Author: kwyatt1247

“love given is courage gained.”

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

“Love given is courage gained.”

I’ve recently discovered insecurities I thought I ‘dealt with’ a long time ago are still influencing my actions. It turns out, I’m just as insecure as I was ten months ago, it just looks differently today. No longer eroding my physical appearance, my insecurities have chosen to burrow themselves into the deepest parts of my being and make their way known from the inside out.

My lack of love for myself is based on my lack of ‘perfect.’ Somewhere in the past twenty years (age six sounds about right) I sold out to the lie that man owns the title to ‘perfect’ which left me a beggar shamelessly selling everything I had to get whatever man offered. Basically put: I didn’t love myself, so I became whomever it was I believed people would love. A complete give and take, this lifestyle became an addiction; anything for a hit of ‘glory.’

All the while, my own spirit was decaying.

I read somewhere that learning to accept yourself takes an abundance of “self-love” and “self-care.” Like “standing-bare-naked-in-front-of-a-mirror-and-complimenting-yourself” kind of self-love. The kind of stuff that bully victims in Lifetime movies do. The radical stuff.

In the past fourteen years, I have tried everything but the radical stuff, and although it sounded like a preteen’s manifesto, I was desperate. Because at twenty years old, I’ve tasted and seen a life that I dream of enjoying every single day- not just on days that I’m feeling thin or desirable. What did I have to lose?

So I found myself in front of a mirror: pale, raw, and real.

Typically at a time like this, I diverted my eyes from my reflection. Ironically enough, I hated anything above man’s influence. I praise God’s creative hands for each edge of the mountains and the carefully carved canyons, for the delicate tenderness felt in flower petals, the mysteries hidden in the night sky, the infinite watercolors of sunrises and sunsets, for the details in an animal cell, yet with the same breath, I curse and spit on His creativity when I don’t look like every airbrushed girl I see a photo of.

God, I need(ed) courage. I need(ed) humility.

Inhale; exhale. I prayed through waiting. Eyes closed, I put away the claws and asked for gentle, strong hands. Scarred hands courageous enough to love through pain. Hands skilled in creating and restoring; hands that could help me build a body I could love. The Carpenter’s hands.

They came slowly but faithfully. I built strong arms to embrace and serve my neighbors. I built a rib cage wide enough to protect a pair of lungs to sing and breathe in emerald Oregon pines. I built a soft tummy able to produce deep belly laughs and hold Salt & Straw ice cream. A soft tummy confidently wearing scars telling a remarkable story of redemption.

I am not naive; I know it will take time. I know there will be days I forget, but that’s all it will be: a day.

Psalm 139 says I have been “knit” together. Much more than simply being spoken into existence like the rest of creation, The Lord, in His dangerous untamed glory, “knit” me together. With His breath, He shared His wild holy magnificence with me, and I want to set fire to those wild holy fibers and let them consume me.

“Love given is courage gained.” The courage to be myself: His poiema.

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

Welcome Home

The curse of the Gardens’ labor pains manifest themselves
in the face of this creaky house
I’ve been building since the age of six-
hands unskilled in working with the weight of wooden glory;
this is where His labor has me,
hoping against hope
one day this place can sustain life
because right now, I’m not so sure…

Walking through the front door,
the air exhales the same stench of lusting
and taking,
the same heavy breathing,
that filled the Garden after the Fall.
The room is quiet with swallowed “no thank you’s”
and I can feel the treads in the carpet
of large footprints
in and out the front door
under my naked feet.
No one lives here because no one stays
this is just the place to come and play
since the first day when the devil said
“little girl, let’s play.”
Game on-
I won
an itch for sexual satisfaction
that became immune to my hands scratching
so I invited him in to help me reach it
and then a new him
and then a new him
and then a new him.
Humming a hymn lamenting the lost
of my skin
under the devil’s fingernails
scratching my back
that forever itched.

