Salt // Sight

You said to me that you couldn't find your home in my nail beds
So I turned myself to stone
Hoping to become the sacred place where you could see god
Instead you saw an ocean, as deep as it is vast
And you lost yourself
Two planks in the eye that saw only dust
I am too much of the pillar of salt; the fig tree; the orange rinds and sticky hands;
Cotton moon on salt lake
Broke my hands to fit into the moon,
Waiting for this kingdom pledged
To come barefoot in ash and sand
Asked too much of the desert
When all that I needed was the honeyed words
Of a home
Filled it with bats, tried to see beauty upside down
The funny thing about wanting to see out the back of your head
Is that you always end up looking backwards
I am too much of the pillar of salt
Tried to grow Himalayas from the small of my back
But the skies forbade it
Too much moves the sea; and mountains are not made to tremble at the touch of another
I am the whale at the bottom of the ocean,
The big fish, Ishmael,
Three coins in my mouth
I wanted to hold you in my stomach until you found god
But god got to you first
Pink fingered and raw as the day you came into this world
Raven told you of the man you could become
Broke fists like waves against your chest
When you said you wanted to be called home by someone
Who can look into the sky and see oceans
Blindly tore down the pillars
Cut my hair in my sleep and called myself home
Made of wilted fig trees and broken bones
Salt flats and desert sand

Here Am I

This year was meant to be the year of no mistakes,

But I have lost so many bets with the universe

That I leave each coin where it falls

And the only things I take with me now

Are the bruises I collect along the way

So here am I:

With all my hearts and fingers bleeding from all the times I have

Aimed to hit something, but only struck myself;

For all the times I have wanted for someone to hold me by my edges

Just to keep me from drifting apart;

For all the broken bones and shoes and glasses and phones;

Here am I.

Limbs and hands and feet holding myself together.

I am wrapped so tightly in my own embrace

That now I can afford to love others without losing parts of my palms.

Here am I.

Still trying to give you parts of the moon like it is my heart rushing over the finish line,

Giving away myself before it cuts too thin across your palms when you reach out

To hold me

But here am I

Still wanting to give too much

To love like a shotgun firing

The recoil, it still grows knots in my shoulders

And my hair, it grows like weeds, tangling around my ears and deafening me.

Still, here am I. I am what I am,

And this Am that I am becoming is no less holy

From all its brokenness.

My eyes have become a forest growing,

Even in spite of all the cheap shots

To my head and my heart, who are learning more about the importance of reaching out

I own hands held so far out in offering that I have no choice but to trust

Everyone I meet

(This does not make me fragile)

Here am I

Hearts beating with the blood found on the ocean floors of my soul,

Shaking so much these tremors still cause tsunamis

Here am I.

And even though I’ve lost so many bets with the universe

That I leave every dollar where it drops from my hands

I still keep them open.