swinging fists left then right
clawing at the air like it's an enemy holding all my answers.
we're a fighting kind
wrestling; our language
---
monday i'm burned
tuesday, bruised and sent out to run
wednesday flung into thursday and so on
until sunday morning
i wake outside of time
under the willows in a southern white home
balm covering my flesh
the imprint of resurrection on my chest
for i was rescued and
tended to
in the night.
and you rise beside me like the foyer of a white museum
this grand presence, this giant space
traveling always with me
hovering in my line of vision.
particles rise above the surface of the
waters that you are
and tell me what i haven't been thinking.
for your ways are not my ways
so again, i wrestle
but now inside your giant space.
but there's a great tension with the other winds that follow me -
i swing at them for answers
i muddle their messages into my own balm that i believe will heal my wounds
and if not, at least pacify me
for i have quite an affair with highs and relief.
your space that speaks
is like a lion curled up beside an insect
giving it all its knowledge, telling it all its ways and secrets,
asking its advice
with no regard
for class or height.
you crawl inside the questions with me,
push me off my ledges and involve me in your living.
you lay the cosmos on the floor of the earth for me to wrap up in.
i pull the stars up over my eyes
and forget to thank you, for instantly
i think they’re mine.
and when i tend to lock myself in closets where the horizon disappears,
all i see is one foot in front of me,
your vision tumbles off the edge of the atmosphere,
rolling over all the ages and the people
with a heavy care that fills my room, slides down my walls
and shakes me in my sleeping.
you push me into the void
where i wouldn’t have gone
but where i'll know your name
like my mother's voice.
and you show me your heart and transform my choice.
but with you too, i feel hit with sun's fire
on the right of my face.
burned and bruised, i’ll wring my hands into dust
as the tension with you works to fill my heart’s graves.
and i’ll swing for answers in all the wrong places.
you’ll find me beaten by the winds again
and bring me back into the ring with you
where there’s one thousand dimensions, you show me the truth.
and we’ll roll together in this human conversation
under the sky of your final word, your eternal vision.
we run and roll for miles and miles
and when i collapse, i roll my eyes and you smile
and i won’t understand you
but you’ll follow me forever;
and i'll begin to trust you; to choose your ring
and you'll teach me
for eternity.