we are surprised ;

we are surprised ; by
by and by, joy seeps in our
crevices

we are surprised ; honey
trails on the counter
rivers for ants. we are

surprised ; there
is no question leaving
doesn't press into our
faces.

day wears the
questions: on, in, around,
(eyes) my we

are cracked ; there is
room, by and by, rivers and lakes,
for light.

scurry along, home to
where the ;
questions aren't for
answers(answers

don't demand
a word)

for you I wish.

i.
for you I wish
cups of coffee clinking
weekly maybe daily, but only
with a friend.
the
type that understands
your reasons for
refusing sugar, refusing cream, drinking
black.

ii.
for you I wish
days when the marrow
of life sprouts flowers,
little green things that
insist on growing.
smelling wet under gray
skies split at the
seams.

iii.
for you I wish
slowness, the ability to sit
watching birds, sunsets,
the lulling strands of
conversation. promises of stillness on
warm spring evenings,
when
your soul leaps, fits breathes, over
what is
small.


hannah nicole

dandelions.

you stand in the middle of the kitchen

because your mother said it was easier,

said it was lighter without the weight of

a braid thick as the bread your

grandma used to knead back and forth

on her wooden table. your grandpa

made that table when your mother

still ran around in long

hair tangled with weeds she still

believed were flowers. there

were five chairs then, she tells you they

were crooked.

misshapen like the scar on your arm

from falling off the willow the

seventh summer you lived. the branches

pulled the sky to the earth,

dirt cracked your wrist, but

you were lucky. you were lucky,

your daddy said

to only have the breath stolen from

your lungs for a moment. that

moment of grasping for

air never left you, still, and

you

stand in the middle of the kitchen

crying as, in one snip, the past your

waist strands of your hair swish.

near your bare feet and she's wrong

it's not

lighter.

you finger the sudden cut and peek

in the chipped mirror, you look older.

and now

it's too late to pretend you won't

ever grow up, too

late to still call dandelions

flowers.

coffee shop.

I am alone but not lonely. tell me,
how can i be? i am a part
of the passing glances of strangers, grabbing
coffee cups in four sizes for fifty eight
kinds of heartbreak, (number three:
a sun setting suddenly on familiar
red wind fields come autumn, the
same, every year, the difference, every year.
number eighteen and a half: the first laugh of your baby,
the last word before a goodbye. inexplicably
intertwined with how your face feels creases)
every hello, i manage to slip
my hand into, i find a way to whisper
my name into lapses of conversation, if
only to say, "I am
here."
the door opens and closes for people,
friends, lovers, strangers, all
saying good day, and i am somewhere
no where, now here, a part
of the dust in the air from
boots treading dirty roads, a single
fluttering breath in these
minute exchanges meaning
everything and yet nothing at once.
this, you spill accidentally, not unlike,
the stains leaving rings in your journal,
still bitter when the smell leaves your
fingers. i stay long
after the doors have shut, and always
choose the oldest leather chair
to unravel my worries into, spilling
them alongside sips of
a lattee foamed with milk. is
there anything lovelier? my name is written
in sharpie on the side. i read between
the lines of every letter and write
a poem for each barista that
scribbles the h in my name with a swoop,
for the ones who scrawl the letters tightly,
a love song. there are white pages
before me bound in the third journal
i've used in two years. look, do you see the
blue sky, washed clean after rain?
outside. if you wait, it will ring gold and
how can i (you) be lonely, when you
sit next to a window?

an empty net.

when you're seven you
spend a week fishing for
crayfish in the harbor.
it's the promise of boiling them
later, in butter that keeps
you lying on the hot wood
of the dock. "I got one!" your
cousins cry and you jump
from your stomach, breaking
the rule of not-running near
the boats just this once, to see.
in bare feet, you're more likely to catch
splinters than your net a
swimmer, but you keep scooping
the mesh in and out of the
murky water. the day slips
past, darting from the sun's travel
like the minnows hiding in
the shadows and you spend half
of it trying to avoid tripping
the rest of the cabiners. they go out to
catch a fish perpetually growing
from spinning lines, a story
more tangled than the poles sitting
on the side of grandma's cabin.
when you're seven you eat crayfish with
your fingers and collect
freckles like lucky stones from
sprawling in the sun all day, and
promise yourself each summer
will stay the same.

