somewhere

ghosts of beaches past

this week has been a mild kaleidoscope and though I'm not sure that's spelled right, it's feeling exact
and I'm deciding and deciding and deciding every now and then if I'm okay,
but mostly I won't let myself stop for just long enough to decide
as I count the costs of each distraction, does sanity or peace triumph or battle on
youth and the re-hashing of the same sobers even as it revitalizes again & anew
I'm less sure of anything about you but slowly less scared of myself

Happy :: Birthday :: Joshua

Today is my little brother's 21st birthday,
I don't know that it's a happy day, but I really want it to be
I wish I could take him to the strawberry festival like we used to
I wish that my entire goal in life today was once again to give him a Pooh present
& I wish we could butt heads because we're so alike, so different,  so stubborn & the same
I feel bittersweet, sad, a little guilty for not being perfect & making the world perfect for him
but that's not a new feeling ,mostly I'm just full of memories
It's not that I've never had a brother turn 21 before
But I've never had my red headed, bright blue eyed little boy brother turn 21
And something feels almost wrong about it, and a little empty
Maybe it's just because I can't see him & I always thought I would.

None The Wiser

Oh Dusk, you're shaking me, with your weak eyes dark
with the tears I've always swallowed stuck in my throat,
with my spirit emptied out with my body worn & hollow
In dusk I am briefly silenced & you are strangely shallow

I will only start to shake moments before the ones that matter
just before you turn to walk away & long before you made your mind up
you're an empty bed of lies but not on your best day if I'm honest
I only shake under the table, I only cry alone on the alter

If you had my eyes you wouldn't see love as your warzone
If I had your life I wouldn't understand the tough parts
you become yourself when you first think of someone else
if you have my eyes again, we will both be old and wiser

And Dark, if you ever come, if dusk ever opens
Take me in your hands and remind me how I know you
I am only wise where I let myself surrender
Light completes when dusk & dawn both birth & grieve the circle

Use Plain, Simple Language

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English—it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

MARK TWAIN

redemption or something in the morning

I mostly just want to be free again, 
to wake in the morning and not feel
like I should have done something different
I want regret to have moved to Nashville
and I want the future to be here
I'm not trying to rush things
But I'm ready to stop rehashing
the past and it's products
however it turns out from here


All I want is in the morning
to wake up and know that I'm alive
to feel like I've been praying enough 
that God knows my heart & mind
and that I know my own self 
and that someday someone else will too
and love me for it, unselfishly
once I learn to be unselfish.
once I learn to be less selfish. It's slow work