There are days I cannot write a word 

Because of the fear the closeness of all of this 

Cramped like an oyster 

Or a parrot with clipped wings 

These are the days I could write novels 

Your blunt sharp edge 

Just makes my soft look softer 

& when we come together 

There is a complete story

A full body

A whole

If I see you like this

Then I can truly see you

I may have missed you

If you had not shown up like 

Rain

And glass for the viewing 

And tulips 

Essential 

to this season

Expect and accept criticism 

It is the complimentary color of 

Praise 

For weeks

It felt as if a moth had touched every part of my insides with its wings 

This anxiety is like a child in the womb

All of this barely lets me sleep

do the demons cringe
when i tie light

to you

| I wish I could watch my prayers move from my mouth into the world

|| I would pray a lot more 

I think I cried three hours straight about how you got broken as a child right in half like a piece of wood or a pencil snapped right into two I watched it happen when you needed your bones to be made strong and your mind to be quieted all they did was made them shake more and it has now come to this 

Sure you were always scared of drowning or of foxes in the woods or of cancer in your bones and we couldn't change the questions all we could do was answer them well and maybe we failed you there but we aren't perfect 

It's not like anyone meant to its not like it was anyone's fault really we are all made of glass and easily shattered we are all just trying to do what we think is best and what they thought was best broke you and now your mind cannot comprehend wellness and now they are here with desperate empty hands trying to find the shreds of the two sides of you and using all the glue and spit and tears they can find to make you one piece again 

I think they are even willing to carry both parts of you for the rest of their life right there

on their shoulders 

Because they are sorry

Because they love you

Because they don't mind how your mind is really

Even when you turn around over and over again

Your back to them • Screaming 

Because of back then when they broke you

And you never found a cure

--bipolar disorder and can it be created 

Light of God

I want to find where you are lying in me 

Where are you lying in me 

And if there is a way I can bring you forth

Teach me to share you well 

||even in this storm 

"Do you wanna be my assistant?" He asked, "for the game?" I tell him sure sure and I said what kind of game and he said oh it's not really a game I'm just setting up this board and he turns with his felt tipped marker and finishes a drawing of a question mark with a large fluffy hat. 

When I first walk in he's standing there, the cape around him like a dress with a slit from the hip to the neck, he's clasping his hands together trying to decide what he wants from the menu. 

Finally I tell him I will surprise him and he clips the lid on the top of the marker, relief. Around his hand is a necklace with the shape of a cross on the end. He keeps wrapping and unwrapping it around his fingers. 

Outside there is a man the shape of a pencil, 

deep in a hospital bed, just laying out in the hallway like this is a beach or a sauna or something 

the beard of him grows long and hard from his chin, unkept like his health his brain his attire 

his hands knotted like a sailor, below his chin, asleep. 

A young man, around 26, yells at a cop and his assistant while he undresses claiming his mental stability over and over . 

I have found the things you feel you must claim loudly are largely not true. 

Like my brother who claims he is Jesus the Christ or a prophet how did it come to this

A old lady rolls by on a bed, with her mouth unlocked, open and wide, neck bent to the left as if frozen there. 

The nurse is rude no one told me his food would take an hour to get here so after 40 minutes I call 

He rearranges the furniture 

All three chairs in a row next to his bed 

I sit in one

I don't care 

He can do what he wants 

I love him and his mental illness if he comes with that

Before he eats he heads to the bathroom 

Flushing his ankle bracelet down the toilet 

An alarm goes off and the nurses barge in on him 

She yells at him telling him if he keeps doing that he's not going to get privileges and he has to leave it on his ankle and he says I know the bracelet is for me he tells her the anklet 

It told him to flush it 

Right on the side 

She says no it didn't 

And he says oh yeah?? 

After she leaves he asks me if I saw that how she backed down from him

I said no no I didn't 

He says it's because of the authority he has 

He lays the arm pressure bands next to each other like two babies 

Wraps the smaller one around his arm 

Telling me he's fine if he doesn't have the authority he thinks he does 

After

I tell him he has less then he thinks 

It doesn't matter he says 

It doesn't matter what you think

I hold onto parts of today like when I prayed for him to be healed and he reached up and held my hand on his head and said that is what I really want but after I was done it was the same confusing chatter but it's ok I don't mind...

You are never ready for this sort of thing

You sort of just put one foot in front of the other 

And document all of it

And praise God for the good parts 

I will take the sun 

With all of its fingers and hot breath

Let its hips and nose

push its way Into all my

shoulders 

It says to me

It is time 

To sprout and push up through this stale ground 

|| it is a way He loves me