rooted

can i love another
like i love you?
is there anything 
i wouldn't do for you?
you ask me to love this world
the way you do, and
here i am, with arms wide open
yelling out to a stormy October sky
what i vow against to November's. 

and here are trees
and there are seas
and such is the way
for my present complaints,
to be rooted or free
two years feels like eternity,
but so does ten percent of anything. 

i've never written good poetry,
but does that still matter? does it
still matter what i write so long as 
i write? 

One hand walks the edge of the steering wheel while the other dangles out the car window, sweatless even in 100 degree heat. In the distance, stars and a red crescent moon shine, and you can still feel the arms of your hostess around you, the faint pointing upwards of, "We'll have to have you and Rebekah and Viji here in the fall. We've got a telescope we can stargaze with if you want."

Her kindness strikes you, yet more than that, her easy sense of permanence. For her, there's no doubt that she'll be here in the fall, that you'll all be here in the fall. 

It's the same with your neighbor. She has plans spanning next year and next month. She's made you her plus one for every holiday because she knows you can't afford to go home. She's allowing herself to love you, though an apartment itself says "temporary."

She's been here 48 years minus 11, the regretful time she moved to Iowa. Almost everything terrible that's happened to her happened in Iowa. She came back home for her father, and even now she's grappling with the realization that not everything at home is permanent. The times has changed faster than she has, and she remembers when the Kwik Trip on Old PB - which is called M now - was the first of its kind in the city. She remembers when the apartment she lives in now was built in the fields she played in as a kid, climbing through the rubble of new construction and staring up in awe at the towering buildings. 

She can't imagine a world without roots, like moving to the other side of the country where she's the lone remnant of her graduating high school class. 

You surprise her sometimes, with your flitting about. She doesn't understand how you get lost so easily, your penchant to talk about home, to embrace the heat like its the summer blanket you forgot how badly you needed. Yet you do. She raises her love for home in glass displays and wonders why others exist. 

Every day for three weeks, you passed a carousel painted red. It meant nothing to you besides a novelty, an interesting piece for a workplace to have. Yet the first time your neighbor lays eyes on the sight, she cries, remembering the days it was stationed on the other side of town, and she'd welcome in spring on the painted wings of its steel dragons. 

They all gather around and wonder at you, your plucky grin. They whisper to each other as you pass that it won't be long now, and you'll be gone. 

These are the moments she'll remember the rest of her life. 

Her neighbor's face lit by fire held close and a shaking cigarette, from the third box of the day. An addiction rendered beautiful in flickering orange at burnt twilight. 

Or the secret place at the top of the roof, with a guitar and a Bible and the open stars. She keeps waiting for someone to notice her up here and call the police, or at least wave hello. Instead, it's just her and her song and the neighbor's voices, coming together in the timeworn language of the neighborhood north. 

Or dinner with friends singing for her. Two candles - one for each decade - blown out only after she wishes that she might never lose these friends. 

A phone passed around the circle with old friends and new ones together, wishing happy birthday for a friend far away.

He searches for the perfect name, pointing out street signs and writing down the names of his coworkers' kids. Somewhere around here, he'll find the inspiration, something beautiful for his daughter. He wants it to be perfect, the first gift he gives her, one that will stay with her for all her life.

His other two daughters help, throwing out names that come to mind. 

"Lauren!"

"Elizabeth!"

"Kylie." 

He hesitates on the K, a name to match his daughters. Their names both mean pure and start with K, and he likes the idea. Not Kylie, but something else?

The answer comes at church, when one of the kids from Sunday school runs through him by accident, and he leaps out of the way as his youngest shouts her name, "Kaitlin, come back!" 

"Kaitlyn," he says. It fits. 

It too means pure. 

He doesn't tell anyone at first, turning the name over in his mind again. With his last daughter, he hadn't known until he stood above her and saw it in her eyes. Still, though, it had fit. 

This time, he knew before he saw her. 

The other women in his family keep proposing ideas.

