What it Takes

Do you remember that day?

That day that you asked me, and I said

Yes.

That was so brave of you.

But I’d been asking myself that question for days,

It had been before my face long before

It had ever been on your lips

But you see, I’d been asking myself for months and years

And for forever the answer was always

No.

And I’d leave. I’d get scared and run away.

And now?

Now that’s the very last thing I want to do.

The tests say it will be an uphill battle and

Your eyes say it will be awhile before you can work through the fear

But the Earth’s axis runs right through her polar opposites and it’s around that

That everything else spins and so I still believe my heart when I hear it whisper,

Hope.

Hope that we won’t lose ourselves burning alone

Hope that I won’t break my bones kicking in my empty days

Hope that you won’t choke on all the joie de vivre pouring through my veins

And all the inexperienced fear pouring through yours.

Hope, desperately, that you’ll learn to talk to me and I’ll learn to listen to you

Because if we don’t learn that

We might as well consider ourselves drowned

In a sea churning all at once with too much and too little

And all the passion lacing it together will scorch our trust

And when burned fingertips jerk back in pain

They’re seldom offered again.

And you’re terrified of my words,

Scared to death, even,

But they’re all I have.

They are how I speak so nothing means anything but

Exactly what it’s supposed to.

And if I didn’t speak the words they’d remain

Always

Confused and thick, opaque,

And wading through them would take too long to keep up with our hearts

And I’d trip, falling through your arms

After you’d already let me go.

So I promise that I’m not giving up on you anytime soon.

But I see the mountains in front of us and

I’m not willing to climb them without your hand firmly pressed in mine

the clearest understanding running through them

And the biggest love in the world alive and well

In our brilliant hearts as they beat

Side by side.

Fools

Nothing good comes without hard work.

The night was hollow

Watery-grey, barren

jusqu’à toi.

You were earnest, simple,

childlike in your sincerity.

I read deeper.

Time reveals your unsure fear to me

My eyes know now how to see;

they pierce through the hesitance and

it tugs my heartstrings

earnestly, simply

childlike in their sincerity

to understand and be understood.

Heaven knows you’re out of practice and

only Heaven knows how tall our walls really are.

And you couldn’t know how different it feels for me

to have good reason

to trust.

And I couldn’t know, I can’t know

what lives in your mind

as we slowly whisper our way ahead. 

Beckoning

Come home.

They won’t be there for you,

But I will be, and

I’m good for the soul.

Come home because the crystal-soft clouds

Hover above the mountains

Blanketed with hushed snow

And the sinking sun tosses it all

In rose-white and grey.

Come home because I will be there

to stitch up your heart

After they cut open your body.

I will stay with you so you’re not alone.

Come home because as the glowing clouds drift across the

Last bit of daylight sky, they leave behind the blue and white,

The first touches of dusk spread across the windswept snow

And it’s then we’re all grateful to have our orange-bathed hearths.

Come home with peace.

Come with a love deeper than you’d ever known leaving.

Come wrapped in the arms of Christ and

Come in faith that you’ve never left them.

Come because you have to.

Come under the knife and the needle;

Walk brave through the fire;

Serve God, and mend.

Come with your heart full of their tears

And their wrinkles and their child’s faith.

Come with their fire to warm the cold people of the North.

Come in faith that you’ve never left them.

Come home.

Crossroads at Salvation

Oh my love,

For thus you are,

I wanted to say goodbye for such a long time.

But just before you left, you said,

Hello.

You reached surely and clearly out

And touched my heart.

Oh my love,

We shall not live easy lives;

We have fingers that shake and eyes that quiver with bright tears

And hearts that ache so much we must close our eyes and open our mouths

And where sound should be, there is pain.

The things we kept inside, the things we didn’t say

Could’ve filled an entire Bodleian Library,

Chained inside walls too high

Built of secrets and sealed with circumstance.

My love,

I call you thus now

For time has not granted me a reason not to.

It shall.

I’d say, ‘don’t worry,’ but I know you don’t.

Trust, you say. Trust.

You shut your eyes so tight and held on for dear life

And fell

Right back to where you belonged.

I don’t know where I belong.

Only who I’m supposed to be.

I was your sunshine and your life-blood.

I got you up in the mornings and drew a smile across your lips.

I stopped your tears and started your heart.

I was your hand and your heart and your shoulder and your joy.

Only time will tell if you shall ever, purely and completely,

Be mine.

Shadows of Yours

The worst sort of man,

A dog, he called himself

And he laid down and cut it short for love.

I’ve cried those tears, knowing

Just how hard the fight can be.

Don’t

Give

Up.

Sometimes just making yourself believe that tomorrow is better

Makes you the champion of today.

Nighttime, don’t steal my days;

They are my utter salvation.

Tears, don’t linger too long on the words.

You know well and deep what that does to your poor heart,

And your poor life right along with it.

You will be better

You are NOT the sort of person that gives up.

That bar will never come down

Don’t you DARE stop clinging on for dear life.

That power is coming straight from inside

Given straight from above

A long, long time ago.

A gift that precious was given for the express purpose

never to be wasted.

Claw your way out, darling.

Let yourself be pulled from your rubble and

Don’t ever stop hoping.

Stop your shivering wet midnight wanderings and

Sleep sound in love,

The love you’ll never have to cry without.

Find in the desolate man the assurance

That the hand that holds yours as you stare death in the face

Is the one that will always, always pull you out.