control

who knows how many more
sunsets i will see.
5,000?
or
5?

who knows how many more times i can hear people compliment me like waves on the beach
while also not wishing the sand they carried back out with them was staying with me?

being raised to be aware of others, i now cannot figure out how to be fully aware of myself.
(there are greater problems, do not worry, i will not stop here).
however, i seem to have no problem putting others ahead of myself except when it comes to romantic love.  i will not let go; i never have.  i am  afraid of it, so it controls me.  this thing that should be so glorious and beyond a depth i have ever driven!

instead
i wear a trench coat
and dark glasses and one of those ugly floppy hats.

to hide away from it, blend in with the masses; i am ok, i am fine by myself.


i cannot hide much longer though.

my heart is telling me

'enough.'
it pangs so hard, so often, more than ever before.
'stop holding me back.'
it says.
'just give him a chance! or, him!'
and it clamors to be heard
'if you try to squelch me again, next time it will hurt worse. but not nearly as much, you see, because you will have shut it out.  sooner or later you will numb me entirely, and the frozen
nub
of me left will hit the ground, never to be moved again.  and that will hurt the worst you see, because you won't feel a thing at all.  to pain is to live, to agonize is part of love, part of the same beat that skips with delight at the thoughts of he
that loves you.

no promise comes without sacrifice.
give me up.'

and it is good.  amen.

the great tribulation

what does this all mean
and why must we hold up our head
when we just want to lay it all down
at your

feet.

how can i help be the hands and the
feet
of your love
when all i know to do is
hug
and
pray
and say "i'm sorry"
for the umpteenth time.

where can i
go
to take it all away to
another place
so far removed
perspective is restored
that wasn't ever even there.

all these questions god.
and all these answers.
maybe they just can't make it through the time warp.
because i know heaven isn't above the clouds any more
than you are
in the city of gold
whilst we are in the city of dirt
and you watch and laugh from above as we stumble and fall.
no, i know better.
i just don't always know what.

i do know your love is unfailing
your hand holds me when i want to let go
you never show me anything less than an offer of mercy and a good future filled with hope.
these things i know.
let me then live.
it is enough.
you are.

jerks like a knee

this pain jerks me awake

so cruel, like a joke that's not kidding.

no warning, no permission granted, but it sears just the same.

my head throbs and my nerves squeal

relent!

uncle!

cease and desist!

i give uuuuuuuup.

i can't handle this, god!

is what i yell through the most honest, unstoppable tears i have dropped in years.

the flood comes, night after painful night, when i haven't even wanted it, worked for it, sought it out.

this water falling from my eyes belies a heart fresh in healing from pain just as severe.

a root canal can fix only one of these things, and that is unfortunate

but bliss in the end.

because if i could, go to the doctor, and have him fix everything wrong with me

and get a prescription to kill this, numb it, i wouldn't. no, because he can only know so much, you see

and i need to know all

of me

before i can fix it.

even then

i can really only hold it together with band-aids and wishes

that god will hold me tight in the palm of his soul and protect me when the wave threatens again

in the middle of the night

this pain

i didn't ask for, but have and can't make go away.

if only a root canal could fix that.

come to see

today i have come to see
a pain away and into
for some mysterious shift has occurred
a change so swift
i have to double check.
i can take myself away from it, and i can put myself back into it
but i can.
and i realize that.
i have chosen.
frighteningly close to giving in to heartbreak.
now is the time to twine into learning and pain and loving this game and filling the holes with sunshine to burst out into the winter of my life.
the solitude and the introspective me
this
i have come to see.

the woods

you've led me into

this thicket of poison

and bear traps under 

every root and leaf

i have never felt more

safe as your hand holds mine.

the look in your heart is kind

eyes behold best intentions

and yours are pure.

from every bush comes 

noises i have heard 

that chilled me to the

bone.  but you have led me

here.

find me not

in this shroud

of emptiness and torn flesh

i have not come to leave you yet

i will for always be inside.

the sorrow seeps, the weeping moans

my bone chance to overextend

for life itself is none too soon

the cost i brought shan't order me.

cross and alone

at long last he

the willow the only one

his shadow keeps

fraught up in pain the wormwood seeks

to swallow the truth, but never he.

sit down my friend

the deed is done

your coin is paid the morning comes

but not for you, your work is done.

-update on my dad-

thanks so much to all of you who have asked about my dad, he is doing well!  here is an e-mail excerpt he sent recently:

"I thought you'd like to pass along to your friends the results I've had with "hanging upside down" to stop kidney stone pain. It works! Two times today when I was teaching the pain started to come on, so at break time I went downstairs to my Soloflex machine and hung upside down on the chin-up bar, hanging by the back of my knees for a minute or two. 

The pain came back again within an hour of the first trial.

For the second trial, I drank a glass of water about 15 minutes before hand and I also gently swung back and forth a little. The pain seemed to go away more quickly and it hasn't returned (as of four hours later), so adding water seems to be beneficial. I'm really excited that when I am home I can do this and thereby avoid having to take the tylenol #3 with codeine tablets.

