Summer.

As they knocked down walls and tore up floors
and swung that ball and chain on the crane through the sky,
I wonder if they knew.

Evidence of ways and days gone by;
of sitting around the breakfast table eating ice-cream covered pancakes.

Do they remember the spot on the concrete floor
behind the laundry room door
where my baby brother cracked open his head
and stained the floor red?

Did they know that I learned how to shuffle cards on that worn down table with the swinging lazy-susan in the center?
When they trampled the brush
did they reach down and touch the drift wood creations that littered the landscape there?
Did they know I served tea to my favorite teddy bear on the ground
by that worn down, beat down, old blue picnic table?

And as they carved out a space for the memories they'd make
did they notice the names that lined the walls?
Cousins B.J. and Danny, Betsy, Aunt Nancy
Patty, Mark's mom, her brothers Bill and Tom
Her sister, my brother, his father, her mother
Chiseled through years of fireside fears and tantrum-throwing toddler tears.


As they knocked down walls and tore up floors
and swung that ball and chain on the crane through the sky,
I wonder if they knew.

Call

from webster's dictionary: for everyday use in home, school and office

call; a verb
to call out to someone
like waters flowing out over rock
your voice is both
natural and deafening
a ringing rhythm that both floats the boat
and drags me under

call; a verb
to name or designate
why me
what could there possibly be that you see
inside this worn down, misused body
that would deserve to called by your name
i have distrusted
dodged
denied
until all that comes out are complaints of time gone by
and again i beg you why

call; a verb
to pay a short visit
enter in fear
the wall that blocks out the most basic of thought
left in creative drought
living out the very life i want to run from
when the motion stops and silence sets in
words of past accusations thrown around in the laughing way of casual pain
she never finishes anything
what if its true and even you can't heal that in me

call; a verb
to demand payment
love undeserved
so huge i drown in it
every wrong written down would fill the book
your heart bleeds for me

call; a verb
to demand the opponent show his cards
if the world were to see all these pieces of me
what would be left
words once were mine and now i am writing a legacy of silence
even i can't speak out the truth that you give me
it sits in my heart undisclosed
chips unplayed
bets unraised
circling the table

Call; a noun
definition unknown

Wanting.

You know what I want?
I want family.
I mean a big family.
I want a ‘talking over each other at the dinner table’ kind of family;
a ‘hair pulling cause you looked at me funny,
but I’d still kick the ass of any little kid that messed with you on the playground’
kind of family.
I want a home and a house and a life where God is known by name and love is lived out loud.

And even when you laugh at me because I want more kids than I can count on one hand,
I hold tight to my dream.
And I outright reject the thought that this is too idealistic because some sense of societal norm makes it so.

Still, another year has passed by without the whisper of a turning page
and I am almost ‘at that age’ as they say,
so for now I still wait.

It just seems like so much of my life is spent waiting
and wasting away
on the next job or next man or next plan for my life
which is happening still in the midst of it all
but I –
I crave the brink.

Makes me think:
But what of right now?

I was once told that before you’re an us, you’re a one.
And I shouldn’t squander one bit of my time.
Because soon enough I would be entwined with ours and not just mine.
So I guess I’ll be selfish with time;
trying to be a little more slow
and grow
and come to know God as only I can right now.
Truths I find? Those are mine alone,
between this one single young female and her God.

So just as God loves me
whom He dreamed up and designed
before I ever saw life in this time,
I will keep my own dreams of love and life and family.
And I will keep waiting.
Waiting with thankfulness that God will guide and protect my heart.

I can make this vow,
this vow, right now:
I am His and He is mine—
for life’s best and its worst;
when I fall and when I rise up.
In moments of richness and times of such deep soul poverty.
Until my death and through all things.

I make this one vow,
this vow, right now:
I will live and love.
And I'll wait.

Although—
it doesn't mean I wouldn't date.