"Clara."

"Rebekah."

"Rylie." 

His oldest rushes in one day, shouting in glee. "I've got it! Her name's going to be Olivia!" 

He tries it on. It fits too.

On the day he holds his youngest daughter in his arms, he doesn't cry, smiling as he pulls her close. Could any love compare to this? 

Kaitlyn Olivia.  It's her. 

His daughter. 

Years pass. Hardship grows, and easy smiles crush themselves away. His daughters age, laughing and crying and screaming and fighting and loving and learning all at the same time. Through it all, he's there. For their first steps, the jokes that make no sense, the 3am sicknesses, the late night discipline, the bedtime hugs, the music lessons, first days of school, history sessions, rising and falling friendships, religious conflict and more. 

His daughters age away from him, and he figures that means he's doing his job right, teaching his young women to be independent and sufficient. 

Then one day, Kaitlyn Olivia sends him a message, unwilling to face him with her words. They sting. 

His daughter doesn't want to be his daughter anymore. 

"Call me, my boy. Call me Ak. I hate my name," his child writes to him.

The world has told him that if he truly loves her, he'll call her a boy, he'll call her by the name she chooses. One that means powerful instead of pure. One that means individualistic over innocent. 

Over the years, he has borne many blows. The blame, accusation, and hurt of his children. He has let them sharpen their claws on him, knowing that in this way, he prepares them for a world where they will need them. He's seen them tear a family apart and denounce it for all to hear. He's seen many good gifts taken and used, then lost and broken in days. Yet through all, he has loved and loved.

Yet this? How could a father lose his daughter? 

He tells his daughter he loves her. That she will always be Kaitlyn to him. That this was the name he had given her. She didn't have to use it, but surely she could understand? How for him, there was no other name? 

Maybe she sensed the pain in his plea, and she nods. She lets him have this. 

And though she still introduces herself as Ak, she lets him call her by the name he gave her, and when he says it, she still finds it beautiful.

The child beats her fist upon titanium walls, matching her force with her heartbeat. She keeps time in this way, unrelenting even when her fist breaks open from the force. She screams, but no one hears her, locked away as she is in the darkest of places.

She wants to be free, but she doesn’t. She wants to be safe, but she doesn’t. In the absence of certainty, she lays awake, driven half to madness along the way.

She yells again, stopping her pounding just long enough to throw her chair to the other side of the room. It wasn’t worth it to love. It would never be worth it to love. 

When it doesn't work, she curls into herself again and whimpers. "I just want to be loved," she murmurs, the voice of a four-year-old. It echoes about her, a frigid refrain.

Fire raged in the center of the Vortex as Ash approached, lingering on the edges of the maelstrom. It blew upwards like a great well of fire, and around it stood twelve judges, watching, waiting, lingering to see what she would do. They sat at their posts and didn’t move, not even Horsey, whom Ash would have thought would be more trembly than that.

“Where’s Fidelity?” Ash finally asked.

They watched her, twisting their eyebrows together as if she had asked something unreasonable, as if she had spoken gibberish instead of fact, merely Latin instead of a name. “Who?” Kuyibka asked.

“Yes, her.”

Loki laughed from his seat, a low dry chuckle that sent chills through Ash’s bones. She knew him well—had once had an intimate familiarity with him, but even now the sight of him again once more stirred her heart into trembling fear. Had they once been like family? Friends? Enemies? Mentors? She couldn’t remember, and the variations the story had taken seemed to mesh and collide here in the darkness of her mind/the brightness of the Vortex. She couldn’t entirely decide where she was seated and where her heart was at.

“For someone who likes to play with fire, you tend to avoid it,” Loki said.

Confused, Ash turned back to the fire, leaning into it, staring down. Through the flames, there opened a gap in the well, a long dark abyss traveling downward.

And clinging to the ledges of the abyss was the Who. Crying out, Ash lunged forward, attempting to grab her hands, her clothes, anything to pull her up by. “Don’t just stand there!” she screamed to the characters. “Do something!”

