Sunshine

Dear Sunshine,

Happy birthday. I know it's been a couple years, and we're different people now, but I can't help but think of you today. You were (still are no doubt) one of the most incredible people I've ever met. I hope your heart stays strong and beats with pure love and devotion for your family every day. 

I still miss you sometimes.

I hope you light up everyone around you like you use to light me up. 

Happy birthday, Sunshine. 

Love,

J

Moonlit Hope

Trickling into my soul

A sliver of moonlit hope

Hard to say how

Long it's been

Since a quiet voice intervened

Through the cacophony 

In my head

But here's a whisper

The barest breath

Maybe it breathes

...maybe

Poems

It's been a long time

Since words found their way

Written out on napkins and

The backs of envelopes

I use to write poems

Every day

I use to write them about

The boy I loved

The one that walked away

But then Poetry died

And there were so many years

Of quiet silence

And an echo stretching forever

I wrote a story for my godson

It's about an armadillo 

I want to publish the book

But all this fear 

Holds me back 

Still somewhere past

Basketball games on TV

And fictional bounty hunters

I hear an old whisper

And feel a tug at the corner

Of my heart

Start again

Live with no regrets

And I smile

Maybe turning 30

Is a starting point 

After all and

Maybe I can live

The life I long for 

After all

Dear Stranger

I hate that I don't even know your name. 

Actually, what upsets me is that somehow, in the course of my week, I became attached to you. It was love or fate or whatever, but my feelings got involved. I don't like doing that. I don't like getting emotionally invested in people at the get go because people leave. This makes this feel more ridiculous because it was exactly what happened. 

Here I thought, dear stranger, that we were looking at pieces of something that could've created something beautiful and fun, but instead I'm looking at a whole lot of nothing and the reality that I still can't seem to pick a guy that won't disappear. 

Maybe I scared you away. I know I get excited when I connect to people and I tend to be intense. It's just the way I was made. God gave me oceans and seas with a crazy depth for passion and devotion and curiosity and wonder. I am not great at small talk and preliminaries. If I like you, I'll talk. 

I was talking to you. 

Wherever you are, Stranger, I hope you are having a better night than I am. I think you're incredible. Have an incredible life. 

Love,

J

10

Zuni,

Today, the sun is glittering gold, work is going smoothly, someone handed me good caffeine (twice so far), and in a few short hours I'll be off for the weekend. Other than an extremely annoying intercom announcer talking in the background of this break I'm trying to take, the day is going well. 

I got a part in a play last night. I'm playing a character named Julie who is dating a guy nearly 20 years older than she is, and her parents are being played by my parents, which I think is hilarious. I'll be living and breathing this play till the second half of June. I just started reading the play a little while ago, and I think I'm going to enjoy it. Plus, I really just need to be out of the house more. The only place I ever seem to be these days is at work, so maybe this will broaden my horizons a little. 

You'll love this, I'm trying online dating. It started as a dare combined with a joke which was extended into a challenge. I've been on the site for about two months. I met the challenge, but stuck around. Most of what I'm encountering are super sexually aggressive guys who seem to be under the faulty assumption that because I'm on this site I really just am dying to have someone tacklessly hit on me and ask to sleep with me and then tell me I'm being a coward or a prude for not wanting to sleep with them or a "disrespectful bitch" when I tell them  I don't appreciate the verbal sexual assault. 

I keep blocking and deleting guys. I doubt that anything will come from this,  but I can't think of a better way to meet anyone at this point since I don't go to bars or clubs and I live in a small town and none of my single guy friends within the church have any interest in me. Im not saying that to sound bitter or pathetic, but just to state the facts. This is fine. I keep running The Lightning Speech from Meet Joe Black in my head "you never know lightning may strike."

I could really have used your advice last weekend. I ran across the single most attractive man I've ever seen that's not fictional or a celebrity. I may have made a complete fool of myself, but I did tell him I was interested. He's a photographer and he has a cat and has the most captivating eyes I've seen in years. I doubt, very much, that he'll reciprocate my interest, but I tried. No regrets, right?

I have to go back to work soon. I wish I didn't, but my crew tonight should be a good one. They know their jobs, and that'll make mine much easier. I just...

I just wish that when I got off work tonight I could meet you at the house and we could sit on the front porch. I could really use a good, long, soul-baring front porch talk. Instead, I'll go home tonight and probably do my best not to say a lot of words about what's rustling around in my chest and maybe drink a little. 

It's been ten years, Zuni. I guess I'm doing alright, but there's so much I'd love to be able to tell you. For crying out loud, Ghostbusters 2 comes out this summer. I just miss you, Jake. I really do. 

Love,

Ms. Cheatwood 

Dude

Dear Guy-Who-Doesn't-Take-the-Hint,

I passed, okay? Just because you're attractive and I'm close by does not mean I will sleep with you. Just because you tell me you're spontaneous and wild does not mean you're irresistible. Oddly, telling me that I'm a "goody goody" won't urge me to change my ideas about relationships or sex and then throw myself in your arms. 

Best of all, telling me that I should come out of my shell won't work either. Maybe it's never occurred to you, but I'm not in my shell. I'm just being myself. I've got a firm grip on my beliefs, who I am, and what I want from a relationship. If you don't like that, I'm not the girl you're looking for. I'm not trying to make this challenging for you; I'm trying to be completely honest. 

Find another girl. This one won't change for you. 

Hope you get the hint,

Jaymin

I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself

But God,

What am I doing? I know you're with me, but the silence has become unbearable. I know I'm failing to be the woman you would have me be. I'm struggling to stand on my own two feet these days. 

I feel like my entire being is at war with itself. Part of me keeps screaming that I've been left here in the desert alone. It tells me you're not with me. That I've run too far from your light. That you're ashamed of me. 

But then part of me keeps saying that you love me, but that I'm a screw up and until I get my act together that you'll be silent and distant. Why would you speak to me when I'm being a disobedient child?

What about David? 

What about David, Lord? David was just as much of a mess as me. His hormones got in the way and he committed adultery and murder yet you still spoke to him and loved him. You still used him to lead your people and he's known as "the man after God's own heart." And what about Moses? He was a murderer and a coward, but you used him. Or Elijah? He was a depressed whiner, but you comforted him and set him back on his path. 

Lord, I know you are there. I know you hold my future in your hands, and I know you love me. I am just such a mess. My heart feels like it's a jigsaw puzzle somebody keeps putting together wrong. 

I want to be brave. I keep trying to step out so that something might change because I'm tired of waiting around. But I wonder if that's the problem...am I pushing on an automatic door?

Help me, Lord. I'm tired of looking at myself and not liking what I see. 

Love,

J