Bon Friday, dear reader. Here’s a piece I wrote a few years ago after a pretty cathartic conversation with close friends. Because that’s how poetry functions for me: whereas fiction traverses the highways and byways of my imagination, poetry is every nuance and inch of the life I lead. Is that how it is for you? Let me know in the comments.
Breathless
You, with your half flesh, absent of your complement,
I would give you the exact latitude and longitude to get to me,
but I didn’t listen that day in class.
I have no mind for coordinates, I cannot bear giving directions.
Just wherever you are, traverse the highways and byways and miles
it will take to reach me, and come as soon as you can.
You will be guided by air and wheels, yes,
but also by softly uttered prayers feverishly whispered in the dead of night,
when the slow passing of minutes spent alone no longer wish to be abided.
Your arrival will not be met with waving palm fronds and outer garments spread on the road,
for I understand who my true Savior is,
but trust that you will meet a joy so acute that it will sound like the releasing of a
long-held–
tightly held–
quietly held–
breath.
This Square Peg. 