...

is there anything
that sits better
on your skin than
the feeling after
a good run?
it's contradictory
to what vogue
says, yes, but
i alway feel
beautiful after
finishing one.

and even now.

the morning air barely crept from the
dew and i thought, how early it
must be, little did i know what a
secret pleasure to be awake
before the rest of the world decides dreaming
is not enough.

i slipped from my house
and forgot to leave a note,
i forgot to say where i was going,
because when you are young
enough to forget, you are young enough
to not worry about leaving.

we went for a walk,
together and i was happy, maybe
more so than i can remember.
one foot in front of the
other, and deep breaths in summer
woods, my grandparents and
i.

once, i drank ginger ale
and i accidentally sliced my finger on the tab,
it was just a small cut barely worth
mentioning, but
i cried as my grandma and
aunt and i, crammed into
the bathroom to get the antiseptics
and i cried as they dabbed
it on my finger.

it shouldn't have happened
but that does little to change
things, besides, i was a big girl,
even then.

now i find myself
watching the sunset and watching the sunrise
almost simultaneously.
now i find myself crying
over spilled milk more than
i should and do you know,
i can't drink
ginger ale without tasting the
sky from that afternoon.

i remember the trees
spread their green canopy
blocking out the sky and my
feet were dirty from running
barefoot all summer.

and even now,
i still love
long walks by myself more
than i should.

we walk into winter's daybreak.

we walk into winter’s daybreak.

and it's these simple things that i will miss
though i hold them close in hands already
forgetting how to let go.
(i’m a conundrum) a riddle caught;
in the joy of the chase and the trap,
the home of a heart steeped too far in nostalgia.

i will not go bitter into the day because of
moments no longer mine.
i will not crouch in fear on my step, for
lack of familiarity. how much longer will
we live in togetherness not really seeing, to
simply be in the understanding of what
we need is
here?

four hundred and forty eight days, i pretend
not to count on my fingers but i am
too slow to hide. please don’t mistake this
for happiness, because i am
tangled tangled tangled in what is to
come. direction is different than destination and
there are roads
and paths
and places in between yet, my head hurts
because i cannot find the roadmarks to home
on any map.

these days are the songs i could
never sing of birds i could never keep and already
autumn has ended. composed of what i will miss
the most, no matter how hard i try,
i can only play broken notes on a piano too
old to stay properly in tune.

it will be the same,
it's easy to say, but a packed suitcase and a
room no longer called my own
put me as a traveler.

in the end,
birds are meant
to leave their nests and spring
does not hide her face forever though
it is changed,
each time.

a monday micropoem / haiku

                              i feel like a pine.
                              watercolor white branches.
                              again dreaming of leaves.

my life as a poem.

inspired by the lovely abby

I am the dripping faucet.
I am the leaking boat.
I am the dropping gauntlet.
I am the faded coat.

I am the deepening twilight.
I am the sky pulled blue.
I am the first wide-eyed sight.
I am the beauty of the new.

I am the tangled hair.
I am the days of dreams.
I am the wind in air.
I am the soft split seams.

I am the longing morning.
I am the quiet night.
I am the gentle warning.
I am the heavy fight.

I am the ink touched fingers.
I am the paint brushed dry.
I am the hello that lingers.
I am the hush of a lullaby.

I am the singing sparrow.
I am the light of evening.
I am the whistling arrow.
I am the blue of leaving.

I am the unclosed front door.
I am the bare feet come spring.
I am the whistling of the moor.
I am the quiet winters bring.