I walk on glass into a kitchen
scrubbed clean and empty,
a picture perfect catalog
haunted with moans of the dying.
There’s a table set seating my groaning hunger’s company:
headaches and fatigue;
for old time’s sake we get together to
throw good food away and
rearrange the remnants on my plate.
Ana, the starving baker, feeds those who come,
but lets her stomach feed on herself.
She hides her decomposing sanity well,
oh, I hid it well.
One and the same, Ana and I
and if we keep this up,
together we will die.

In my bedroom
at the end of the hall
the darkness sings to me
songs of the sirens
in Homer’s Odyssey
and I dance to them
right into the arms of my lover,
Depression.
He pulls me under the sheets only to suffocate me
stuffing my mouth with the rags
I use to wipe my self-induced scars with.
I know somewhere love is waiting for me to reach out
but in my madness,
I can’t see Him reaching out for me

—-

One day, a Carpenter walked by this
condemned house
of no use to Him and
saw a home to dwell in.
By grace this is a story of anomalies:
because He bought this desolate place anyway.
My God,
He bought me-
paying more than the price of His own life,
He paid with a promise to restore it.
and He works diligently with the same
blood, sweat, and tears, it took Him to walk up Calvary
the same hill this God forsake-me-not house rests on
hands skilled in working with the weight of wooden glory.
He built a foundation of faith and courage to believe that
for the rest of my life,
I can confidently sing
“take me home”
and be welcomed with open arms
through the door of hope.

falling into choice

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

tumblr_n3t61166vc1qea6ato1_500

He’s been teaching me that dependency is humble. It’s the honesty that cries out “Oh God, my spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak. Come be the good within me.” It’s being aware of our humanity, and our desperate need of everything greater than ourselves. It’s a choice that one day- when we stand before grandeur with wonder instead of fear or frustration- we will realize we’ve fallen into choosing. It happens unexpectedly. Dependency is a paradoxical way to put someone before yourself. It’s casting aside our own fear of being known, laying our vulnerable heart before someone, and giving them the power to impact us. Most of the time, I think we’re surprised when we find ourselves being dependent because we figure out it’s not as bad as we are trained to believe. Dependency is recognizing our limits and letting ourselves be fiercely & limitlessly loved.

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

(I ask; I’ll receive: a resolution)

I asked Him to build me with honesty, the same honesty that led Him from the Garden of Gethsemane and nailed Him up on that God forsaken tree. Because I’m tired of being what I believe is a portrayed image of me- mistress folly, mystery isn’t sexy- it’s holy, it’s set apart because it’s something you can’t smell taste hear touch or see unlike you- because I see right through you. You’re as sick as your secrets and you just can’t see it because you’re knocking back drinks hoping you’ll find a more bearable reality. But this is it- so embrace this current state of things because it breaks my heart that you’re only honest when you have the freedom to wake up not remembering the truth.

I asked Him to paint me the different hues of purples and blues,  the color of a bruise, with freckles of yellow and green. The kind of bruise you get from pressing your knees into the floor so deep whenever you’re crying out at heaven waiting for a response. The kind of bruise that you keep touching just to see how much it hurts. One that you can be proud of because you know you’ve earned it. I want to be a color that indicates I’m growing and being made more new and whole than I was before.

I asked Him to take my poetry through healing, I want it to go from hurting to hopeful because to me- regardless of what anyone thinks- it’s too lovely to keep suffering internally. Wrap me in empathy, courage, gentleness, and creativity. Name me hope. Name me authenticity.

I asked Him to give me new feet. I want a dancer’s feet with blisters that know the friction of moving across a bare floor with repetition, repetition, repetition. I want to be content with the mundane because repetition, repetition, repetition doesn’t invalidate the movement of the human body. I want an explorer’s feet rough from walking day after day over whatever lots they are cast, having the faith to believe that they will hold me up, with the weight of a nail, rising and falling as they inevitably will, taking me home.

~ kwyatt1247 ~ 1 Comment

Closed Doors

My flesh feels left behind, body outside of mind. “In between” the pull of my finger on the trigger; the thumb of God and His finger; the walk from door to door.

