amid embers

hi i’m elle & i write things.

[thatfriendlyanon]

click image for clear quality | poetry text under cut

To Eurydice

I cannot help but turn to find your face As darkness crowds between our reaching hands Even if it means losing you every time.

When I stumble from the rocky upward climb I need to know you’re safe, not stumbling too, So I cannot help but turn to find your face.

I swear I’ll keep the course –– but waver at the end. To walk within this grief means turning first, my love, Even if it means losing you every time.

This tunnel twists my thoughts, constricts my heart. I hear your voice But doubt its source and place. The compass in my chest circles me back Til I cannot help but turn to find your face.

Can you see how I am pulled into your arms? Can you understand this love that’s tethered me to you Even if it means losing you every time?

Your eyes spill over from all I’ve failed to do, my name upon your lips Both pardon and despair. Forgive me for my feet, my heart, my eyes That cannot help but turn to find your face Even if it means losing you every time.

[amidembers]

In Imitation of Psalm 136

please feel free to reblog with your additional reasons why we should give thanks to the Lord!

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of spinning planets, King of Pluto and Counter of all unknown stars! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of the waters, Give thanks to Him who sets their boundaries on the shores. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the Father of the redwoods, Give thanks to the Weaver of moss and Painter of rainbows. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who is near to His creation. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who sees a sparrow fall, Give thanks to Him who knows each strand of a child’s unbrushed hair. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who makes the rivers run with laughter. Give thanks to Him who delights in stinky feet and muddy knees. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the Maker of wonder, the Inventor of curiosity. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who cuts each leaf and turns each season. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who was near to me when I cried out for him. His faithful love endures forever. He made water flow in a dry and thirsty land. His faithful love endures forever. He poured gold between the cracks of my brokenness. His faithful love endures forever. until His glory shone through and made it beautiful. His faithful love endures forever. He set a table for my mother in the presence of her enemies. His faithful love endures forever. His rod and staff guided my brother through the dark. His faithful love endures forever. His goodness and mercy followed close behind my friends His faithful love endures forever. when I was too far away to help them climb over boulders. His faithful love endures forever. His Spirit is mighty in power and tender in compassion. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who parted the clouds on a New Year’s night. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who sets the stars in shapes in the sleeping sky. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who hears their celestial songs of praise His faithful love endures forever. that echo far beyond what human ears can hear. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who knows every foggy road His faithful love endures forever. and bedroom floor and empty pew. Give thanks to Him who holds the sands of time in His hands. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who is compassionate to the tiny lives of men. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who knows our dates and days and times and stories. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to Him who weaves each thread together His faithful love endures forever. into something more beautiful than we would be on our own. His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the Master Artist! His faithful love endures forever. O praise Him, earth and sky and star and sea and man! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the God who pursues you, little human! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the God who became man to make you His! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the Father who knit you in your mother’s womb! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the Son who bore all your darkness! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the Spirit who is at home among His beloveds! His faithful love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord! His faithful love endures forever.

[thatfriendlyanon]

two nights ago lying in bed on call / with a friend at 1am they said / i think what you need is one day / where you let yourself just be really angry / and i laughed, said probably, but how / do i even do that? and shifted / the conversation to other things

last night i had two dreams in succession / and i don’t remember what was wrong but i remember the fury / crawling up my throat like an animal i’d kept caged / for too long; i remember / the tears burning and i remember pulling words / out of my mouth in a long knotted rope, too tangled / to make sense to myself or anyone else, but finally / not choking me every time i swallowed

after the dreams, in that hazy space / between waking and sleep, i remember wondering / if the dreams were sufficient / if they counted enough / i remember wondering if my friend / would be proud

[amidembers]