I am the long adventure.
I am the break of dawn.
I am the brave new venture.
I am the beginning of a song.

I am the nerves backstage.
I am the hands that knead.
I am the smell of sage.
I am the rubbed clay bead.

I am the wild wood berry.
I am the shivery night sky stars.
I am the breathless song danced merry.
I am the first strum of guitars.

I am the late night lazy.
I am the campfire smoke.
I am the morning mist hazy.
I am the heart no longer broke.

I am the mountains grown tall.
I am the last poem you ever loved.
I am the photo on the wall.
I am the kiss of those beloved.

I am the filled journal pages.
I am the golden afternoon.
I am the stories told for ages.
I am the first day of june.

I am the hills of purple heather.
I am the dirt under your nails.
I am the seas stormy weather.
I am the forgotten lonely trails.

I am the sound of a shutter.
I am the smell of home.
I am the words you'd never utter.
I am the traveler, alone.

winter's gathering.

I'll bring the sun across the snow
the sweeping light from down below
the swoop of a bird across the sky
the dancing dust of winter's eye

a cup to clink and tea to brew
the warmth for hands burned blue
I'll bring laughter, you bring cheer
I'll bring coming, you bring here

and in the swiftly darkening night
I'll bring the candle's yellow light
while under the stars soft, looping lusk
the moon paints the world deep with dusk.

some winter poetry.
(lusk means lazy, just so you know :) )

hope is very real, i am reminded.

maybe it's ugly
maybe it's dark
maybe it's hard
maybe it's uncomfortable
but it's real

we cannot hide in the midst
of our own little
homes, squirreling
ourselves away like
we! are somehow better;
no. we do not live in
disney land
and this is
no vacation

if you have a voice
you are to speak
if you have a song
you are to sing
if you have a mission
you are to go

you are a voice to
those who have none;
why are you whispering or
not speaking at all?

were you once --
better?
your ripped, aching, bleeding,
tarnished, dirty, empty,
broken heart --
healed, freed, made new, made whole,
redeemed, by Christ.

(go now, my
child) He says (you
are my hands and
feet).

but Lord!

(i have given
because you are
mine,
give because
you are mine)

but Lord!

(i have a purpose for
you.
and it's your choice to
walk away or
follow me)

you are not mute
you are not deaf
you are not blind
you are not lame
do not pretend you
cannot speak, hear, see, do

not that, Lord!
it's too hard. someone
else can --

(you are someone else)

it is dark and
uncomfortable,
Lord!

(but it is very real)
I am reminded.

my hands
are closed; i live
tight-fisted. it is
too much to
hold
(you are not alone)
I am reminded.

but Lord, there is so much
evil! what can i, just one
do?
(hope is very real,
have i not called you like
Moses?)

there are so many
broken hearts
ripped, scribbled, tattered,
torn.
my heart weeps; and
with my one
life -- what? Lord, what
am i to do?

(have i not called you like
Moses? when you
pass through the waters
i will be with you)

i didn't ask
for this, God!
i just want a
normal life, who am
i to speak?

(i have given you a
voice so you may
speak for
those who cannot.
my child)

my voice is fragile
(i am your strength)

but
what will i
say, Lord?

(have i not called you like
Moses?
i will give you
words to speak - i have
given you words to speak;
do not let them go
unsaid)

these are real people
these are real hearts
this is real brokenness

but
hope is very real.
i am reminded.

read some of Christian Caine's book, Undaunted, and feeling my heart break for those caught in sex and human trafficking. this poem is for me. to challenge myself. to dare myself. to remind myself. how can I know of such evil and pain and sorrow and pretend it does not exist, hiding in my own little home? how can i, who am made free in Christ, pretend that i do not have a life to give? sex trafficking and human trafficking is a dark and uncomfortable subject and unfortunately, it is very real. but hope is very real and the Gospel is very real and Jesus is the most real of anything, ever. He has the power to break all chains, to loosen all bonds, to heal, free, and redeem everyone and every circumstance.