My spirit fights a cough in my throat to sing- say “ahhhh.” I cough. When doors are closed, I want to dance to eucharisteo. But this paralysis is like this- this infection of excuses spreading throughout my body, the beep beep beep of the machine flat lining “lay down and rest, it’s so easy” despondency overcomes me. Pain paints the walls of my funeral home, over the lines remembering the days I would stand up straight and let Dad measure me, “beloved, you’re growing!” and I forget it’s even possible. I forget anything is possible with G- I cough.

Dear body, don’t listen to mind. Dear body, be free. Dear body, be somebody.

Dear God, I just want to be somebody.

Instead I cough; I sleep.

I dream of home sweet Jesus Christ made of windows.

I write my prayers on my skin so on nights like this, their light burning in the darkness keeps me awake instead of this-I cough. A scripted story of my scars meeting His.

When doors close your ears hear them sing or whisper or scream, but it all comes down to hearing His breath in the hinges. And I do- I hear it in the distance like my mother’s voice when it was time to come in.

Dear God, let me in.

I take another step in the between. I cough.

Dear God, let remember how to breathe.

All I want to do is sing sel-I cough. Sing sel- I cough… SING SELAH! I fight to sing because I fight to breathe and there isn’t a breath that doesn’t sing syllables of his name. I’ll keep singing because I will keep breathing until I die or I will die.

I hear him knocking. From behind a door a few fronts down the street.

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

Renovate

Somewhere along the way, we’ve placed this “FOR SALE” sign around our neck and we make people believe that we are so notably remarkable that they should pay to look at our exquisite detailed trim when actually the light fixtures have never worked and the sink stopped

Drip

Drip

Dripp

ing

Because the well ran dry quite some time ago.

But if you advertise that it’s new, they will believe it’s new and we will too (I’m new). But I wonder how many regretful tenants it will take for us to realize that we need to change the sign to “UNDERGOING RENNOVATIONS” and let Surrender welcome the hands of another to help.

Yes my dear, these fixtures are nothing to be ashamed of

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

Eucharisteo

Hiding amidst my own somber company
Loss echoes off the cavern walls:
Security dressed in the camo coveralls my father wore when I saw him leave an early November morning,
only to return in an 8X10 Christmas card reimbursing me for my loss with a $25 check.
The movie of love dressed in his button down making her husband breakfast on a Sunday morning
Twirling around the kitchen while he watches her over the brim of his coffee cup;
Yeah, that movie was lost in the move from Barbie’s dream house to Thumbelina’s thimble.
My ID card that I kept in my velcro wallet fell out when I went to the drug store to buy chocolate bars and was swept into a dust pan, falling among the trash into the bin with last month’s edition of Vogue.
“Remember whens” with familiar faces went missing in the pages of “once upon a times” that celebrated protagonists too magnificent to belong in my stories anymore.
His voice when he replied “I love you too” through the foggy car window before driving away.

This loss sat in my lap and hugged on my neck,
A pleasant memory to visit with
Until its grip grew tighter and it shoved its way into my throat

A gentleman drunk with nostalgia
“What good is this to you?” I choked out
“To give only to take away”

Like a dictator standing on bare skeletons
God was that distant father in the camo coveralls
And I couldn’t believe that His reimbursement check
Worth raindrops on eyelashes and warm chocolate chip cookies;
Soft flower petals and blades of emerald grass tickling toes;
Wind decorating the air with the smell of fresh laundry;
Conversation with a loved one over a Tuesday brunch;
The welcome of Light’s kiss on the horizon at dawn
When I first wake up under the comfort of hundreds of stitches
Could possibly be any better than-
What was that mournful echo I once heard?

For my ears are only flooded with the grandeur of thousands of trumpets as I waltz into the throne room
Adorned with eucharisteo I toss jewels down at my Abba’s feet,
That will never pay Him back the price He paid
For me to see His goodness.

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

Found God Crying
I found God crying in the middle of the night
And I asked Him what was wrong
He said “I’m mourning the loss of one of My sheep; a cherished one who once sung My song.
She’s shed off her wool coat
And has cloaked herself in gold
A wild mane to rule the kingdom in
Disregarding her own home

But I can hear her calling out for rest
Desperate for peace for a place to lay her head
But she won’t easily find Me
Until she opens her heart to bleed.”

