If you read one thing today, you should read this.
I think every human being eventually has a moment
where they are standing outside in sweatpants
that have lost the will to be pants,
holding a trash bag, a divorce, a parking ticket,
or some other receipt from the universe
that says, “surprise, this too is part of it.”
And then the sky bruises purple.
And the air touches your face
like it knows your whole story.
And suddenly you realize:
all the real is actually unreal.
The weird little bones in your hands.
The fact that we are here,
on a floating rock with pollen counts,
while still fully naked and looking for socks.
No one from management saying,
“Great work being ancient and luminous again.”
like a single mother with no applause,
Tell me there is a better word
for the way light keeps returning
I know people who believe in therapy,
and waiting exactly eleven minutes
so they do not appear emotionally available,
even though their whole nervous system
is standing in the driveway
And underneath all of it,
every smoothie with chia seeds,
Please let me be forgiven.
Please let this strange little life
submits its formal resignation.
This unbearable tenderness
of being alive long enough
to watch steam lift from coffee in winter
like a soul practicing leaving.
To see your friend laugh so hard
To hear a child say “pisghetti”
and, for one shining second,
has finally been improved.
the less use I have for certainty.
Certainty has never made me pull over
because the sunset looked like God
dropped a jar of peach jam
across the whole western sky
and decided not to clean it up.
Certainty has never made me gasp
Certainty has never found me
that everyone I have ever loved
and a series of decisions
we probably should have slept on.
Awe was the first church.
and started making rules about sleeves.
Awe, and someone rubbing your back
making that soft little sound
I cannot save you from this,
you do not disappear inside it alone.
Awe, and old couples at Target
arguing gently about avocados,
as if marriage is not one vow
performed beside the person
how you like the cart pushed.
was never meant to sound elegant.
Maybe gratitude sounds like:
That woodpecker is trying
to beat that tree from itself.”
Maybe gratitude sounds like:
for continuing to drag me through this world
Maybe gratitude sounds like:
who lose their entire minds
as if we have returned from war
And maybe that is the gospel.
That joy does not need us
to come through the door.
this life is devastating.
One minute you are twenty-two
eating gas station nachos
with the confidence of a Greek god.
“Can sneezing cause a hamstring injury?”
“Welcome to the second half of your life.”
even emotionally held together
by iced coffee, playlists,
and one very specific hoodie—
even though grief is real.
even though the news is on fire.
We send photos of the sky
as if beauty is an emergency
and we are all volunteer firefighters.
So here’s to the believers
and the people whose entire theology
is just trying not to cry
in the Costco parking lot.
Here’s to the people clinging to faith.
Here’s to the people clinging to Xanax
where nobody pretends to be okay.
Here’s to the tender-hearted weirdos.
The ones who can contemplate mortality
and then become emotionally attached
through a broken screen door.
May we never stop being drop-kicked by beauty
in the middle of a Sunday.
May we never become so polished
that we forget how to stand
in the cereal aisle of existence
with our dumb, gorgeous hearts open,
feeling the enormity of it all
rattle around in our bones
looking for somewhere to laugh.
whatever cosmic group project
all’ve it is astonishing.
It’s astonishing that we are here.
It’s astonishing that we have loved enough to be ruined.
It’s astonishing that the moon keeps showing up.
It’s astonishing that bread exists.
Take it in as you take it down.
And then go outside and look at that moon.
titsay
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
jbbartram-illu
germansingergirl
kaledo-art
