Frank.

All I ever wanted was to be known. 

Life can break your spine. But at least if someone takes you and snaps what is holding you together, they knew you in that moment. They knew what kept the pieces of you intact; they knew the quiet panic as everything fell apart. In that instant, someone knew what made you whole. 

Most of the time, no one cares to know. Someone who might be able to read you at a glance can drop you in a park and leave you lonely. Even the children could walk over you. Over me. I was left. I was alone. Even the children stepped on my soul, as I wondered what my purpose was if you no longer needed me. No longer wanted me. No longer knew me. 

I wanted to be picked up and cherished again. To find someone able to read my thoughts and fall asleep next to me. Would I ever have that again? Would I ever be known again? 

I sat in the park that day, unable to move. Everyone simply walked around me, not noticing the crisis I was enduring. Dropped. Right in public, and out of all of those people, no one cared. No one saw my turmoil. No one knew. 

Until she came. 

She saw me from across the park. She watched as everyone ignored what was happening to me. So she came. She picked me up and took me to lunch. She took me home. She got to know me. 

All I ever wanted was to be read. 

To have my pages turned and my words memorised. To have someone understand the extent of my thoughts. Someone to care. Someone to know me. 

To everyone else, I was just a bit of rubbish left behind. To her, I was a whole new world. 

Dedicated to the Barnes & Noble Classic edition of Frankenstein I rescued in the park from being trodden upon and water-damaged after a young volleyball player decided it was no longer worthwhile 

I started writing this because I wanted to write something true, but then it turned into something too true so I stopped. It feels wrong to leave it hiding though, because there are some good thoughts here, but...I stopped editing my writing a while ago. Editing made things too untrue and I just didn't know what to do anymore. So I stopped. But then everything was too true, so I stopped writing altogether. Which is why I decided this should be here. Whether it is too true or not, it entered this world and I just can't hold on to it myself. 

Anyway. That's all. No one reads all this anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

---

Growing up was supposed to be like a birthday. Or, like a birthday always feels like it should be. One day, you would wake up, and the world knew you were older. Wiser. The problem is that growing up is like a birthday. You wake up, but nothing is really different after all. Looking in the mirror, everything is exactly the same as it was the day before, except for the one thing: the expectation. Yesterday, you were 17. Today, you were not. Today, you are an “adult.” 

The problem with growing up was that the rules never stayed the same.

Maybe, there weren’t any rules at all.

---

After he had said they should just be friends, she lost it. He couldn’t even tell me this in person? Emma just wanted the world to Stop. Moving. but it rolled on. Her second-best friend (His brother’s girlfriend? It was hard to tell where the “loyalties” were.) called to see how she was. Emma’s mom came down to see about dinner, but Emma had already locked herself into her cavern. No windows. No doors. No exits. These puny walls were her barricade, and for the time-being, it would hold. 

Emma’s first boyfriend hadn’t exactly been a boyfriend. There had been a time she thought that maybe...but he always denied it. Then he would hold her hand and act like he was about to kiss here before murmuring something about boxes and labels and spiders. For some reason, the spiders were always really important. Then came the “just friends” proclamation, and then nothing was really important. 

“We were never friends, J!” Emma couldn’t decide if she felt more angry or sad or used. 

“Of course we were, Emma. We’ve been friends for years.” He drawled even over the phone. He wasn’t even from the country. Why did he have a drawl?

“No. There was always, always an if, and now there is nothing.” She wasn’t crying. She had already decided she wasn’t going to cry about it when he had text messaged her the ‘just friends’ thing. If she was crying now, she wasn’t about to admit it to anyone, especially herself. 

“Don’t call me again. When I want to talk to you-if I want to talk to you-I’ll call you.”

And that was it. So passed another year. Did he really have to break up with her, Okay, maybe not so much break up as finally fulfill his destiny as the world’s largest jackass, right before her birthday? Some present. Behind the barricade, Emma collapsed onto her bed and fitfully fell asleep.

When she woke up, she was exactly the same. It was like nothing she wanted to be. Happy birthday, Emma Black, she thought. Nineteen looks just as miserable as eighteen. 

---

Emma wasn’t ready to face the world just yet. She just needed one more day to hide in her basement bedroom and pretend that the rest of them didn’t exist. One more day, and then everything could go back to normal. Whatever normal was. She had given up trying to figure out what that was. Normal wasn’t anything that looked like her. Normal wasn’t anything that looked this disheveled. 

Emma’s mom had tried to talk to her and find out what happened, but she wouldn’t unlock the door. Three and a half seasons of The O.C. later, she unlocked the door, but she still wouldn’t talk.

I have been a legalist.

I have been a legalist.

There, I said it.

Renewing is hard. Because letting go of what I think is true is hard. There are things I know to be true, and things I think to be true. And they are in constant conflict. One would believe that, obviously, the things I know to be true would win out, but no. It’s not so obvious. Because it doesn’t happen that way. I have lived so long believing that I have to try, and try, and try to do things the “right” way, the “proper” way, the “only” way, that I don’t actually know what the real right, proper, and only way is like. I cannot even begin to imagine it. I have an idea of what it should look like. So I try, and try, and try to make myself look like that. But no matter how I try, I can only look like the outside if I do that. It’s like taking a grape, coloring it with a blue marker, and saying that it is now a blueberry. It may kind of resemble a blueberry, sort of. But no matter how blue it looks, it is not a blueberry. No matter how hard I try to make myself look like what I think “right” looks like, it will not be right. Because “right” doesn’t start with what things look like. It starts inside and ends up on the outside. Not the other way around.

