Crappy First Drafts

A dream is growing. Seats filled. Anxious. Broken. Worried. Depressed. Grieving. Miscarried. Sorrowful. Hopeless. Lost. Dead. A haunting melody consumes the air. It is pain. Misguidance. Confusion. An anthem of strength overpowers the weight of the melody. Hard. Heavy. Worthy. Sure. A stage with a story. A man giving tools. A woman peddling good news. Seats. Leaning in. Wonder filled. Caught in curiosity. What is that stirring, that lifting, that . . . Hope? A dream is growing. Looking for the T[ea]

It's like a wash cycle. Press play and it knows what to do first, the thought that follows, the spin cycle that takes over, and the short calm that exists before it all begins again - the drum never getting emptied. Just an endless rinse and repeat, no change of clothes, no new soap, nothing new at all. It's these same old thoughts, the same old process of attempting to wring them out. To finally cleanse them of their soil and fill the drum with something fresh. Yet it seems like nothing new will ever get added. There will be no opportunity. The laundromat is closed, or indefinitely broken. Relational struggle filled with critique and complaint - all righteous of course - it's what's stuck in the drum now. I desire new thoughts but, somehow, it's always the toxic parts that want the longest wash cycle. Sometimes I open the detergent drawer and add in a heavy dose of bleach, "that'll do it, it should come out clean this time." But it's hard, trying,

Sometimes it feels like a necessary way to get what's inside of me outside of me. Somehow, writing allows me to process and dump my thoughts and feelings in a liberating way. I don't have to consider who's listening or how they'll feel and respond. I don't have to mitigate. I just get to say the thing and think about what I said afterwards. So much less vetting and mental gymnastics.  Also, sometimes it feels like the only space I can say the thing I want to say. But then I struggle, what's the point? Is anybody even listening? And if nobody's listening does it even matter. I read in a novel last night, "The sun was slowly rising, dipping the park and the gorgeous mountaintop in a sea of light. There was nothing to do or say. Sophie was experiencing the moment, witnessing this earth-old spectacle in silent. Sunrise and sunset always created emotions in her. There is so much unseen beauty in this world.  An incident from her childhood came to her mind. S

 The Container. The Wheezer. The Chuckle. The Giggle. The swelling, gathering, guttural exhale. To fill the anxious space. To respond to an awkward moment. To mask your pain. They say the feeling of being tickled is produced by an overwhelmed sense of discomfort. Pain. But the joy-filled laugh. Bellowing or chortling or snickering between your teeth. The type that's unstoppable, uncontainable, unforgettable. Where you recall the moment and are forcefully launched, with immediacy, back in as if you never left. Looking for the T[ea]

Their words were disingenuous. Dripping with desire. Oozing with intention. They made her cringe and retreat in the opposite direction of their manipulations. She felt it in the tension in her back, in the slight urge to vomit, in the urge to hide. She wouldn't smile in return, or feign pleasure. What did they want? What did their slippery smiles try to elicit? She wouldn't give it to them, and so they called her a bitch. -j

She was desperate to be good. An A- was a disappointment, a harsh word's echoes didn't quit. Her standards were impossible, but she met them, and the times she didn't were deep disappointments. Success was survival. Approval was survival. Whose approval? God's? Her parents? Her church's? Despite living every moment subservient to it, they never quite gave it. Perhaps God did, but how could she have known? And so she did two things. She found someone who did accept her. He wasn't burdened with religious requirement, and his acceptance was a relief, even if she failed to see the danger in the flip side of the coin, of lawlessness. Next, she went in search of God. Because despite the convoluted image given her, she saw goodness, and wanted sense. She found truth, and she found God. And found the whole point of this Jesus they told her about was that she didn't have to jump through their hoops, recite their formulas, look just so, or behave just so. She could st

She was the fifth child in a family of ten. She never talked about her father, but she had her mother's laugh. When she was twenty, her country asked for women to aid in the war effort. The handkerchief went on and she flexed her muscles like the riveters on the poster. The man she loved was across the sea. Her family was left far behind on the farm in South Dakota.  War ended and plans for the future were made. Her husband's initials were EGG, so it seemed only fitting that they would gather chickens and make their living from their eggs. One daughter came. Then another pregnancy. She was bigger with this one. Doc finished delivering a precious baby boy. As he washed his hands to leave the nurse called him back. "I think we have another one!" Twins. A boy and a girl. In her shock and fatigue she cried out, "but I don't want another one!" It got harder. She steeled herself. Her husband had to fight for his income and he became bitter at how his intellect

