He has always been my handle but I realized today as I literally climbed over piles of laundry to reach the dishwasher

To grab a bowl to eat my first meal of the day at 8:45 in the evening,

Soaked with sweat and sprinkled with 120 grit of grass clippings, sand, dirt and skin and wondering how in the world I’m going to get through the weekend with a leaky washer

And even if I conquer this mess, which surely I will at some point out of desperation and fear of tripping, it’s not truly the end. The chore repeats unless I choose to be entirely nude forever or just plain filthy.

Laundry never ends. Neither do the dishes, or the errands, the jobs, the patterns over and over of this domestic organism

And Sisyphus, they roll this unforgiving boulder up this mountains, every pebble a tiny round of razors against a vulnerable soul

And the top anticipates satisfaction and peace

But how could Sisyphus have kept walking those last few miles

The feet

Like Christ to the cross, knowing he would always have to have this ending. There is no way to avoid this, my son, but you’re human enough to ask and I love you for it

God did forsake Christ

If we are to be like Christ,

Must we not be forsaken at some point? To be torn in half, the threshold open to the people to be one with God in a space that was holy

Is holier now, truly

Because the peace was found in the midst of great sorrow,

And the love that perpetuates his story throughout humanity is what brought the walls down and gave people their power

If all we have is blessing, we are spoiled and take it all for granted

But you once mocked my ability to find beauty in a seemingly empty landscape, smile at a particular blue sky next to a rusty grain mill.

I always see the beauty because I had to distract. I had to cope. All I know how to do when I feel threatened and alone is look away, look out the window, look down at your feet, look anywhere but at the enraged abuser telling you you can’t be a child. You’re broken, you’re selfish, you’re lazy.

So I looked at the flowers

And I looked at the trees

And the pennies in the parking lot. And the babies in people’s strollers and the dogs on people’s leashes and the tiny flowers fighting to sprout in the sidewalk

Anything to change the focus and pretend like we’re somewhere else.

You never could have loved me, because I made you enraged

Self loathing and confusion

That I could know myself so well, and have so many ways to cope, But you just couldn’t cope with me

And you pray many prayers to an empty god

And you lose people like leaves, falling slowly away in a wind of contempt

And how do the leaves ever stay on their tree when ever chance they try to show them mercy and compassion, the tree shakes harder than before

The tree is rooted. It does not receive the leaves.

It will grow new ones

In the season she tried to show you

To try and give you redemption in the place you loathe so greatly in your broken heart and in the broken history of so very many things

but rather than run

You make all the excuses why you must remain the martyr but the gates are open and the world is open and the chains are broken

I saw you truly joyful for a moment. It was hope

I know another you is inside yourself

Take the tools I offered, fight off the demons clinging so tightly to your back and your heart

Your Christ feels so

Very far

Because there’s just too much you in the way.