I knew I was that sheep
When He turned to me and said
“My sweet treasured sheep, when will you come out of the lion’s den?”

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

The Shift

Cozy and comfortable I find unbearable
But they seduce me with promises of rest and recovery
When in the end, I’m left with complacency

My God, how did we get here in this big ol’ easy chair
That has chained down my wrists
And left me with cold, purple limbs?

I’ve become a part of this place,
I’ve melted into its perfect cookie cutter frame.
Mmm, a cookie? I’ll have one, maybe two…twenty?

And as I stuff my face, consumed with gluttony,
The hurting cry out around me
“God, where are we?

Where are you?
As your followers around us
Are lustfully consumed with all that glitters but will soon rust”
Because you see my church, we’re soon to bust

We’re shoving creations down our throat
Leaving room for only us,
Even God himself is being pushed and shoved into corners
As we muffle our own cries,

Fearful of what?
Having hearts of flesh instead of an empty treasure chest?

God, I pray you rip open my chest and make me less
I pray I see myself as yours
Instead of a copy of a copy of a copy
Of what this earth bore

Take this heart of stone and these old wretched bones
And make them new
God, let me see only you

~ kwyatt1247 ~ Leave a comment

Selma, AL

I am a reporter

Trying to find the words

To depict with blood stained lips

The modern day

Garden of Gethsemane before me

Hundreds of little Christ’s who are

Singing this little light of mine

Kneeling before white men

Let it shine

For a crown of thorns

Let it shine

Immanuel, the first in line

Let it shine.

I am a protester

Belief begetting belief

I press on

Like the woman who was bleeding for twelve years

this war has gone on far too long.

Among saints

my feet tire

yet my soul rests.

Jehovah Shammah, He goes before

In the gospel hymns we sing

in the offerings we lay at His feet:

security, prosperity, normalcy.

But that’s a hard truth to cling to

When my enemies

who I’m commanded to love,

Beat me to bleeding

abandon me to suffering

demean me to nothing.

Anger awakes

but hope fights tosing it to sleep

And I confess to the Great Almighty,

This-

This battle of my flesh and spirit

is the one killing me.

Because I want my hands to be bloody

but not from catching my fall on the street

And I make myself believe

that I’d rather sleep in a cell

than my own sheets

But instead this shield of faith goes before me

protecting me from my adversaries

But more importantly

protecting me from myself.

So I press on

behind Jehovah Shammah

Afflicted, but not crushed

perplexed but not driven to despair

persecuted but not forsaken

Struck down but not destroyed

on Christ the Solid Rock I stand

His life, death, and resurrection.

I am a white girl

My lament fifty years late

I don’t have the right to mourn

with the ache of fresh budding grief

For what does any of this mean to me?

For I have never felt the unceasing burn of my skin’s betrayal,

covering the internal body that makes me equal

with those who slay me

I’ve never been afraid of what a policeman’s hands could do to me

with their white man authority

And I only watch war through the safety of a screen

Remembering the taste of red iron from once upon a time

When I fell and broke my nose as a child

an injury fit for adolescence

unlike those I watched in black and white:

casualties of hate

branded on the skin of fellow Americans-

Hell, forget Americans,

Fellow HUMANS

From inhuman hands that must have been starved of holding.

But were they?

For I know they were raised by people like you and me

Mothers and fathers who went to church every Sunday

Gave their tithe,

Dressed their best,

So what was the difference?

I can’t help but feel sorry for them

Because they must not understand

That pivotal moment in the Garden of Eden

When Adam first opened his eyes,

Seeing his reflection in the ocean of living water,

Man made in His image,

Imago Dei.

I can’t help but feel sorry for them

Because the when they look down

They can only see skeletons,

Walking in the valley of the shadow of death

Their souls hardened

To the abundance of life found amidst creation.

I don’t know if I’ll ever comprehend it,

But I beg God,

By the grace of His spirit

To let me never fall into it-

That valley of bones my ancestors called home-

And by the grace of God,

I will never smell the stench of it.