A Call from North Lake
I hate feeling incompetent.
I know enough to know I am helpless.
Jesús called today.
He is worried for his children.
They pray together
every day.
Paying to talk
to God
together.
They pray for me too.
I called a lawyer.
I couldn’t pray.
I am tired
of bearing
bad news.
They could
(still)
be deported.
I thought I could stop it
and knew I wouldn’t.
I hate feeling incompetent.
I know enough to know I am helpless.
It pisses me off.
I want you to know I tried.
I want you to believe I tried.
Mostly, I want it to have mattered.
Jesús called again today.
He is worried for my daughter.
We are at the hospital
and have no
time to talk.
He prayed for me.
It meant everything.
The First Breath after Our Last
And what of that first inhalation—when all our dying was done?
And what of
that first inhalation—
when all our dying
was done?
A quiet intake of breath.
Three days
after the exhale
of all that was.
From collapsed lungs,
from every
I can't breathe
Pressure falls,
making room
for a lungful
of something new.
That first breath,
after our last.
Dust.
Not done,
but finished.
Tuesday Night
After everyone goes to bed, I open the dishwasher and a cloud of steam envelopes me.
At night, after everyone goes to bed, I stand alone (as we all must) and face my final challenge for the day. After a long cleansing breath and muttered curses, I open the door and a cloud of steam envelopes me—my midnight facial. The cloud recedes and so it begins, each dish haphazardly placed on a rack, cleansed by science, and now reshelved for tomorrow’s chicken nuggets, pasta, or occasional uneaten vegetable. Each has a home unknown to anyone in my house but me. I am the keeper of the flatware.
My neighbor’s television lights my path. And I allow myself a moment to linger at the window and guess at their lives Are they on season 2 or 3? and I am grateful for the mental distraction from the mundanity of my evening existence. I never linger there long. I’m too tired to stand still.
Soon my thoughts turn to questions about their children and mine and I remember the meals that made the mess that led to this moment. I remember that we are when we could not have been and that I should be grateful. God help me be grateful my muttered prayer in between swears as I finish my task. I know tomorrow will be the same. Not much will have changed. I will hate this every night until it is no longer mine to do and then I will mourn. Maybe it is a gift though. Someday this will be a good memory and what I do now is an investment of sorts. I will have earned that good grief.
A Place I have Never Been
If I took you there, the first thing we would do is take off our shoes.
I tried so hard. If I took you there,
the first thing we would do
is take off our shoes.
The sand would be too hot
and the grass too dry
and I swear, you would love it still.
The wind would move the waters
to our aching feet
and push the clouds
over our dampening heads.
The most delicious breeze.
We would see green
like we never had before,
with blue and white to contrast
the life in those leaves.
I truly hope it rains.
Then we could float and marvel
at the fresh water above and below
and when we sipped from our cups,
within.
Floating through this perfect day
wondering if it is true
unworried if it wasn’t.
Weightless enough.
No One Believed Me
He touched the wounds.
No one believed me.
He touched the wounds.
My hands.
My side.
Grocery Store Nemesis
There are two types of people at the grocery store: those who have no sense of the people around them, and the good and moral citizens of the world.
There are two types of people at the grocery store: those who have no sense of the people around them, and the good and moral citizens of the world. I unequivocally belong to the latter, of course.
And that is my predicament as I stand in this aisle, stricken by the scene unfolding before me as I attempt to navigate my cart to its destination.
Before me: a store worker stocking shelves—a good and faithful servant of the people; a mother with an unruly child on her heels—Lord have mercy on her soul; and evil incarnate: her male.
I will not jump to our heteronormative conclusion and declare him her husband or the father of her children. What is important here is the maleness of the human in my path.
Because, as a male, this shopper-adjacent individual is statistically more likely to lack spatial awareness and will, the majority of the time, find his way to the most inconvenient of locations—right in front of the very thing you came to the store for and cannot leave without because your six-year-old will not be able to have her four popsicles a day and will DIE MOM I’LL DIE.
There is not much I can do at this moment but surrender to my fate. And because I am a good and godly woman who does not bring male-adjacent shoppers with her on such errands, I will wait until his keeper meets my gaze, takes in my stink-eye, and yells at her male to move.
Then I will grab those popsicles and get the hell out of there, forgetting the macaroni and cheese.