Matthew 23:4

On Sunday I heard the Voice of God crack like lightning breaking a mighty cedar in two. It said Be angry and do not sin. It said Therefore, thou shalt not be angry, lest you sin. On Monday I heard the Voice of God blast like wind shaking a house’s foundations. It said Honor thy father and thy mother. It said Therefore children, thou shalt not disagree with thy father, lest you sin. On Tuesday I heard the Voice of God crash like waves tearing down a cliffside. It said Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. It said Therefore women, thou shalt not have autonomy, lest you sin. On Wednesday I heard the Voice of God shudder like rain beating against the window. It said Do not let the sun go down on your anger. It said Therefore do not build boundaries with any who wound you, lest you sin. On Thursday I heard the Voice of God bellow like thunder shattering the silence. It said Thou shalt not cry, lest you manipulate those in your presence, lest you sin. It said Thou shalt not express opinions, lest you defy those in authority, lest you sin. It said Thou shalt not defend yourself, lest you not have a meek and gentle spirit, lest you sin. On Friday I hid from the Voice of God. It shook the foundations of my house. It rattled my locks and sought to enter. It tried to break the windows so I drew the curtains and prayed for salvation. On Saturday, the Voice of God was finally silent. I waited. I hid. I heard footsteps, soft and gentle, creaking down the staircase, shuffling through the shadows where I hid. On Saturday, God Himself sat down beside me in the darkness. The Voice of God was nowhere to be found.

[amidembers]

for the living 7.17.22

this world, this world, this world, my love–– i am happy         you are here         i am here         we are here, looking  back

at all these still-sharp pieces, glass shards on tile floors we walked across barefoot when we were alone,     broken               mosaics of better lives that would not have brought us     here

had i not found you had you not found me had he not taken our separate     threads and braided           them together

with our hands splayed out in the dark. we followed cracks of light like a scavenger hunt, walked stumbling into bandaged mornings.

come, cut your glass           into prisms.

come, be not afraid. come,             kiss the sun             drink deep of its goodness             wash yourself in its mercies             lift your living face to the dawn

[amidembers]

Ghost Ship

“Healing from trauma is a hard fought battle but not a hopeless one. That doesn’t feel true for most of us. Seeing how it still lives in our bodies. If we are a house, trauma is a ghost and we are the haunted ones. Constantly moving, from room to room, looking for light.” – Jackie Hill Perry

If trauma is a ghost, then I’m a ship on the ocean floor. Shine through me, O Christ. Cast these shadows from all the wrecked parts of me. Drive them from my rotting corners. O Lighthouse, I’ve grown so tired of counting your flashes. They are steady, but they’re so far away. Dive down from your cliffside; descend into my sin-stained sea. Fill me with your light ‘til all my beams turn to trees again, ‘til the rotted ropes of my rigging return to unplucked cotton. Rewind the twisted workings of men. My hull is still misshapen by stagnant salt water, warped into something you never made me to be. I don’t know if all this damage can be undone. If it can, it’d only be through you. Raise me from the depths, please, merciful Mariner. I want water to come rushing from every hollow, haunted room. I want the only chains to be seaweed clinging to a rightened mast, something easy to shake back into the sea. Chase these ghosts away, please, Christ. Haunt me with Yourself instead.

[amidembers]

A List Of Observations, In No Particular Order

1. It hasn’t rained in four months.

2. Every time I take a shower, too much of my hair falls out and sticks to my shoulders in disgusting clumps.

3. All this grief sits like a sugar cube in the center of my stomach.

4. I only have three bags left of my Scottish Earl Grey tea.

5. If I set the air conditioner to 24º C, I can wear my favorite sweater to bed, the one I bought at the thrift store for less than a dollar that feels like the presence of a comforting ghost.

6. I’ve listened to What If by Jess Ray seventy-seven times.

7. It now takes me less than a year to let myself call somebody a friend.

8. [My favorite traditional dish] is best with [sausage] and [my second favorite traditional dish] is best with fresh [bread] and [coffee with ice cream] is best for my summer camp work breaks, when I walk down to my third-favorite coffee shop and write weird poetry in the wake of a best friend’s uncovered heart.

9. I haven’t seen my mother in a year.

10. I haven’t seen my brother in a year.

11. I haven’t hugged the Anne to my Diana in a year, haven’t squeezed into my twin-sized bed beside her like we did the night before I moved away.

12. The stray dogs are quieter in summertime.

13. My brain still smells like a molding, half-burned house.

14. I am still moving in anyway, bags unpacked in the living room, basement door unlocked.

15. July was the first time I’ve heard my new name in the mouth of a child, the vowels all mangled and vibrant and green.

16. My soul feels lighter when I let it be carried by those who know me well.

17. My soul feels lighter when I let others know me well.

18. Fifty percent of my genes are about to go home for the first time in a century and all I can think about is how angry my father would be if he knew.

19. The sun is so hot I want to crawl out of my body. It’s so beautiful I want to eat it whole.

20. I am trying to love it here. I don’t know if I’m succeeding. The grace for it all still settles in my belly, sweetened by grief, like a draught of still-warm tea.

