I make you in my mind.
I make you my ambitions and desires.
You unmake yourself.
You make yourself real.
I know there is someone beyond myself.
Because you, as you, are so much more.

We used to walk on grass,
Through trees and glades.
Now we walk on concrete,
Through forests of glass and brick.
Things are harder now,
like corners and bodies.
The soft cannot survive.

“Are you happy?”
“Yeah I’m happy.”
“Really?”
“No.”

I do not understand You.

And yet, I try to.

I write so many words, engage in so many arguments.

I read, both the words you inspired, and the words brilliant men have used to describe you.

I am unworthy to discuss your will as I do,

Undeserving, yet with a constant sense of entitlement,

As if my God should deign to my will.

Sadness creeps around the shadows of a dusk filled room.

He knows the sun will set, the joys of previous hours will fade.

He knows that joy and sorrow mingle and overtake each other in strange ways.

Hope, in little flickers, scarce enough to read by, holds him off.

But candles are fragile things, and there are so few matches left.

Everything is broken, but everything is beautiful.  The brokenness runs through us all.

I wake up and life is wonderful.  I thank God.

I wake up and everything is in ruins.  I can’t bring myself to thank him.

Yet I cling to life, and I am learning to be thankful to be breathing.

It all feels so short, and yet there is privilege in being alive.

The briefest of moments is a gift.

The longest of loves is a gift.

Awake, alive again, I start another day.