I know so many people who think tolerance is for those without strength of belief, as if not having the desire to control those around us is a sign of weak will or insincerity. I disagree. To love unconditionally is a challenge. It requires introspect, patience, and understanding that we can only be responsible for the good that we do. It demands the dismissal of resentment and anger and insists that we process things that we may not want to process in order to move past them and let go.

The fact that I will not persecute those who don't agree with me does not show a lack of fealty, in fact I think it's quite the opposite. I will show love to those who show me hate, I will listen and ask questions of those I disagree with, and I will both seek understanding and accept that there is much that I may never understand. I will do these things out of conviction to this doctrine: Warmth begets warmth begets warmth. This is belief, this is faith.

My summer reading list has close to 200 books on it as of now, which is unachievable and Herculean. I'm clumsy and scattered and probably don't have the attention span.

I guess sometimes you have to read someone else's story before you can write your own.

To write

The more time I spend
pen on paper
the less real it becomes
and suddenly it's gone.
I'm unwriting my own story
filling books with thoughts I think
beliefs I believe
all unfounded.
Lines bound like my hands in the war of forward momentum,
shelved and stored and otherwise set aside
until I feel I've grown
and might want to look backwards.
Is this a waste like so much else?
I could be scratching my own timeline into the crust of the earth
but I'm tracing written elements
into something that is so easily closed and forgotten about.

Climb

Such time has passed since our toes left the earth and we began our climb,

this ascent into a fervor we named "love".

I climbed blindly towards the sky.

Nights spent struggling against a new kind of gravity

left us sleepless and shaken,

but hand in hand we embraced the destruction.

We've come so far,

climbing vines that rip the earthen walls of this cavern 

while pulling the softer walls of our hearts,

and though the stones loosen in our grip

and the grotto is streaked with the color of blood,

the dust burning my eyes does nothing to blur your image.

July

I am reluctant, though not by choice.
Me: matters of the head over matters of the heart.
Eternally guarded and collected, forever taking heed.
But now days blur, I draw breath with a stuttering heart, and all composure is lost.
There is seduction in stumbling through a haze such as this.
I'm grasping at coherent thought
I never knew I could take pleasure in such blind terror.
I never knew I could take comfort in your hand on my throat.

Untitled

listen closely

and I will tell you these things I feel

in a code, broken and awkwardly

so you wont understand

glance sideways

and I will show you my everything

pulling back into shadows

so you won’t see

turn to face me

and I will sing to you in your sleep

softly, songs of thought and heartbeat

so you wont hear

look up once

and I will write these words down

and tuck them secretly into your back pocket

so you wont forget

The Last Crusade

tonight we ride
so pedal proud
perched on the handlebars

i'll crow the usual battle cry
in tribute to summers past
memories embroidered with gold and lined with silk
exit our lungs in a flood to the streets
this will be the last crusade
look to the ground
our shadows cast in streetlight wont seem so tall next time
we've crossed the threshold
the sky is a beacon
drawing us forward
and my last wish is to lay in the grass
and remember.