Hivey-hives

I don't know what my body's problem is. I try so hard to treat it nicely, and it still gets so upset. About such inexplicable things! I can't figure it out. I ride my bike, it gets angry and hivey at me. Last night I ended up standing under the showerhead, cold water pouring all over me as angry red hives appeared, so many and so big that my body became one giant hive. Those are called plaques. My scalp was itchy, my neck, my face got so swollen that I had a double chin. Everywhere. I was freaking out, of course, I don't like being sick away from my mom and dad. Ethan ran to the gas station to get me some Benydryl while I tried to soothe my skin, which, in return, produced more hives. 'Take a deep breath,' I kept telling myself, trying to calm down before I wasn't able to breathe. Ten minutes later I'm wheezing down the hallway, towel wrapped around me as I decide to sit in the bathtub and shiver, just for two minutes relief. The red lingers on my legs, threatening to leave a tattoo in memory of our time together. Today my legs are swollen, pink, and tired. My eyes are closing while I try to stay awake enough to answer the phones and go to class. My legs look ridiculous, all balloony and tumescient. If only we could figure out what causes this!

we can hold hands,
and walk up the aisle,
smiling,
nervous,
exploding with anticipation.
we'll say our words,
we'll sing our song,
show our love, be pronounced
for all time
together.
side by side
bursting with tender love.
we'll start our lives,
we'll sing Him praise,
we'll watch the stars
and hold hands beneath the moon.

Heartfeet, Lakey-lake, Spin.

It's amazing that no matter where you are, who you are, or what you're doing, you will always mess up. And have to start over again. And again.

Write these on the insides of your eyelids.

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to the heavens, but beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
(Luke 18:13-14)

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves.

It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans.
(1 Thessalonians 4:3-8)

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, my Soul. I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. Do not trust in Princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return tot hte ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. HE is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them - he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed, and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. The Lord reigns forever, Your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord
(Psalm 146)

I want to be any of these places. Anywhere but here. Sitting in an office stewing with thoughts of what could happen, what we want to happen, how I could make it happen, what I should do to prepare. I will just trust where my God leads, He loves.
And I love these places (and this person). And want to run, bike, walk, drift to them. I want to lay in that grass, pour my heart onto paper, bronze in that sun on that sand, lullaby of the sea in the background, capture the memories attached to the roads, the trees, fences, hills, and signposts of these.

These are the days when you dream and dream and dream about opportunities stretching before you, the paths sprawling every which way, offering a chance to escape complications better left behind. Imagine all of the places that you could possibly travel, all the different ways you can recreate yourself.



What holds you back?

What keeps you from going on one side, and what tugs you back from the other?

When you leave, you never just leave behind a tattered couch and strangled curtains.
You never step away only from the too-tall heels, shoved in a corner to be discovered another time.
It's never just the park you loitered at when your horizon matched the skies gathering rain in their pockets, never just the street you dreamed about living on, or the parking spot you treasured coming home to late at night.

It's the eyes, the hair, the lips, the arms, legs, feet, toes, fingers, even knees
of someone.
It's the laugh, the sigh that exhales a world's weight, cracked knuckles in a silence and a cascade of curls transferred from shoulder to shoulder, both browned from the summer sun.
It's the arms that have wrapped around your body, your waist, anchoring you after a fall, after regret has been born.




Departure tips this soul masked as tissue, blood, veins, precariously toward the edge, wrenching what has touched it to the core from contact.

Replanted to a foreign bed, slowly becoming native soil.