Tired of fighting and working in this way, needing to work it out my own way, needing to know my reaching is enough, needing to know I'm validated by something, needing to know somebody's got my back, needing to know I'm loved. Needing like a baby, desperate and crying when I feel like nobody understands me, falling apart for moments every day because that's just how it goes, how it goes like I have no control, how the wind is soft in the moment on the grass when my legs are crossed like a first grader and my eyes are closed to the sun: this is the moment I am drinking in God's peace.

I am a closed book. But my heart is open.

early stages

Tuning the radio between the tears to find you,
to hear you crying back for me, asking me to
(in the blackness of night) turn around, don't be
stupid- just turn around. You are not hip-hop
like he was, you are not loud noises, or even
crooning old country like I hear in my own
quiet. You are not the contemporary Jesus
tunes I will listen to on repeat without noticing.

And you most certainly are not a quiet drive
half past two or a quarter to the world ending.
You are a soft song, the peace between acoustic
waves. You are the quiet at the beginning of a slow
love song. You are the way slow dancing feels,
the way I can't remember being born, the way
love happens slowly and heartbreak turns into
a distant hum, hours away.

When I finally hear the right song, I am with you
again in a parking garage, fogging windows with
laughter. I am singing the words to the song of
you.

Having a hard time trying to say what I need to say without going too far, without losing it, without saying too much, without finding a hook caught to the inside of my cheek, without being up the creek without even a boat: something about the way things feel is killing me.

I've never had trouble doing things my way. Right now, I'm figuring out which way my way is.