Freedom Forest

There is freedom in many names.
There is freedom in no names at all.
And there is even freedom in my own.

Names can be stronger than the circumference of a ring

The name of Jesus broke my chains.
The heart of Jesus is on my skin.
It is stronger than a silver cross
or a one-sided conversation.

Freedom grows every day like a tree.

I wish everyone could see the forest I dance through,
the forest of trees that do not need to be cut.

I do not need it
but I wish it.

How are you doing in the forest of trees?

I am lost and free and I know my name.
The trees grow and grow.

Are you free?
Will you talk with my about the path you walk,
and pour out your name into the roots of the forest,
the deeply rooted freedom forest?

What changed?
Where is your approval?
Where is your understanding?
Come celebrate with me.

Bubbles

The bubbles burst and sing a song of jealousy to me,
a song of injustice.
My cup overflows and I let it drip through the cracks in the table.
I leave the room and the bubbles sing into the carpet.

While it lasts, I will love your pride, performance and drunkenness.
Your happiness is more important than injustice.

I am ashamed.
I am normal in my own way.
I do not invade privacy,
I pay attention,
And I receive none in return.

Old people like me.
They warm to me.
They never fall through the cracks like wine and songs.
Old folks make time for those without pride.

The canvases stretch into infinity and into the past.
They are controlled and they control me -
So I push them into the cracks, too.

They don't fit.  There are too many.

So I leave the room.

And while it lasts, I will love your falsehoods, your pride, performance and drunkenness,
Because your happiness is more valuable than injustice.

But I will always leave early.

Mercy & Honor

I have a gift
but I still can't see you.
Cataracts.
We can't see you.

I know someone who can.
He is an outsider like you and he says that you will not be okay.

Do I keep my pen until it is done fading?
I grow impatient and throw it away.

Peaches
Fruit gets soft
I look away and throw it on the ground to get crushed by a car.
A coup de grace; salvation from mealy fruit.

Salvation from an old dog.

Mercy killings,
Honor killings.

Same.
Run in front of a car and receive grace instead of hatred.

The cat singing my praises needs to die.
Perhaps he wants to die.
He longs for attention,
Epicentric attention.

One day I will let him out into the wilderness and never let him back in.
No grace.
I will have stolen my peace back.

Except maybe it never belonged to either of us.

I thought I would never want anything to die
But now I feed poison to the forests underground,
to the ancient buried forests.

Now I have a cemetery of twenty-seven cats who wanted to come back.
They didn't understand
so I let the trash take itself out
live in cardboard boxes
and die.

A coup de grace

A mercy killing
An honor killing.

You will not be okay.
I know, because he told me.
And you will never understand.

You think it's unfair.
I was attached for so long.

I used to feel bad for the mealy fruit, and eat it anyway, quickly.
My body would not know the difference.
But it did.

It is better to look away and throw them to the ground.