When the nineteenth candle-purse-dip-christianbag-vinylart-cookingstone-jewelry-greenbeauty-scrapbook party invitation arrived, I was done. Over the brink, out the door, gone.
It wasn’t the parties per se. I like cake and you and helping out a girlfriend. But we weren’t, were we? God knows I tried so hard. Your last mass Facebook invite sealed the end, my never-friend.
Stranger and alien am I, in
search of a better country. This
world is not home and hearts break
hollow, aching exile
Eleven years, eight jobs, and two babes back, I pierced my nose on that boardwalk, not expecting to wear it long past cap and gown. Surely odes to youth in smallest silver have expiration dates, like college and adolescent rebellion.
But sometimes insurgency burns slow.
That summer was our seventh in this two stoplight town, and I a blazing pyre of expectation. Weary of waiting, of planting without yield, I threw up hands in hot surrender, trading daintiest stud for pliers and one gleaming hoop.
A year later, once-angry embers glow warmly, lighting what may come to be my way out.
But sometimes insurgency burns slow.
Wandering takes its toll. Seasons change
but this landscape strains horizon-wide. Do
I tarry by edict or obstinance? A chill
haunts underneath, icing tentative roots ’til
I crumble, unsteady and
That summer was our seventh in this two stoplight town, and I a blazing pyre of expectation. Weary of waiting, of planting without yield, I threw up hands in hot surrender, trading daintiest stud for pliers and one gleaming hoop.
A year later, once-angry embers glow warmly, lighting what may come to be my way out.
yet, were we ever aliens entirely?
Beloved, belonging
one to the other, all to the Father
one Body wherein Spirit
dwells. Celestial citizens of
God’s household here, holy
home among misfits, this most sacred priesthood
declaring in darkness one marvelous
light, latent hope in each heartbreak and death