They shook their heads and didn’t move. “She’s been like that for days. We can’t reach her.” Still though, they didn’t try to warn her off or tell her It was a lost cause for her to try. Maybe they knew that even if they had, she wouldn’t have listened.

So Ash lunged forward, leaning deeper and deeper, and then just barely managed to snatch hold of the Who’s jacket. She looked up then, and the two met eyes, and Ash was startled by the unfamiliarity in them. It was as if she was looking into the eyes of a stranger, one so hopelessly lost and uncertain, caught in the abyss of sorrow and suffering and coming face to face with an unexpected hand.

“Fidelity!” she shouted. “Give me your hand and I’ll pull you out of there.”

The woman stared at her again, as if plunged into deeper confusion. “Please, give me your hand,” Ash pleaded, reaching deeper into the well. The fire and flames had previously parted as if to make way for her presence, but now the girl’s gaze narrowed, and the flames began to rise higher and creep towards her again.

Confused, Ash lunged for her hand and grabbed it, this time taking it from the ledge and pulling backwards with all her might.

“HELP ME!” she cried again, begging the characters to join her, but none of them did.

Anastasia tilted her head to the side and said softly but not too softly for her to still hear the cold spite that lingered, “Where were you when we needed your help?”

“She’s going to fall!”

“Why won’t you let her?” Loki asked.

“Because I don’t want her to die! She’s in danger. She needs help!”

“What if what’s better for her is at the bottom of the pit?” Loki asked, a gentle eyebrow tilted upwards.

“You don’t know that,” Ash insisted. “The better world might be the one up here. Heck, it probably is the one up here. Give me a hand for crying out loud; she’s already infected you all.”

Fidelity began to twist in her grasp then, and Ash had to redirect her attention to pulling her out, and she strained, heaving with all her might and strength, but nothing worked. Now, she held half the weight of another person and her own, and she began to slip into the well after her friend.

“I’m not going to let you go,” she told Fidelity, and at that, the girl’s eyes narrowed, and the flames immediately roared higher.

Crying out in pain, Ash began to slip, doing everything she could to hold on. Fidelity began to twist and writhe, attempting to yank herself from Ash’s grasp.

“STOP, STOP, what are you doing!” she cried out, but it didn’t change a thing.

Then from below, she could hear her words repeated back to her in a much more sinister tone of voice, “I’m never going to let you go.”

And in seeing the man holding on to her friend’s leg, Ash shivered in fear. She couldn’t let her go. She couldn’t.

But if she didn’t…. If she didn’t let her go, what greater harm would be done? Would she have to spend her entire life bouncing back and forth between person and person? Lost in the world that had been created for her to live in?

The characters watched, judging her from their podiums, and once more she pleaded for help, once more she tried to pull up her friend, but the weight was too much, and with Fidelity squirming as she was to get free, Ash just. Couldn’t. hold. Her. Anymore.

And the Who yanked herself free and fell into the abyss of the well below. And Ash stood still at the topic, shocked. Confused. Hurt. Crying. Wondering.

“Is she going to be okay?” she asked.

She looked around the circle and noticed that some of the characters had disappeared with the fall, including Horsey.

“I guess you’ll need to leave that up to us to decide,” Loki murmured, bridging the gap between them and peering into the fire. “Since you couldn’t help her either, you are free to leave when you’d like.”

Choking back a sob as the heat scalded her face, Ash stepped backward, fleeing the fire in fear and shame.

 Daddy's Girl

She moved out at 17 but stayed on her daddy’s credit card because he refused to let her starve. Her cousins loved her more, she shouted. “They said I could live with them. They’ll fight for me like you’ve never fucking done.”

“All I’ve ever done is fight for you, you piece of shit. Everything I’ve ever done has been for you and your sister,” he’d growl.