She was long and lean and her hair flooded down her back in locks of copper waves. Her skin so fair and tender it glistened translucent in the afternoon light. Her lips gently curved in a warm welcome, her nose and cheeks dappled in golden brown freckles. It was her eyes though, the way they enveloped you - like being engulfed in a blanket of sunlight with the tender spring grass pressing against your flesh. People always say, "she never speaks" and, yet, she is always whispering away my sea of pain and sorrow as she strides past me. He was boisterous and full. His skin wrapped in the darkness of midnight, his eyes shone like stars that would never burn out. His body consumed the room and his presence demanded your attention. But it wasn't foreboding or threatening. In fact, it always surprised me that all I ever felt was a gentle drawing inward. He never looked through you, it was always only ever into you in a way that was surprisingly comforting. It felt like your gapi

What is a compliment really?  It is the external acknowledgment of something positive. It is praise.  What does it mean?  Is it meant to encourage? Express desire? Manipulate?  We interpret compliments through our own lens. So what happens when the lens is broken? Clouded? Compliments become distorted. They blur. And this distortion makes them untrustworthy. And what do we do when something is untrustworthy? We dismiss it. We run from it. We counter it. We fight it.  How do we give compliments when our receiving lens is broken? What do they mean? Are they self serving? Can they be trusted?  Is my lens clear? Is my vision distorted? I know it is. What do I use to repair a lens? What is the barometer by which I calibrate my self worth? Scripture? But scripture interpreted by who? The hands that fed me scripture were the very hands that broke the lens. Maybe the answer is not to repair the broken lens. Maybe the answer is to replace the lens entirely.  V

Your hair looks nice.      Oh, thanks. Ooh, I love your sweater.     This old thing, I've had it for years! Where did you find your boots?     Well I first bought them at . . . How do you always know what I need?     Blank stare. It's not that compliments aren't lovely, it's that they overwhelm. Receiving them an admission of self-righteous ego. That dirty word, pride. The thing to be shirked and shunned. Once the kindness floods the senses the balloon in my hand threatens to peel the soles of my feet from the firm ground. Lifting with tender force my heel, then footbed, until there's nothing tethering me to this earth but my twinkling toes. So I repel.      Decline.           Defer.                Deny. Planted, I must stay planted. For who has the right to soak in the joy of being? Who is entitled to bask in their making? Who . . . But Who taught us that to be good was bad? To be seen as pleasing, beautiful, kind was ever any sort of wrong? I look to the balloon a

She sat there on the stoop. Contemplating. Her eyes lost down the bustling street. She didn't see the trees placed at calculated distances stretching across each side of the road. She didn't notice her neighbor's fourth attempt to parallel park. She didn't hear the squirrels rustling in the leaves, nor the elderly couple squabbling as they shuffled down the walk. She couldn't embrace the beauty of life or the hope of today. She just stared. Contemplating. What if? What if? What if? She didn't hear the door creak behind her. She didn't feel the warm body sidle beside her. She wasn't even there. Her body, yes. But it was still, empty, void. It was hollow and cold and alone. Her thoughts ran nowhere. Everywhere. "You're better than this," is all she heard. Her eyes snapped to the moment. The brilliance of fall. The bustle and struggle of life. The quiet and beautiful world. "What'd you say?" she turned to ask, but she sat alone.

The problem lies in which bedroom, as my childhood was filled with arranging and rearranging. Never quite settled, never anything quite totally mine. I suppose my first room was the guest bedroom. Two single beds, first door on the right of the hallway, with the tiniest of walk-in closets, and, of course, the doorway to the attic at its outermost edge. A shared space with nothing that belonged to me except my body and the clothes I stored in my grandparent's spare dressers. The little closet, still full of clothes that hung on my grandparents bodies some days. I would sit in that closet and take in deep breaths. It wasn't that it smelled good or bad, just that it smelled. I didn't think then of it as the smell of the elderly, I thought of it as the smell of home. I wonder now, would I recognize that scent on my grandmother's body today? At night the blank walls lurched with dark, reaching shadows. While daytime frolics with the Ouji board were invigoration, the night he

It had purple carpet, because Heidi liked pink and I liked purple. My bed had a soft comforter that was just two sheets sewn together with batting between, but I loved it and kept it through college. Lee Gebhardt wrote all over his chest with lipstick and spread eagle fell on it, so it was stained forever. He loved me, but I didn't love him because of that, plus he was a grade below me. I kept my typewriter in the closet. It had a satisfying click click click and bang when I typed. I'm sure the room smelled like White Rain, because that was the only hairspray I had late elementary into junior high. I'm sure it tasted like it too, because that stuff gets in your mouth. Heidi and I had some kind of speaker system we could use to talk back and forth. I kept it on my nightstand, and when we were supposed to be going to sleep, Heidi would crackle in with some nonsense and we would giggle until we got in trouble.