The Uniform of Freedom

You didn't look scared.
I looked into your eyes,
and it struck me
how young you are.
You couldn't be much older than me.
You are the stars and stripes,
the blood sweat, and tears.
I wanted to say something,
so we could be alone together.
Because I wanted a friend and thought
maybe, you wanted one too.
But I didn't.
And I'm sitting in this tunnel,
thanking you without you knowing it,
for being braver than me.

Forgiveness

FORGIVENESS

Scraped knees from falling to the ground in defeat.

Raw, torn fingers from scraping and pounding the walls closing in.

Salty cheeks, dry riverbeds when no more tears can come.

I can’t do it, I can’t be perfect, I can’t even come close.

Bruised and battered, soul sinking to the ground.

The eternal agony of falling short.

this is the pain of humanity.

Trying to follow Christ, but finding you are so far behind

that ahead, the road is empty-no one is left.

But next to you, the light illuminates the dark places in your mind.

A hand lifts your soul up, dries you tears, and you can stand.

Power is in you, a love and hope so bright

you forget the pain.

You are still hurt. Your torn fingers, though, willingly take His

You find the pain is gone when your knees bend to follow Him.

The road is no more empty, but you can see angels on either side

they smile. They know you.

As you walk, you learn from Him, and it stirs a memory.

Your bruises are gone.

He points out their memories on you-memories, no more, just

loving reminders that here is better.

As you walk, your heart gets lighter, the hiil becomes easier,

and the once harsh heat is cooled by a breeze.

You ask why it feels familiar, all of it. He turns and shows you,

fluttering far behind, and then, turnilng again, far ahead,

a white curtain.

Beyond here, He said, from forever to forever, I was with you.

I am with you. I will be with you.

Come home.

Olivia Madsen

Winter-Spring 2013

I've Never Done That Before

Here you go.

You don’t deserve it, just so you know.

You should be begging for it.

No, thank you.

Now that you have it, I’m beginning to see how precious

I am.

Really though.

If I don’t stain the grey matter inside your head deep enough,

it’s time to take myself somewhere else.

I think it’s too bad that for you, I’m not good enough.

Ouch. Whey did I do that? Here, let me borrow the knife-I can

cut myself faster than you can cut me.

But there-all the dirt is out. Just me, tearing that last skin

off for you to see me wrapped in what imaginary protection I have left.

Why are so you strange?

Hmmm…I’ve never wanted to curse in a poem before…

What now? It’s foolish to hope anything different.

I hope your heart explodes so fast that all of this goes away.

I hope the heavens send me someone that’s good for me, for once.

that I can be good to.

What if I cork all those holes with cement?

My heart will be ugly.

What if people look at me and say,

What if they don’t say? Or think? twice.

I can feel myself closing. I think I’ll just stay that way.

It’s lonely in here.

Please send me someone who cares enough to open me up.

Olivia Madsen

May 8, 2013

Courage

Standing at the edge of eternity I look

at the minutes spread before my eternal gaze.

The bright sphere of light cannot hold me forever if I am to 

become as my mother and father here.

I have watched many came and go, I have watched their

triumphs, and all Heaven has ached at the falls.

Some I know will not come home.

My soul quails at pain, fear, and sin awaiting me.

I am so clean here.

I am hugged by my family. My friends say, “See you soon”

I absorb the light. I get to take it with me, and I will

never be alone.

I know that I want celestial glory more than I’m afraid.

When I am imperfect, He will heal me perfectly.

When I am scared, He will be brave.

When I am broken, He will be whole.

When I am sometimes, He is always.

I take my guardian’s hands, and together, we step

into Earth.

Into that bright glaring light, noises, smells, feelings.

The loving eyes see me, but they don’t know that I know nothing

yet except that I can still see a little bit of Heaven

And in just a few minutes, I’ll take my guardian’s hands again,

And again my eternal eyes will see.

And through the formerly insurmountable pain and fear and

sin,

I will kneel before my Father and receive a crown of eternal

righteousness and glory.

And I will be clean there.

Olivia Madsen

Spring 2013

Written the night of the General Young Women Broadcast

the first one i ever did

Can You Be OK With It?

