Mirrors

The tension between vanity & insecurity
Suspended questions of self hanging in ceiling-cracks,
the refrigerator, the gardener, the roads
humming along, while my crinkled knuckles tighten
at the foot of a full-length mirror

On The Nature of Ghosts and The Magnificence of Hope

There are always the smiles that stay with us
longer than we would like —
teeth, teeth, and teeth,
once incisor, now fang
waiting to tear at the fragility of me
to bite and taste the saltiness of all my parched parts

but then, a bursting light of You,
and I remember the ways You made these gears fit,
the way You took your divine sculptor's knife and chisel
to chip away at all the corrupt things
and find the image you hid, long ago

Oh! The corrosion! The filth!
No wonder it is taking so long!
In the face of Your mighty hands,
my feeble fingers insist on clinging to my old self
often
Give it back! I know nothing else!
and most importantly,
Who will I be once it is all gone?
Who will I be without my old skin?

You smile, and call,
All you must do is allow me to show you.

Fragmented

Where the pieces of me end
and the fragments of you begin
there is the slightest crack,
the smallest, hairline fracture,
but still — a gap

housing loose strands of
my selfishness and
your confusion
and my insecurities
and your arrogance
all hanging together like
wiry hairs that do not know
where they were born

I am this:
espresso cubano, 2 shots,
hiding behind steam & sugar
You are:
red eye — hot & straight up,
and while I have always preferred black coffee
these days, I find my limbs extending into
past refrigerators, rummaging aimlessly
for the half-and-half [french vanilla]

my weakness is hulking
an infinite bulge of mismatched socks and
mirror shards buried under tarpaulin and dust
and I am sorry it's so messy,
and that I have lost the keys to everything,
and that all the plants are unwatered,
and that the wine stains just won't come out,
and that my hands have forgotten how to clench into
the fists they once knew
and that my eyes keep leaking and leaking,
and my lips have lost their blueprints for
building words that make my heart make sense again,
and that I am not strong enough to carry both my weakness and yours,
I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.

Mea culpa, Mea culpa

I don't do much, sometimes
I don't lose sleep
I don't always bring home piles of papers
to grade
I don't call all 130 sets of parents, always
I should,
I should I should I should.

If I am asking them to work their hardest,
then I need to be working mine.

Despite not losing sleep, I'm still tired
and I don't know
I don't know how to care a lot
without caring too much
without being frustrated and hurt
when they don't care in return
I don't know why I don't work harder,
but I should,
I should I should I should.

If I am asking them to work their hardest,
then I need to be working mine.

I've heard sage wisdom, of protecting oneself from burnout,
of striving for sanity for sustainability,
but I think I have
spent so much of me
building walls of "sustainability"
that I can't see past
the burning brick.

I guess I could be working harder.

(I wish I wanted to. I should I should I should.)

October Endings

I haven't written in a while.

And this makes sense:
when your soul is tired, when your heart is tired, when your body is tired, there is sometimes nothing left to give — let alone to write.

And this is what I demand every day:
that my students write.
- despite everything, in spite of everything, because of everything, for everything — that they write.

And here I am, stumbling over one, tiny blog post.

Things I am learning.

Called to walk through suffering. We are called to walk through suffering. Not against it. Not above it. Lately, my "incurable optimism" is appearing to be more and more like realism that has never known suffering. I am the ultimate wimp, but God is so good. So strong. And the only reason I have made it through some of these days.

I have never been an angry person, but I think I have always been angry. It's like I was just waiting for the moment that my anger — at all of it: our unjust educational system, our own mistreatment of each other, our brokenness and hate — would have something to hit. Something to target.

And there all of you are. Beautiful, and shining, and fierce, and fighting, and some days it takes everything in me not to scream, not at you, or to you, even, but for you — it is not you're fault you are like this. But from now on, it will be.

So tired.
I am so tired.

Will you please keep fighting? Will you fight when I can't?