sinking and soaring

long form poetry I wrote on the shore of Lake Washington a few summers back

somedays my heart soars, 
and other days, it sinks.

somedays I do not want to know what it is like 
to have little 
to be scared 
to be unsure
to be in pain 
but other days, 
	I do.

somedays I do not want to be strong 
or inspirational, 
or ‘mature for my age,’
or ‘wise beyond my years,’
but other days, 
	I do. 

somedays I do not want to own up 
to all of the dark days
I have known 
at the age that I am
but most days, 
	I do.

somedays I detest
the ways familiar places
make me feel so strange and alone 
but in recent days 
I am beginning to suspect that I do not have 
to bear it all on my own.

somedays I do not believe that Jesus, 
Man of Sorrows Himself,
actually feels 
and knows my pain, 
or sees my angst, 
but other days 
	I do. 

somedays I worry 
about my participation 
in broken systems 
that bear the name of Jesus, 
but most days, 
I am reminded 
that I am a broken system, 
and Jesus chose 
to participate with me. 

somedays I recall 
the tire swing 
in front of the house I grew up in, 
fashioned out of all the things 
that make up a childhood memory:
a fraying rope — bound to snap,
swaying to the tune 
of some distant melody
made up of creaking tree branches 
and the sound of my father’s tires
coming up the dirt road. 

should I ever hear it again, 
I’d surely remember it,
but wherever would that be? 
those days have long since departed
but the sinking and the soaring 
remains with me.   

there are days
I wish my life 
looked drastically different. 
and on other days, 
I cannot believe 
I get this small echo of an existence
to call my own.

somedays I do not suppose
that the Kingdom 
has really drawn near 
but other days 
it is
all I can taste on my tongue, 
the sole melody resounding in my ears,
and the clearest, surest thing 
my eyes perceive.

somedays I am filled with wonder 
and other days I wonder 
why 
last week it was laughter that occupied my lungs; 
and today I’m too anxious to even cry. 

you see — somedays my heart soars, 
and other days, it sinks. 

---

and on these days:
some-days and most-days 
and other-days
and just one-of-those-days —

I want 
to break bread 
on the mornings I feel sad and scared, 
     and slather it in 
maple butter all the same. 

I want to walk around a neighborhood that isn’t mine 
during the last hour of sunlight 
drinking wine 
out of a water tumbler 
that still hints of old coffee. 

I want to sit around a living room while 
my friends play guitar very badly
and ensure they are well-listened to 
as they grieve.

I want to answer their calls at the worst times, 
meet them at the corner for coffee, 
drive hours to celebrate their engagements,
and send them off well, 
to sense the wonder and wistfulness 
	that accompanies 
the changing of the seasons. 

I want to see the sun 
glint off the water 
in the summer months; 
pull a well-loved sweater 
around my shoulders 
during the gray ones. 

I want a life that is lived-in,
to be a safe place of a person, 
to commune and to come undone, 
to build something 
that can harbor many. 

I want to sing alone in my car 
on my way to get groceries, 
the strength to admit 
when I am weary, at the end of my wit.   

I want wide expansive space 
to deeply miss what used to be mine 
whilst being at peace 
with what I now have.  

I want to be heartbroken 
and brought 
very 
very 
low, 
and still hold out for hope anyways. 

I want to sink into my seat 
as the overture 
begins to play
and believe wholeheartedly 
that in the end all will
still be made beautiful again —
even after all the flipping of scripts 
and the pain points in the plot, 
after all is lost and then found, 
then seemingly lost forever again. 

I want to believe that kites will soar 
in the same winds that tossed us 
apart from one another forever —
the same wind 
that took down 
the ponderosa pine
in our front yard that spring day 
where the tire swing sways 
where we left 
and never returned 
where someone else 
that wasn’t all of us 
will live out their happier days. 

(my heart once sank knowing that)
but now 
	it just holds steady. 

(and I used to worry that grief 
would always remain in the distance)
but now 
	I just stand ready.

hallelujah
    my happier days 
were
	and are
		and will be 
					elsewhere. 

---

so let me spend them somewhere other than
where I thought they’d transpire
with humans who knew me better.
let them be spent on the far side of the Pacific,
where the dawn spreads her wings, 
where grief runs deep
and grace befriends the lowly.  

let the hydrangea bush outside my window
sink low with the weight of blooming,
let the ashes of august 
soar away in the September wind. 

let me now make sense 
of all the sad songs 
that once played on my fathers radio — 
let them play all the way through 

let hope be a staple, 
a household name — 
worn-in and worn-out, 
never worn down or used up.

let me be wrong in conversation 
let me love and be loved 
let me lend my forgiveness, 
receive it in full
let me limp towards my King
carrying all my broken, crumbling pieces
towards the Day,
(and everyday after that) when He names me whole.  

but until then 
let me begin to understand 
that all of this soaring and sinking  
— perhaps there is space for it. 

I’ve spent so many days, 
sinking and soaring, 
always trying to make sense of it —
I cannot help it,  
and perhaps I will be 
for quite 
a long, 
important 
while. 

---

(and what I mean by these last 994 words is — I’m really just waiting, impatiently, for it to turn out okay, in the end, after all)