[thatfriendlyanon]

There is a thread of guilt running through who I am. It stitches together the cracked spaces between bone and sinew, throat and tongue, twenty-three-year-old me and the little girl still trapped inside my chest.

She uses it as a jump rope until she misses a step, trips, gets tangled and cuts herself on the sharp tips of my ribs. I don’t know how to help her. I’ve been stuck in this game of jumprope and I don’t know how to get us out.

I am so tired of jumping. My body aches each time I fall. I want to comfort the little girl with bleeding knees but my mouth is stuffed with empty sounds. I open it and only tears come out, stale and ten years old.

You are holding her. In the dark crevice of my chest you are drawing me unto yourself like a father who does not offer fake unsafe affection. No, O Lord, your affection is true. Your heart is pure light. It casts shadows across my ribcage like the sun through shuttered blinds. You do not ask me to open the curtains. You are not afraid of the darkness, even when I am. You meet me here even when I’m ashamed of the state of this cellar that I’ve trapped this child within.

You climb down into the cellar of my heart. When I cannot move, ankles broken and door bolted against the predatory ghosts, you climb down into my darkness. When I cannot move, you come to me.

Your voice is small, but it is true. Even when I cannot hear it, it is true. Even when I think I hear something else, it is true. Even when I am afraid to listen, it is true. Even when I don’t understand what it’s saying, it is true. You are true. Your love is true. O Christ, heart broken open for my brokenness, your love is true.

Take this tangled mess, O Christ. Take this heart dripping through my fingers and puddling in blood around my feet. Caring brother. Loving father. Take it because I cannot untangle it myself.

I hand you the knotted ropes of my shame/guilt/conviction and you take them and set them aside. Instead of untangling it, you sit down next to me. I cannot see your face in the darkness, but it is there. There is no condemnation in your voice. You ask me to stay. I fight. You ask me to stay. I fight. You ask me to stay. I sit down cross-legged, small, twelve years old, ankles twisted and heart locked like a broken music box. You love me even when my music doesn’t play. You love me. You love me. Your love is true.

You are safe. You are love. You are here. You are true.

I am scared to stay long enough to hear what you have to say. I am scared if I incline my ear to your voice, you will cast me from your presence.

You do not speak. You sit, head bowed, face hidden, body outlined in shadow. You do not move.

That is all the answer I need.

[amidembers]

The people here don’t know

your name. I don’t need to erase

your voluminous presence from every

corner of my life because they don’t know

you exist. I can get up off my hands and knees

and stop scrubbing at all the years you already

swallowed whole. Take them and get out

of here. I don’t care. These ones are mine.

[thatfriendlyanon]

no, yknow what? the description i got on that let me assign you a beloved character trope quiz was so beautiful it made me spontaneously write a poem in the tags of my reblog and then i stuck that poem in a textedit file with mary oliver-inspired linebreaks and i'm kinda proud of it ngl

[amidembers]

an open letter to my old therapist

I have over a dozen friends now––not “close acquaintances” or “almost-friends” but over twelve people who know my story and still choose to stay. I have an ADHD diagnosis and three more hyperfixations. The newest one teaches me about trauma and recovery and what it means to start to heal. I play Minecraft now. I can’t tell if it’s self-care or escapism or maybe a little bit of both, but the caves are so pretty they make me cry. Eating is still hard, my executives are still malfunctioning, and I still have a stack of messages I can’t bring myself to answer. But you know the little girl trapped in my chest? I’ve been getting to know her more. Lately I’ve been making her tea and climbing down into the blanket fort she’s erected in the folds of my lungs. We have good talks down there, or sometimes we just sit in silence while she plays with blocks and I let myself care for her with grace. She keeps visiting me in my poetry, less timid than she used to be. She says hello, by the way. She says thank you for the keys. I call my mom once a week now. She’s doing well. We text each other differently colored heart emojis and my little brother sends me video essays about Spider-Man and Christmas this year was so joy-filled my heart almost burst from the weight of the goodness and kindness of God. I’m halfway through my fifth art journal and I dance in the kitchen to Adam Young while I wait for my pasta to boil. Over the summer I had coffee with my ex-best friend and I built boundaries with my dad and I think if you were here you would be proud of me.

