I am Africa: a Half Poem in Figuratives

In this room I am Africa.
A continent all my own,
unique in my particularities
and systems. She is Asia
and her systems
do not match mine.

But we are the same because
we breathe the same,
we each respond in boundless rhythms
to the sun,
and springtime tastes of sweet
rain and child laughter
in both our souls.

And the stars which dance above
our skies echo
a dawn that has travelled night
to be found by our edges.

My systems are strong,
hers slick,
I drink of the well,
she drinks of the sea,
these are our hours,
tidy and chaotic,
organisms categorized in time
that does not pass.

My friend,
I am Africa,
unique in my particulars.

I am a recovering people pleaser.

I will not longer be apologetic.
I will be unapologetic about my status, about my job, about my degree, about my ideas.
I will be unapologetic about not knowing, about being young.

I will no longer apologize if I do not fit into society's boxes.

I will claim my space.

I will claim my space.

I will claim my space with steady knees

and the knowledge that

You have hemmed me in behind and before.

I will walk strong and courageous,

because You are with me.

You never leave nor forsake.

You have called me further up and further into your life, freely given.

You have called me to freedom.

I will stand on this riverbank

rooted in joy.

I will rest in your presence

when I am weary

and You will delight over me with singing.

I will walk in confidence because
You are fairer than the sons of men,

and the security you give me

is better than children.

I will wait for You.

I will wait to see Your goodness in the land of the living.

I will practice trust by walking

though my back is sore

and dancing though I do not know the steps.

I will not give way to fear.

I will breathe slow

and claim my space

and rest in the knowledge that

you are Love
and I am Yours.

idée fixe

barbed wire.
the wire was barbed and it was home
for me, though you were displaced.

(and there is more but it is untraceable within these veins.)

Soul Blue

I sat on a rock next to the river and mulberries bounced off my head from the tree behind me. I took off my shoes and socks and stuck my feet in the cool water. I watched a heron downstream and a boychild upstream. I folded my knees under my chin and watched the sky go from white to dark, dark grey and then I finally left, putting on my shoes and climbing up the bank, realizing that if I didn’t leave soon I would get stuck in the glorious downpour.

I did not make it home before the rain started. I did however, make it home before it poured down in sheets. Then my mama and I sat on an old picnic blanket on the front porch eating chocolate frozen yogurt and delighted in the storm. And then, quickly as it came, it ended, the thunder rolling South and the rain turning into dripping. The clouds turned the color of perfectly toasted marshmallows. The wind stayed. The birds started singing again, their goodnight songs to the sun. And then the clouds danced South too, and made way for the pre-sunset blue sky, a blue full of quiet and gentleness, that does not demand attention but attracts it anyway.

aaand that's all I got. :D

Goals

For the time I am at home, on top of raising money and all that necessary jazz, I want to:

bake bread

learn to play the Pride and Prejudice music on the piano, at least some of it

run/exercise daily

poems/art

farsi

read

learn to play pool

and pray like my life depends on it, cause well, it does.

back

Well, I'm back.
I guess I should explain, for the new readers who don't yet know what being back means. I will, but for now, I'm back home, whatever home means. I'm back in the place where I grew up, but I'm seeing it with fresh eyes and it doesn't feel much like home anymore, lovely and refreshing as it is. And I like that. I don't want home to be a set place so much anymore.

Some things.

I can see the stars. There aren't so many street lights. The street lights there are, aren't obnoxiously orange. I can sleep with the window blinds open and not be blinded by the parking lot lights.

The house, when I walked in, smelled like history. It smelled like a house that has been around for one hundred years (because it has been). It smelled good.

Outside smells sweet, and there are lots of birds, and now there are fireflies, and someone across the street is having a fire, and the highway sounds are far off in the distance, and I can hear a raccoon having a tiff, or maybe it is a cat, I don't know.

When I wake up tomorrow I'm going to run, and I'm excited about it.

I love to cook. It's an act of worship.

I want to encourage.

I like a cool breeze before a storm whisking through the windows in summer.

I like listening to Bethel's spontaneous worship.

I'm cooking beef, yellow rice, and cauliflower. I'm leaving in four days and I'm trying to eat up what I have left. It's turning out to be a pretty nice meal. Wish I could share it.

The timer is ticking in rhythm with my music.

I despise the ice cream truck, I always have.

Life

This weekend, Geebs and I went to visit our friend Amber in North East Ohio.

My last day at Tim Horton's was Thursday. We went on our way out of town to buy a bag of coffee for Amber so I bought an iced cappuccino. My friends there made it a size bigger and added special topping. :)

about the stars.

About the stars in Mexico. Twice, at night, we drove hours. All the joynoise around me didn't matter. Just stars. Many nights we danced. Parties. The night the cruelty of how it isn't supposed to be was revealed to me. Geckos.

  We stared at the sky over that town, and You said to look-

  I stared out the window, we hurtled through dark Ohio, made a resolution.

  Laughing in the back of that taxi late at night, too dark to see anything but a thin line where the hills met the sky.

  My brother's birthday, the coldest night I didn't feel, for the stars.

  And when we danced, loud with the beats and quiet with our faces, in that small room in July. And leaving, late, the skylights shining bright.

About the sunset. Like afternoon goldsunshine on India's fields, but I'm driving to Kroger. 

  Certain days, the way the light shines in, reminds me. 

  Of India, Russia, the ocean.

About the beetles that crawl these yellow walls late at night.

  How do they know when to come out?

  Bugs in the beds and in the cracks in the floors.

About those songs.

  it trembles at Your voice.

  which the morning stars began.

  in Your presence.

  and my heart will sing. 

All those bugs, the way the light shines in. And then the stars, the songs, Your light.

Rain

I like rain.

It creates community between us.

We are the same; souls trying to escape the water. (or not escape, if you are me.)

When I smile at someone on the street, the smile is understood. "I don't have an umbrella either" I say with my eyes.

A man shares his umbrella with me, giving me dryness and also pushing himself out a bit so we are both half dry.

May they see that I have eyes for only You.