f e t c h .

I’m going to remind you that this is all far fetched. Gloriously far fetched, but fetching. I could be next in line - next in the queue. All of these familiar feelings and unfamiliar ways...

But I like it very much. So, for now... for today... until whenever it’s without question.

If ever… I mean…

I’ll keep it in my pocket like a lucky stone.

Anyway, there are these moments where I can just float along and forget.

I hope and pray and dream and I can just be.

Even, this afternoon just as the storm came, I was drifting.

And then, out of thin air, curiosity slinks round my thoughts like a sneaky house cat, and all that was stilled, began moving. Later on, when I'm good and vexed and moody, there will be a sound when i least expect it. A feeling, a reminder like a gentle breeze whispering over your skin setting the butterflies alight... and I’m gone again. Just gone and set adrift. Just like that, I'm all at sea.

And so, let me remind you that I know that it’s all a bit far fetched

Except that it isn’t.

I feel it breathing

With me.

lady di.

We were on the patio that warm night

I can still smell it

The rich foods fading as the kitchen closed down for the night

The temperature falling, but not too much…

Spring was giving way to summer

I was glowing

Much like the red awning with all of the lights beneath

I was in love.

Madly

Deeply

Something stunning.

Something came alive in me

The stars had “aligned”

It was my turn

The sketches of dreams now filled in

I could see him

My gorgeous man

Becoming…

And I gave him that room

That grace to become

And I bloomed in the reciprocity

I was his.

It was beautiful and I glowed in it.

I never was moved by southern city names,

But it was all made right in Memphis.

Though it all began much earlier for me.

That night, I was floating.

I felt like I’d won the lottery of love.

The dreamy boy in school picked me!

That night, she approached me… meeting my smile

Happy for me, and I was surprised.

I knew we got along, but didn’t realize I meant much to her

It’s a sentiment echoed throughout much of my life, if I’m honest

But that’s another story for another time.

I was waiting with friends for him to clock out…

And she walked over to me as I sat at that black high patio table

I remember the grates and the feel of the chair beneath me

I remember her heels as she moved closer to me

Such a beautiful lady, she was.

She spoke to me with an air of authority that stilled me

She said, “he better treat you like a queen, and don’t you dare ever settle for less”

I remember that I stopped breathing for a second.

Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?

You see it all so clearly…

Not how it felt, or the heaviness of the door, or how familiar the place had become

Not the table numbers or the drinks or the faces of regulars

Or the playlist on heavy rotation… what game was on

What time it was…

But every feeling filling in the details with color

And the fact that I still saw myself as a girl of the cinders

Waiting to be discovered by a prince

Waiting to become a princess

When all the while I was a queen.

un...found

Find me

Infuriated

Full of light and fury

Full of dark and hurry

Full of angst and worry

Anxious in a still still room

On a bed

Unslept

Held only by walls I painted

Tucked in some lonesome corner of the county

Wrapped up in shrouds of beauty

Most of them would curse it

Most of them would lay down and die

It.

The heavy weight of being cast off.

The moment you wake to realize you are no longer…

The love of anyone’s life.

The highest priority…

The deepest heartbeat

The most beautiful

The apple of their dark eyes

The motivating factor

The color in the sky…

The light… the light that makes them move…

You’ve been unraveled

Unwoven

Unloved.

Undone.

And ushered by your lover into the very jaws of hell…

And left

To drink the seas of loneliness down…

The pale ring on the finger of your left hand…

The diamond lost.

Now, wrapped up in excuses and justifications

And the passing off of blame

Heavy on your shoulders

Heavy on your head

Heavy on your furrowed brow

Heavy on your mind

Always on your mind

Haunted…

Silent and haunted.

Feeling breathless

Burning lungs

Cracked lips

A prayer ever on my lips…

Unuttered words

And lost affection

Stolen affection

And the red marks of lies like welts to the face.

And so in this brokenness… I wait.

Wait in the feeling

Wait in the knowing

Wait until I’m healed

Wait until I’m found

Find me…

the madness. [prelude]

There are the blues.

There are the mean reds.

And then there is the madness.

You cannot choose it.

It’s like an illness of providence.

Not mad in the sense of being a harm to yourself or others…

Not mad in the sense of creating your own reality…

But mad in the sense of being able, or rather willing to sit in the ache.

To find words to explain the feelings.

The highest of the highs…

The lowest of despondent lows…

And giving meaning and depth… making a song out of the rhythm of the every day.

Because it isn’t always these tiresome waves…

Waves of jubilee.

Waves of sadness.

Sadness.

That word just seems so mild.

When what you mean is something so incredibly cold that it burns…

And bones ache

Delirious with the feeling.

Every breath is agony.

But there’s this mark that your eyes are fixed on…

This deep intent to survive it.

To be still in the chaos… not to be part of it, or to allow it to become you…

Not to overpower it with anger.

But breathe through it slowly like labor pains…

Engulfing.

Trusting that there is something miraculous on the other side.

Trusting that you’ll be carried to the shore,

And find your feet again

Again

Again.

Again.

And so you sing your way through it

You give the pain a sound

You harmonize with the wailing

To make some beauty of the dark.

The madness…

Is my being thrown against the blackness of the sky

Being buried in the grief of midnight

And letting it crush me until I become a diamond

And my pain explodes into a hundred stars

To guide some weary eyes to a new dawn of hope.

It is hope singing in the middle of the night.

And so here I am.

It has eluded me.

I have run and run and run til I can run no more.

Put the day to bed…

And let me sing again.

It is flashback friday after all...

i found some old entries from twenty-ten.
it's so remarkable to me...
i understand that hindsight is 20/20. but i was so passionate. so alive. so very confused. but i'd rather that state of confusion than the one i'm in at present.

there was a man in my world at the time who doted on me like none has.
i found it too good to be true and i ran from his advances.
tried to anyway.
looking back, i see that i blossomed in them. i bloomed. i came even more alive. i missed him until i ached. i spoke of him whenever i had the chance, and my face glowed and cheeks blushed when i thought of him.
he may very well have been a charlatan.
he may very well still be.
but i was, for a few very real moments falling in love with him.

d i s t a n c e .

i wrote so many songs.
putting up a fight.
and falling.
enamored.
he spoke to me in ways i'd never been talked to.
he chased after my heart.
he was the first thought in the morning.
my last thought at night.
and i eagerly awaited his calls and messages.
they went both ways.
i wasn't pursuing.
for once in my life, it wasn't all me.

how lovely life can be when it is two instead of one.

all i have now are these snapshots.
and i compare and contrast.
and it all seems so very silly, in the end.

i have no idea how i got here.
in the middle of winter... in a thick forest full of trees.
it feels endless on all sides.
and i just want a hope for the future.
and to be adored here.
to have a joy here.
shalom.

oh God in heaven, what on earth has happened here?