005. Poem on a Road Trip

Sometimes the hurt rises up from my throat and swallows me

Like slowly coming to consciousness, a February morning

A bird sings of spring, but I am waking to pain

If we could bend a moan to fit into an appropriately sized box

If there were a way to write down how much it hurts

Put it into an envelope, feel better…

Stamp it and send it far away.

I am driving toward vacation and away from my life

They say to try to have a life you don’t need escape from

But sometimes you need to take a break and take a swim

Lay in the sun and eat breakfast at 11 a.m. under a palm tree

Sometimes we need an escape from a life

I hope it’s ok to want to feel better…

To want to walk away from pain.

As a Christian you hear much about suffering, and suffering

Is not a shame and it does good things for us

They say to sit with pain but I’m not sure what they’re talking about

No one sits with pain. They breath through it, walk with it, curl up to ease it,

Sing in it Sunday morning, and cry about it Sunday night

Then we make popcorn and watch a movie…

Probably to see how other people got through it.

The thought of light coming is a nice one even if it too, slices me

Because it has not yet come and hopeful words hang shimmering

A hopeful word hangs in the occupied air of snow falling

Home again to the bleakness of no future and frail hope

Waiting for springtime is like east coast road trips

Is this going to take forever…

Drive on, Lizzy

Photo by Megan Capewell