CAUGHT IN MY PEDAL

DOODLEBUG

Today I befriended a little doodlebug.

Her eyes, bright with hazel and savoring.

Her mind, brilliant and memorizing.

Her giggles, a precious contagious.

Her feet, dancing, dancing. 

Her voice, squeals of elephant imitating.

That white kitchen floor is scented with our daylong dancing to 'Sing, Sing, Sing'. 

I wish I could babysit the doodlebug tomorrow. 

NUMB

She crept between the walls and alleys, until I broke past:

There she stood, quietly moving through the forest, glorious stripes reaching

I was free. On my red bike. Mittens holding warmth, wool socks hugging toes
But my ears tormented. The wind to them, dull knives raucously sawing.
Dry eyes, tear-bitten.
I prayed, 'God, the pain in my ears, take it away, take it away, please God.'
Relief, immediate; they went numb. Gratefulness looking up, into a smile
I pedaled, city and city and city behind me.
I chased the sun. I chased the Mississippi. I chased a train.
The sun kept rising. The Mississippi kept flowing. The train kept laughing down its' road.
I made it home,
Grateful.

YESTERDAY, I MET JANE E.

Jane E. sat across from me, her sagging wrinkles remembering forgotten beauty. The diamonds tied around her fingers were dim compared to the gleam wrapped in her eyes. She had a story to tell me, so I listened.

YOU WILL HEAR THUNDER

You will hear thunder and remember me,

and think: she wanted storms. 

the rim of the sky will be

the colour of hard crimson,

and your heart, as it was then, 

will be on fire. That day in Moscow, 

it will all come true,

when, for the last time, I take my leave,

and hasten to the heights 

that I have longed for, leaving my shadow 

still to be with you.

Anna Akhmatova 

PLAID COTTON

I am endlessly surprised by him. His faithfulness to me. Again and again and again and again and again. 

Unfailing, unfailingly. 

In the little things. 

How he remembers those small questions I ask, that sing like a tea kettle on the stove. Even those small questions that I forget as soon as they leave my lips. 

Two nights ago, I asked if he could bring me to a plaid jacket that would scare away the winter winds, one warm and ready for spontaneous living. Yesterday, there she was, in a plastic bag beside my bed. While I was scrubbing scorched potato from a soup pot, my ma had climbed into my attic to leave her there. 

No doubt God was behind this. 

If he is unfailing in the little things, endlessly showing delight in me, endlessly wanting my delight, why am I so afraid to trust him with the big things? There is no one who could ever deserve more trust. 

My faith is so small.

LISTEN

Nicole's adamant directions guided Georgia and I to the alleyway where all were congregated.
  

In a haze, I had left the Crane House, forgetting coat and hat, and was distracted by my shivering, until the judge cleared her throat. On those concrete steps between four white pillars, with passion and lament, she spoke into the microphone. Next a victim spoke. Then another. Then a police officer. Then a politician. Then a survivor, but just briefly, before she broke loose her voice and sang of mountains and victory. I felt warmth filling into my eyes, forgetting about the cold, but only until another icy wind snagged between me and them, and I was again reminded.

Once more, the executive and founder stepped forward, now to remark how we would keep the evening march and vigil shortened, as many of the women participating did not own coats. That's when a small breath of awe knocked into my lungs and I realized that leaving my coat up the attic stairs of my room was his intention. So that I could feel the frigid air in my bones and understand.

These woman need coats.

We marched, chanting, signs lifted, sun falling and catching us with timid warmth between the buildings. Passing cars honked, scoffed, or ignored. We marched. "Pimps and Johns go home. Leave our children alone." "We will not be bought or sold or traded at any price." They walked beside me, beside us. Stories behind those eyes. Too deep to touch. Their stories haunt them. But their stories must be told.

I cupped a candle between my mittens, its' wax dripping and clinging to the wool, and huddled behind a wall of people. It was their annual candlelight vigil. Voices took turns telling of those in our midst who had died cruel deaths in the last year.

"A pimp had pumped drugs into her body until she was lost in a coma, then he beat her and raped her.."

"..He stabbed her and cut out the child in her womb, laid them side by side, both dead."

"..She was beaten gruesomely, stabbed twenty times, then he piled her body into a garbage can."

"..She had broken off the engagement, but wanted to see him once more, he raped her, strangled her, and hung her from the bedroom ceiling."

People. Pray for your city. Pray for the vulnerable girls who become trapped within this abhorring system of prostitution. Pray for the women who are recovering, the trauma of their past that is triggered each new morning. Pray that they can experience redeeming love found only in Jesus, that they would be surrounded by truly beautiful and sincere people who can be his heart to them. And after you pray, keep praying. Meanwhile, quit judging those girls in skin tight clothes at the grocery store.

You just have no idea.

TWO BLOODS

this foreign world, with her dramatic posers and diverse faces, 

has become familiar.

the streets are a chaos my feet can trace.

the heart beating of this city is loud, 

heavy, and diseased. 

i can feel her blood, pumping.

there is a lake in the middle, 

between the shards of glass and metal

scarlet waters, salty and thick, rising and narrowing; 

shadowing the chaos

she flails, drowning, drinking the blood that drowns her

stomach of an empty black hole.

another blood splits through her. darker, richer, more scarlet.

a nourished blood that rivers into my veins. 

a blood she doesn't want. refuses to taste.

a blood, savagely rejected.