For a long term solution, I've ordered an herbal product that appears to be capable of slowly dissolving the kidney stones and helping to improve kidney function at the same time."

he did get this product in the mail and is going to give it a try.  as i mentioned before, he does have several kidney stones and while i am hopeful that this product will in fact do great things to reduce the size of the stones, i still have some reservations.  he is on the waiting list for the lithotripsy procedure and i will keep ya'll updated, but thank you again for all your generosity, thoughts and prayers.  i cannot express how deeply it has affected me.  incredible!

beautiful looking back

one day i will come back

look back 

and see what

you have given me

she has given me

he has given me

love has given me.

pain and beauty.

and i want all of it

to look back and see

truth.

oh snap!

violence

i am sick of myself, sick of opening and closing the same chapters of my life.  done with the endless questions i love to ask.  over making my thoughts the truth.  through with the emptiness that is the vanity of me.

i want something more, something that is the farthest thing from all of the rote.  this suffering must mean something, anything, full of nothing.  the price i pay is far less, so much less, than the idea of death daily.  step it up, filkins!  take it.  you beg for it, plead for mercy and grace and love and courage and the best he has to offer and nothing less.  so what are you willing to give for it?  where is that stalwart dedication, that piercing gratitude and rushing musher?  where is the strength when it comes to the grime, the shattered fog?  it's so easy

easy

to be christmas at halloween, it's unexpected and not quite right.  

but it is beautiful.  to mush the pristine beauty of a hem in the caked dirtvomit of the street.  of letting go when you want to hold on.  of choosing change, not waiting for it to happen.  the beauty in that, the gorgeousness: of the highest integrity.  let it be said of me, and not just when i am dead.  i am willing to give it all.  to die today, tomorrow, forever.  take my pride father, take the pain i am focused on and show me yours.

love me so thoroughly that i am left without words.    so that i may live love with 

violence

valor 

and the vision of a warrior. 

invisible

glass in my thumb.

obnoxiously invisible.

wondering wounded wishing someone would

notice.

mumbled, fumbled dropped.  a thing of perfection turned raw

cutting to the

quick!

invisible to everyone,

but we all see it

all feel it

invisible

pain.

a kiss

grace in weakness, in everything.
faith that something
capable, all-knowing, a soul of infinite depth
has my soul
in their hands. intercedes on my behalf with groanings beyond utterance.

these are the things that i need. this is the way.


the greatest of these is love. faith, hope, and peace. the greatest. that is no suggestion, the statement that the best, the biggest, most permanent way to actually live is to love. to love beyond the call of desire. to love when i have nothing left to give, to open my soul so that the love of the father can flow through me to truly love god, others, myself. to love. period. like a kiss. a connection i know nothing about, but seems a promise, a desire to give. to take. to learn.

what is sacred anymore? what is left under the sun? nothing new.

honor thy father and mother. honor thy teacher, thy stranger, thy friend, thy lover. honor. respect and esteem one another.




the greatest of these is love. faith, hope and peace.
i pray for love.
i pray for faith.
i pray for hope.
i pray for peace.
i pray. prayer is the power of friendship and love between us, the communication i so often ignore. you are whispering to me in everything. sometimes shouting. i whisper back. or shout. but sometimes i do not listen. sometimes i do not see.
i will pray.
because he loves me.
he. loves. me.
jesus open my eyes, push me
in front of a bus
shove flowers under my nose,
wake me up!
i want to live in the world you are in. jesus, your love is the most wordless thing i have ever felt, it is indescribable. i want my love to be like you.without grounding or sensibility.without selfish desire to have it returned.you give without condition.bike gangs, jesus will you be in my bike gang?teach me to bike slower so that i can be with my friends, BE with my friends and strangers.i feel your heart in this father, the selfishness in my heart desires to be the fastest, to be the best.it kills love.KILLS it.father, let me be the slowest and let my pride die daily.i want to love you more.and them.

oh hope

hope oh hope where are you?
for all these years ,forever.
i have believed in you. in me.
but now i feel empty, despondent.
like the believing isn't worth it, a different thing hasn't happened.
this is NOT THE END OF MY LIFE.

not.



oh
hope.

i need you like rain on my upturned face. i need you like a walk.
i need you in everything i do, every moment i choose badly, or well.
hope? you are all i am ignoring, for you have come at the wrong time. from the wrong place. from a future that wouldn't work, i say. i refuse to believe you now. not that i cannot, but
won't.

my friend says i will learn from this, and i say i need to pay close attention. then i make that comment, the one i often do.
'yes well, i only have the one chance. this one life.'
and it is true. but how i hate saying it! trying to placate myself, make my hurt sound trite and trivial.
oh hope take me!
away from this bitterness and aged anger. take me to faith and trust and willingness to be hurt, yet again. to opening myself up to the possibility of a future different than the one i imagined when i never said i knew what my life would look like. but i lied. i had a plan, in the back of my heart. but i don't want it anymore, not the way i had it set. i want what you have for me god. if it is the same or if it is the opposite. oh lord even the very opposite! it hurts, but i give it. for i want you more. i cannot live without you. i do not understand you, i don't understand your love. i do trust you god.

i trust you.
i trust you!
i trust you.
and your hope.

amen.