They’d had police and CPS investigators from the religious scream-outs in the back of the garage, her yells shattering the hollow peace of the white-collar neighborhood and his quiet, biting response so muffled it sounded like she was yelling to herself.

Proficient in every category of makeup product, she’d cover up the self-inflicted cutting, scratches, and bite marks when the police arrived, flashing her perfect smile at the officers. She’d flirt with the men while her dad loomed in the background. They’d ask if she was okay—wink once if you need help—and she’d laugh wildly aloud and say, “No, no, no, I’m just a daddy’s girl, you know how it is.”

They didn’t know what to do with her charisma—no one did—so they stood in silence that should have been awkward if she wasn’t smiling so damn nicely and perfectly charismatic, then left the two to their fights.

When the neighbors called again ten minutes later, complaining and concerned, the officers shook their heads and shrugged. “Nothing we can do, ma’am. They’re fine. Just noisy. Ask ‘em to be quieter next time.” So they would, but nothing changed, and the fights continued.

In those years leading up to 17, they had good moments too. He’d take her shopping, and she’d sweeten him up. He’d buy her dresses and heels and anything she wanted, gifts to make up for the last fight. She learned to drop hints then start an argument, and inevitably, she’d get a new pair of airpods or even diamonds.

They’d visit museums together too, strolling through the arts district like the aristocratic new wealth they pretended to be. They preferred modern art museums because the colors and duct taped bananas and empty white walls with the single red metal square left more to the imagination. When attendants stopped by to give more information about the artist or piece, the two of them nodded in avid attention. The minute they stepped far enough way, they’d devolve into giggles and mock the work relentlessly.

“A modern Pinocchio, his nose melts down the length of his face, a chance to represent the deepest meaning of deceit in the modern world,” her dad would say.

She’d pucker her lips and prop a manicured finger against her chin, adding, “What a majestic craft to think of such a thing—I wonder if he drew inspiration from the Sphinx.” The two regarded the statue in light-hearted mockery and pantomimed the expression.

Seasoning

To dilute a sea, use salt.  

To preserve a meat, use salt. 
To restore a taste, use salt.
To heal a heart, use salt.
To inflame a wound, use salt.
To destroy a field, use salt.
To fight a war, use salt.
To befriend a man, use salt.
To protect a path, use salt.
To light a world, use salt. 
To spark a sneeze, use pepper.

Isaiah 35:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

~ ~ ~

Trumpets echo over the desert, proclaiming the name of the Lord of Hosts for the dirt and the sand. Not a drop of water in sight, yet at the sound, the ground explodes with green life, dormant seeds coming alive at the name of their Creator. The grasses grew around the outline of a white road, and by the time the trumpet players arrived, they walked into a full jungle—swept with hundreds of streams and brooks. Rejoicing, they knelt by the waters and drank as if the welling springs—sand mere moments before—were themselves an instrument of pleasure.

Arising once more, they lifted their trumpets and bowed to the radiant figure walking around and beside them, lifting a hand to salute their King as He passed. Then, lifting their instruments again, they played. Singers marched beside them, yet their song had become a medley of shouts and laughter and off-key screeches and beautifully strung sopranos. The cacophony of noise echoed about the hills and caterwauled through the jungles, so that even the animals joined in, adding their song to what counted for a melody among the King’s children.

The parade continued. Those were once lame now leapt like a deer, and those who had been mute sang beautifully. Reeds and rushes came up around them on every edge of the road, and the gathered children ran in and around them, laughing as they rolled in their softness. Together, they delighted in the shade from the sweeping trees.

Each looked as if they had journeyed far—weathered by various conditions and now-healed maladies—yet not one person suffered. Even the aged laughed and shouted like the children, giggling together with the freedom of their youth. Some even skipped, turning and dancing about as if they could not restrain themselves a moment longer—as if something within them had finally been set free.

Ahead in the neighboring jungle, a lion roared in response to the trumpets, a terrible sound, yet the parade did not halt, nor even pause in fear. It carried on triumphantly, and when the lion appeared around the bend of the white road, not even the children cried out, for there was no fear to be found.