break my heart for what breaks yours.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

and after all this time

and after all this time
we will still say
love prevailed
(dry your cry eyes
little one, my
shoulder is here)
he says

and after all this time
we have only broken
fifteen plates, a
record unmatched
broken plates are
better than hearts
(and yours is
already chipped enough
by this chapped world)
he says

and after all this time
we still dance
in the kitchen
my jeans are coated
with flour, cakes make
a mess, and
i am a clumsy dancer,
but you laugh. love
to take me in your arms
(you are always beautiful
my ballerina)
he says

and after all this time
we wear our laugh lines
like crowns. we can say
it is good, tears
softened our eyes and
it is good,
love prevailed and
it is good,
(and only the brave do
not give up)
he says

and after all this time
we can say, yes
i am in love,
is it hard? yes,
but
life is better for it,
(cracks are better
than breaks and
lines
mark life in wisdom)
he says

and i taste the dust
on my tongue that says
promise and past of days to last.
my life is tied up in memories
and in those moments
we love every
detail

and after all this time
i love you,
more so every
day until my
heart aches
(and i you)
he says

fifty two feet till home.

sometimes, my heart is so restless
going going going,
like the spaces between my fingers
where yours once sat.
i wander the roads between here
and there, counting the steps
from your stoop to mine,
and i tell it, wait
i whisper, hope,
i have fifty two feet till home.

it is the morning light
in a tangle of variegating rays
my heart my heart
the memory of days, gone by.
(why are you bright
why are you light
sun in eyes
mind over heart)

sometimes, my heart is so yearning
looking in alleyways, roads untraveled.
my feet are in ruts
my soles are in dust,
i pound the pedaled path
come on, come on

sun in eyes
mind over heart
why have you gone?
where have you come from?

it is the morning light
that catches my eyes.
i lift a hand (why are you bright?)
memory of days
tangled in the skies painted with blackbirds wings.

i have a map in my mind's eye
five thousand forty two steps
to your door,
five thousand forty two knocks
before i wander gone.

feet in ruts, soles in dust,
morning light like summer skies.
i taste salt on my lips, sun in my eyes
it it is the yearning morning,
and i am home
i am home.

sun in eyes
where have you gone
five thousand forty two steps
where have you come from?
my feet pound pedaled paths
but your door is closed
fifteen seconds till gone.

sometimes my heart is so aching
tangled skies in sunlight
i wander the town
pathways i used to know
like each and every laugh line
on your face,
i am home
i am home

come on, come on
i am home

two poems.

(i'm rusty, words cracking from disuse. but the best part isn't the shell, but what's inside.

crack away, rust away, break open. words and words and words, just waiting. :) )

wherever i'm with you
home
is not the house painted brown
(though i love the chipped
mocha shade
that signifies the end
of a journey)
it is not the
bedroom that perpetuates
messiness through discarded clothes
suitcasesspilling
their contents after yet
another plane ticket, a couple hundred
gallons of gas (unleaded)
it is not the normalcy of
routines and waking up for a cup of
tea (chai, please) in pajamas
(old t-shirts from colleges i never went to)
but it is
the people who are there, waiting
brimming with their own stories
and
listening ears and open arms ready
to hold mine.

seasons
if i said that the world
breathed clarity ice blue onto
the grass, flushed the earth
pale with the shock of winter
would you know that
underneath all the dirt
tumbled tight under white
it was still summer somewhere?

pigment

little one

you walk on tiptoes

daring the world to say hello

daring the world to say no,

freckles paint your face

splatters of pigments so perfectly

placed, and i watch

your lashes open close open close

as you take in the world with

wonder. your eyes are

painted seventy two shades

of blue and the sky

is jealous seeing the cool

morning snowing pale

light, frosted like an

eggshell, in your irises.

little one, you take in the

world with wide open breaths

and dare it to say hello,

dare it to say no,

and

i am so blessed

to be your sister.