There is no mass-produced human.

Money doesn’t grow on trees and as soon as you spend it, it’s gone.

Trees and brick walls and snowflakes don’t change but for us they do depending on who’s watching them.

One size doesn’t fit all

and sometimes sizes don’t fit at all.

When our hands meet they say something different than they did yesterday and something better than when they hung empty.

But sometimes empty is better filled with “I” and not “you” for now

and maybe my pen will just write words to America.

To me and my great-granddaughter who will have forgotten space and earth smells because her parents forgot to

tell her.

Sometimes a smile isn’t happy and tears bring the sweetest moments.

Sometimes I want my muted colors and lace-up boots

and sometimes I want my t-shirt

but what I really want is air that you can breathe and say, that is the world coming alive, and bare feet in grass and flying over the pool noodle.

We all have hard white walls and someone can push and push and we stay cool and firm, but poke us a certain way and they fall through the walls because they’ve shattered us.

And when you shatter their shell it feels good because you see their love and hate and it doesn’t fit anymore

because those hard white walls were what everyone else thinks

and everyone else doesn’t care about love and hate-

they let you be with your walls.

But I care

and I’ve broken my walls for you and you can see my delight and fear, see through me like the glistening pool around my dreams and trials, the bright yellow core of me that takes ages to swim through.

But I care.

I don’t want white walls because they’re all the same.

I want cracks in people’s conformity, cracks like fingerprints ‘cause they’re never the same.

You two can like the same song but chances are 

when you open your mouth it will come out different 

when you sing it because your hurt is different,

your veins carry different poison,

and your mouth speaks different hope.

The problem is that we can never understand because there’s no mass-produced fear or joy or revenge. 

Love can mean a billion things and we come close to knowing what your love means

but we can’t get there because it’s yours.

So I can hold your hand and hear your words and watch you fall over

but you are you and I can’t enter your world, nor you mine.

So we cry and scream and triumph uniquely alone, but up, up

our words mean the right thing and our joy is understood

exactly as we live it.

Because there is no mass-produced human. 

Because you cut that tree down and I want to climb it and both are OK.

Because we leave fingerprints that say

I was here.

My feet walked and my mouth let my brain communicate and when I left                 

it was better.

Olivia Madsen

February 2013

Keyholes

Oh, the inconsistencies of humanity!

We begin to open little keyholes to our vast and maze-lake existence inside of us,

only to stop them again and again.

Why can you not have the key that slides smoothly into the lock

I have carved for you?

The carving of it is painful, you know.

Little slivers of the wall I have sculpted must be cut away-

Did you know it is to deny myself the complacency of a safe existence?

I wouldn’t stop; but it is a process.

I must set myself in front of disappointment, bare, without reason. Because it is that

reason that causes us to say,

                        You are only going to be pummeled by this

            Creature in front of you.

                                    Why can you not simply take my hand

                              And say,

                                                            Me too.

But I have many stopped keyholes, and a few tentative windows.

But the headlong, the vivacious….                                    What is it for?

                                                            What is it for?

Those visions of unedited being,

                                                            I feel we cannot achieve yet.

Maybe the kindred spirits with whom I can finally find rest

I have not yet discovered on this achingly vast plant.

I have yet to look down on the water from the tree branch

and hold that knowledge and drop it before yours splashes.

I cannot hold my fingertips in space and let them drop

without yours

I am too afraid that the space created will be too far that it cannot be shortened to

when we walked side by side,

me reaching but not daring to move.

Spring 2013

Let it Be

My teardrops in all their glory

contain a world of salty purity.

Bathing a little pice of the earth in my unedited soul.

They are a cry to the powers beyond the sky,

of thanks or pain or a desperate plea to the heavens.

They come from the wellspring of life, the place where

spirit and humanity meet

and there a war is raged.

A release of emotion, where sometimes letting the world 

have it instead of keeping it is a refreshing secret.

It’s comforting to know that I must not keep forever those colors

glowing so brightly I cannot hold them

but by releasing them, let them live.

They live while I live,

Making room for deeper and more vibrant hues.

Winter/Spring 2013