i'm too tame to be a wildflower

peach

everything leaves it's fingerprints on me
peaches bruise easily, but my skin is
covered with words that people have
said and unspoken looks of judgement
I fear as I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown weaker
and the bruises are temporary, they fade
yet under the surface, they stay with me forever

childlike

The little kids pray for every ambulance
Every test score, every friend and foe
I only draw near when my world falls apart
Maybe that is why he wants us to stay
His children, so that He may be the first
person we run to in all circumstances

I don’t take as many photos as I once did
I’ve stopped capturing the beauty around me
But subtly, I still see it. In ladybugs, in rainbows,
In my cat curled in the sunlight, in red grapes
Freshly washed, in my husbands smile,
In the water in my father’s swimming pool.
I don’t see the beauty in me. But outward
I bend my love everywhere else

the bite of death

I thought about death driving home today
I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately
Not as an enemy, not as a friend
Just as a thing to happens, like shoelaces
That come undone after a while, like
Gas tanks running empty, like train tracks
Becoming rusted—it’s inevitable.
The inevitability doesn’t soften the fear,
Just softens the bite

I’ll never be a full moon
I’ll never be able to give
All of me to you

born to bleed the sea

Some believe they’re born to breathe it
But I’ve never been worthy of such
I’m a lily floating on the surface, petals
Nearly skimming both the frisk
Breeze and the ripples on skin
Belly up to the moon—new, waning, waxing,
Half, and full—the beacon of light
Dripping through my veins
I’ve looked to the stars and thought
That’s where I belonged, but I
Always felt empty in space,
The water is my home, a part of me
That cannot be emptied, for I
Was always born to bleed the sea

Newlyweds

In the mountaintops of the smokies
we stood breathless, feeling like winners
that could take on the entire world
as if marriage was a simple step in the riverbend
but covenant isn’t just stone, it’s water
winding, bending to gravity, changing
form and light—bursting, then quiet again
The Maker looks down at us, we look up
smiling at the stars because in Tennessee
the sky was clear, and we were young and innocent

they only love you if you agree
when you conform to the pain
of the sword in your back
becoming just another part of you

but i will not say it is okay
i will say what it is
throbbing, throbbing, throbbing
no one deserves this fate

i miss you
no,
i miss your
validation,
you miss
the idea of me
planted
in your head

you didn't expect me to bloom this way, did you?

twist my arm and call me pretty
i soak in your unclean spirit
the mirror showed what I could not unsee
i leave with the quiet moonlight