I have constant Fear, Stress, and Anxiety about what will happen to me if I do not do things “right.” And when I know I have failed, Failure rears its head and Shame reminds me how wrong I am, and how wrong I was to try and do it on my own. Shame reminds me that I am human and should be relying on God to do it for me, but I didn’t, and now boy didn’t I mess it all up. Now God has to deal with the mess I made. I guess I am a baby, after all. I always hoped I was past that, and that I was growing up. All I’ve ever wanted was to just grow up in one go and get it over with. So I try. And try, and try, and try. And fail, and fail, and fail. And yet I cannot seem to just trust in God. I know that I will fail before I try. I’ve been down that path before. It is as though I believe that He died and took care of that part, but the rest is just up to me. As though He didn’t really mean it when He said that HE would finish the work He started in me. I dislike having to capitalize the word He in the middle of a sentence. I know why it is, to show respect and divinity. And then I feel Guilt for being annoyed with it. Guilt turns to Shame, and suddenly, I am a bad person for being annoyed with something I should do. I do not know how to reconcile all these things together. And the not understanding is what nearly kills me, day after day. Not understanding means I have to trust…someone. And I do not trust. Trust means leaving it up to someone else. And people are unreliable. People will hurt you. People will leave and not finish what they started, they will reject you, and they will fail. Not understanding means trusting that someone else does, and letting them be in charge, be in control.

Revolutionary, that. Such a simple idea can become so complicated when you input that little word: control. Do I trust God to be able to control circumstances in my life that seem beyond control? Do I trust Him to not leave me, to not reject me, to not hurt me, and to not fail? Love never fails. God is love. The logical conclusion is therefore that God never fails. I took logic. I can recognize it when I see it. But I am not very logical, obviously. God never fails, but I do not trust Him to never fail. That doesn’t even make sense. I see Him doing things for other people, and not failing them, but I disregard it in my own mind. I make myself the exception. How incredibly self-centered. What if He decides that I’m not worth saving/helping/notfailing? All He wants me to do is sit, and rest. He will take care of me. Like at holidays, when the ladies go into the kitchen and spend the day preparing food, and setting the table, and the kids and the gents just relax, knowing that when they are hungry, food will be there. Those times are hard for me. I feel a pressing need to make sure that no one needs help. I know that no one expects me to do it all, but maybe, maybe someone needs something. Is my desire to be accepted so strong that I reject the opportunity for peace? I am already accepted. Now rest should come, while I allow the work to be done for/through/in me. And when I require it, it will be there.

Rest. Trust. Love. Peace.

Words I don’t understand.

Sleep, sleep I do understand. And that is where I will go, now.

There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. 

untitled no. 79

two hearts

with one desire

did fight through rain

and fight through fire

through pain and toil

wind and sea

love did travel

between you and me

with one decision

both yours anPublish Postd mine

our hearts did meet

by sweet design

once in love

twice together

your heart and mine

in any, whether

now or ever

now or then

my heart is yours

until i end

"see which way the wind blows" part two.

"see which way the wind blows" part one.



Alice wandered about for quite some time. She knew not where she was going, and, after a time, began to forget who she was. This would never do. So she tried to ask others who she was. She tried to ask a fish, but he up and swam away. No help, those fishy ikhthus. Alice approached a flower, but before she could say anything to it, it wilted and the wind blew its seeds across the way. It would seem the flower didn't quite know who it was, either. The wind had told her to "see which way the wind blows" to find where she was going, but it would seem she couldn't find where she was going until she found who she was, besides. Perhaps the wind could direct her to herself. Alice followed a piece of paper around for a while, but it flew up into a tree, and Alice was quite sure that she wasn't in the tree, so she gave up. After all, she was right here on the ground, where she ought to be; where she was supposed to be. None of this flying about business for her. One can't fly about if they aren't sure of themselves, and Alice certainly wasn't. Oh no, she wasn't sure who she was at all.

And then one day, Alice went into a curiosities shop and found an old book. As it were, the book had been hers. As to how it came to be in a curiosities shop made Alice curiouser and curiouser, but no matter. The book was full of her handwriting and of thoughts she had once possessed. She didn't know what happened to the thoughts, however. Perhaps her thoughts did not stay firm on the ground where they ought to and flew into a tree. Perhaps it really was her in the tree, even though she, herself was firm on the ground.

So Alice went back to the tree, and sure enough, that piece of paper was still stuck on one of the high branches. Alice pulled up her skirt and climbed that tree, retrieving the paper. After getting back to the ground where she belonged, Alice read what was written on the page. In her own handwriting, curiously enough, she had written: "I am Alice. Not quite grown-up, but not quite not. I like the sunshine and the rain; I like happiness and sometimes pain (if pain is leading to more eventual happiness). In case of losing myself, simply read this to be found. Sincerely, Alice."

Having found herself again, Alice went back to the wind and simply asked it which way it was blowing. It gave an answer, but it wasn't quite intelligible. The wind has been known to shriek a bit, you know.