I don't know, really.

The cracks in my ceiling are the cracks in your floor.
Am I just imagining the bloodstain spreading across your shirt?
I could just pretend I don’t see your paling face, your desperate blue eyes that I can’t look into.
I stare out the window at the tempestuous landscape. The wind whips the trees into a frenzied dance. Shutters clap against the house applauding the apocalyptic show.

I don’t want you to hold my hands, because then you’d know how clammy they are. I am filled with silence. A throbbing silence that wants to speak… which might be the wrong thing to do.
I don’t think I’m imaging the way you look at me. But I could be misinterpreting what it’s saying.

I wish, I wish… so many things. I wish you would stroke my hair and tell me things I don’t know.
But sometimes, I wish I could gather up my hair… Gather up all my thick, moody hair and cut it off. With a resounding snip! Would it be like killing part of me, though?

I used to love the rain and the dark clouds. Now dark, gloomy days bring dark, gloomy thoughts and not one glimpse of you. Why does it always come back to you?
You’re standing right here looking at me. I can’t look at you. It wouldn’t be… fair?
You sigh a sigh that melts my heart, but not my resolve. I close my eyes.
Silence.
Then I hear you leave. Was this the last time?
I can only watch your retreating back through the window’s rain-soaked glass. Through the glass you look blurred, like you’re in a Monet painting. But the surrounding colours are too depressing to be a Monet...

I stand and gaze out the window. Half-wishing you would appear again. After a while, I turn away. Then I notice… a piece of paper on the floor. Anxious but eager, I pounce on it. Your handwriting greets me like an old friend. The message it contains brings tears of hope to my eyes. It says simply, “Wait for me. I will return.”

My parents!

I was looking for a recipe the other day in a big binder full of recipes that my mum has printed off the internet throughout the years. I couldn't find what I was looking for so I just started looking at all the different recipes. And, in the midst of all these recipes, I found a printed-off email from my dad's {work} email address to my mum's. It was dated April 3, 2000.
And this is what it said:

"There is someone I dearly love
And ought to tell her so
And so I wrote this poem
In hopes that she would know
There is no line of clever verse
To show what’s in my mind –
A better friend, a stronger love
I never need to find
I hope someday I’ll be the things
I want to be for her
But she accepts me as I am
And i like that, fer sure

I love you."

I just thought that was so sweet! I love my parents so much. {And I hope to be as talented a writer as my dad someday.}
My parents anniversary is today. They've been married for 23 years!
God has blessed me so much with this family. :)

To someone whose company I've grown to detest.

I feel like every time we talk we have the same conversation…
Did it ever occur to you that you could be wrong?
You stand there and tell me things as fact. You will hear no one who wishes to disagree with what you “know”.
But, my simple research took your “facts” and stripped them down to what they really were: fables.
I hope someday you’ll learn that fact and opinion are not the same thing. You say you know that… which proves how wrong you can be.
You think of yourself as a mature, logical person. Then why won’t you listen to what I’m saying? Don’t you think a mature, logical person would look at both viewpoints? And realize that perhaps the other person just might know what they’re talking about? Or is that just too incomprehensible for you?
I should have known you would never admit defeat. Foolishly, I dreamed you’d realize your errors. How can you be so sure, so self-complacent in your own knowledge? And you wonder why I’m so irked with you… you just don’t have a clue, do you?
The asininity of you makes me want to scream! You’re wrong. Do you hear me? Wrong.
You can choose to listen or not. I know the truth. It’s a poor comfort but it’s better than nothing.
You are far too opinionated for your own good.

{And I wish I could tell you that...}


{Photo of Sibylle Baier}

I wish I could make you understand...

I want to make you feel what I'm feeling,
See what I'm seeing.
But my emotions can't be expressed.
I try to tell you things but my words seem to trip over each other in the excitement to tell of their joy.
Sometimes they falter and shrink back when I reach for them.
In desperation I try to capture my elusive thoughts of the intangible things around me.
Only to have the beautiful things I want to say evade me.
I can merely articulate vaguely and hope you'll understand.
Do you understand?
I want you to understand more than anything
I dream that you may someday know what's in my mind,
See the wheels that are turning,
Feel life in what I say.
Making the connection is hard... I won't stop trying though.
There's a beauty in this endeavor,
Even I don't fully understand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I always wished I could write. I have, too... lots of things. But they're not like I want them. I feel them all in my heart... beautiful things that sing. But when I want to put them down on paper, it seems they're like little wild things... they're gone."
-Excerpt from The Rim of the Prairie by Bess Streeter Aldrich

The place only I can go.

When those people hurt me I don't want them to know.

But it affects me...

I shrink from their speeches which are like prodding fingers.
I try to block out their mocking words.
I become aloof on the outside;
On the inside I've run away.
I've run away from reality to a place only I can go.
It's quiet here. I can lean against time & think for a while.
My exterior is frozen. My interior is alive.
You can't follow me here. No one can.
I pity those cruel people. Their perception of beauty is clouded

They don't have a place like mine.
They could though.
But they're too busy... Busy in their miserable world.

{Photo: Anna Brønsted of Our Broken Garden. Taken by: Gina Zacharias.}