Instead, they chanted as one, “Be strong; fear not! Behold your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

The lion roared again, settling back onto its haunches to stalk the road, and seeing one of the little ones was lagging behind the others, he snarled and leapt towards it. Yet, as if an invisible boundary protected the road, the lion fell short against the road’s edges. It cried in pain, nursing a wounded paw.

It limped away, and the Protected renewed their shouts of praise and thanksgiving, rejoicing in the one who had rescued and redeemed them, setting them on the path of righteousness. When other attackers lingered, attempting to snipe them off the road, none reigned victorious, and still the parade marched on.

When it had traveled far, the road wound from desolate deserts to a city filled with desolate hearts. Hundreds of people crowded about the road, reaching out with awe, wondering at the green growth sprouting from the sands beneath them, the singing, the laughter, the freedom.

Yet when they tried to join the others on the road, they found themselves stopped the same way the lion had been. Most turned away in dismay. Others resented the parade. Some longed for the road and the safety it provided.

However, only one remained to ask. He followed the parade as far as he could, finally managing to get the attention of the group near the back. “Pray tell me, why do you sing so?” he asked.

The woman who turned must have been ancient, yet her face shone like the stars. She bounded towards him, eager in her delight. “My son, we have been ransomed! We head home to Zion victorious, walking the Way of Holiness!”

“You were slaves?”

“To the evil within us,” she asserted. The young man puzzled over the idea.

“Who saved you?” he asked.

“Our Father, our Redeemer, Our Rescuer, the One who knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. The One who has known us and perfected us. The One who writes our story!” Her praise continued, and a strange thing began to happen. As she lifted up the name of her Savior, her voice joined the song that echoed about her, and the ebullience swept also through the young man.

The lion roared again, and the man flinched. “I want to go with you.” He tried to step onto the road, but he could not. “How can I join you?”

The woman grinned, and though she lacked her front teeth, he had never felt more alive than in the face of it. “The unclean shall not pass on this highway. It belongs only to those who walk on the Way, and none shall go astray upon it. The Redeemed will walk here and the Ransomed of the Lord. And my son, you must be made clean.”

The young man looked up and around, soon noting a spring that had just sprung up, still bubbling. As the trumpeters knelt to drink, he ran forwards. “I want to be clean!” he shouted, diving into the water. He scrubbed at his skin, ran his hands through his hair, throwing back the water, until the droplets cascading into his eyes were replaced by a set kinder than any he had seen.

The face he peered into glowed, and he knew he had found the King.

“My son, will you let me save you?”

The man nodded.

“Will you let me transform you through my love?”

He nodded again, scarcely able to look at the One before him.

“Will you follow me?” And with those words, he saw the magnitude of the decision. It would take everything from him. He would need every bit of strength he could muster for the journey ahead, and it wouldn’t be enough. But when he faltered, the King would carry him forward again.

He said yes, barely more than mouthing the words, then again, a triumphant shout that echoed as loudly as any of the others.

Then the King smiled and swept him into a hug. It hadn’t been what he’d imagined being clean would feel like, but it transformed him. Hundreds of layers fell away, leaving him feeling as if he had just been born—as if he had been dead and was now alive. When he pulled away from the King, he too had become radiant.

He leaped forward to step upon the road, but the King lifted a hand to stop him. Confused and dismayed, the young man looked up into that kindly face and asked, “But I don’t understand? Don’t I get to walk the Way of Holiness too?”

And the King smiled and said, “Yes, you will. But it is not yet your time. Go now and tell the others in your home of who I am and listen for the Spirit to come to you. And then, when it is your time, I will come to find you, and we will march on this road together—you and I—as we journey home.”

With a final clasp about the back, the King smiled and strode onward, the singers and dancers falling into place around Him. The young man watched for a long moment, yearning with something he could not discern, before turning and racing back to his home to tell everyone of the love and joy he had witnessed.