30th
9-30
1
Shut the fuck up
College is over
And this building isn’t
Your dorm, your mom’s house
Your playground
Grown folk live here
And none of us
(are) Like you
2
Forks scrape plates
A playlist ends
In the stillness
I see your hesitation
In the silence
I can hear what you don’t say
Why don’t you break up with her at home
Instead of here
Under the titillating glare
Of covert busboy scrutiny?
3
Watching leaves fall
Is the season’s greatest pleasure
Smelling fresh earth
Is the season’s tiny treasure
4
Is it more sinful to have sex with you
Or completely to let my guard down?
Either way, I’m standing here naked.
5
Yapping dog
Sleeping pill fog
If I could get just one night of pure rest
To handle the life that’s become my mess
6
Tell your little girl
She is a princess
Take her to Alice’s
For tea and fairy wings
I long ago stopped believing
In such fanciful things
I’ve been fawned over
And primped
And pimped out to society
In a white dress
with matching gloves
It doesn’t get any better
You’ll tell her
But what she doesn’t realize
Is how true that is
When the spotlight is taken away
And she’s just one of many
In the city that never sleeps
Where will her dreams be then?
7
[insert words here]
8
There is a fine line between
The seen and the unseen
The places we’ve been
And the things we don’t mean
Inside we are fretting
Expectations are spreading
Fears are subletting
Space between bodies and bedding
And we say we’ve seen it all before
There is nothing more
Nothing left to explore
But deny the feeling at the core
That there must be
Something Else
9
It is not hard to find the words
The words are what come easy
It is harder yet to find a way
To write and keep on breathing
10
We sit still
In rows of pews
Waiting to hear
God’s Good News
Waiting to learn
What it is we should share
Yet never realizing
What’s really there
If we could see the brokenness
Right beside us
Let our hearts instead of heads guide us
Recognize the sin inside
Stand up and confess
Not bow our heads and hide
This is the church
Without a steeple
Behind closed doors
Live its people
We say we’re in the culture
But not of it
So why do we demand
So much from it?