[thatfriendlyanon]

@brown-little-robin, you inspired me to try my hand at writing an Answer. thanks for being the reason i cracked open my poetry notebook for the first time in a month. <3

In Response To Robert Frost

Nothing gold can stay As Earth orbits decay, Man’s cyclical demise Affixed to setting skies. But see––beneath the night A risen sun alights. The flaming sword is gone As dark gives way to dawn.

[thatfriendlyanon]

i will stay for next year’s easter sunrise. for homemade cinnamon rolls with too-thick glaze. for discovering new gluten-free recipes that don’t taste too bad. i will stay for laughter with roommates when we should be asleep, the kind that’s so strong it makes your stomach sore. for nights spent in prayer on the sagging checkered couch in a baptism of tears. i will stay for the mosaic of emotions i have yet to feel, the heavy and whole placed side-by-side like stained glass. i will stay to watch sunlight touch both of them, name them beautiful. i will stay to name myself the same.

i will stay for strawberry-stained fingers, for new glasses, for the next season of my favorite show. for the way i can look into the sky on a winter night and feel both minuscule and held. i will stay for racing raindrops down windows, for dancing in the back yard, for road trips with best friends spent belting every song on the radio. i will stay to learn more lyrics so i can keep singing along. i will stay for the smell of lilacs, for the rattle of dice in my hands as my beat my brother at his favorite board game. i will stay for second chances. for half-price supermarket bouquets. for waking up on my birthday to yellow balloons celebrating another year alive.

when the cold times come, when the familiar shadows crawl down my throat and settle in my stomach, i will stay to watch them leave. i will stay to shout that i am here, and i am healing, and i am not whole––not yet––but that is okay. i will stay for as long as it takes for these bruised lungs to fill with air, and i will stay to remind myself that air is a beautiful thing. i will stay to remind others the same, to place my broken pieces beside their own, to point to where i have found flowers and sunlight and hope. i will stay so they can too, so we can stand together on the brink of a life we had never planned would go this far. we will stay for each moment still waiting to be lived.

[thatfriendlyanon]

my poetry commissions are officially open for the first time ever!! thank you to everyone who expressed an interest; i’m super excited to try this out :D

since i’m just starting out, i currently only have four slots open, so let me know if you’re interested! if enough people are interested i might open more slots, we’ll see.

feel free to shoot me a dm or email if you have any questions!

Keep reading

[thatfriendlyanon]

i realize when you say i love you it sounds less like three words and more like how did the appointment go? do you need anything from the store? as i grow more fluent, i hear it everywhere. if you want, i can hold the umbrella. i can carry your backpack. don’t worry, i’ll do the dishes tonight. i love you i love you i love you like wallpaper in every room of our hearts.

[amidembers]

When I Ask You to Explain Your ADHD,

You tell me you think differently, that your brain is an ocean while others’ minds are solid ground. Where are your mountains, you ask. How are you supposed to build statues and plant gardens on these shifting waves? When you tell me your brain is an ocean instead of a forest, you say it like a confession, embarrassed and angry and ashamed. But listen to me,

dear one. Our minds may be oceans but that does not make them mistakes. I know how cold the water can be, how it pulls us under, leaves us drenched and gasping when it tosses us to the sand. I know the salt stings your lungs, tastes too much like tears instead of freshwater. But look,

you can breathe here too. Close your eyes and open your gills and see how you were made to thrive. Not inferior to the farmers and gardeners but simply different, a mermaid amid shades of blue. See how each corner of your ocean was fashioned with care by a God who knows your name. Each eddy was shaped with purpose, so there’s no need to be ashamed. Lay your self-hatred to rest. Come with me

down to the seabed. I want to watch the kelp dance in your currents––see how they flap like flags each time you can’t contain your joy. I am captivated by sunbeams sifting through your depths, how they dapple the surface like the light of a new idea behind your eyes. I want to follow your thoughts like schools of fish flitting through your waters, each one precious and vibrant like the dawn. Don’t bury your seashells––let me trace them instead, learn their intricacies, find the pearls He has placed inside. Don’t apologize for the breakers that crash against your shoreline each time you open your mouth, words tumbling out like the rising tide–– you do not need to hold yourself in. Take my hand,

let’s ride these waves together. I will stay beside you as you learn how to love this ocean He’s given you. Listen to the rhythm of sea-foam against the sand and hear His voice. It echoes from the dawn of creation when He spoke your waters into existence, gathered them together, and named them good.

[amidembers]

i am colorblind

but they hand me a box of crayons and ask me to color-coordinate the sea.