Thank You, Planet Earth

I have no idea who you people are. All I know is, as of now, you come from Russia, Germany, India, Morocco, Ukraine, Libya, Indonesia, Guatemala, Brazil, Latvia, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Bangladesh, and the United States of America. I cannot imagine how all of you found me; nor can I even begin to picture each face, each life, each story represented by that list of views which swelled from about a dozen to over six hundred in under six months. Who are you? Who in the world?

Let me speak to you individually. Yes, that means you, right now, whoever you are, reading this today. Thinking of you this afternoon, here in my isolated corner of the universe, I wonder:

What color are your eyes?
What dreams, what fears, what tears or laughter lurk within them?

What do you see when you look out your window?
Houses? Ocean? Desert? Trees? What sort of houses? What sort of ocean? What sort of desert? What sort of trees?

What do you think about just before you fall asleep? Or immediately after awakening? What do you want most in life? What do you hate with a passion? What's that on your nose?

So many things I'll never know about you. And yet, there is one thing that I do know about you that perhaps you don't know. So I thought I'd tell you:

I pray for you every week.

Yes. I pray for your country, your community, your home, your life. That's because I have begun this habit of praying every day for a different continent, specifically naming each country included, and praying for the needs of the individuals within. (On Sundays, I pray for Antarctica.)

Just letting you know. Thank you, Planet Earth!

The Plan

Some day I will stop pretending. Normality will numb me no longer. Some day the weird, the wonderful, the wild, will wander freely from my soul into the watching world. Some day I will hear that usual mental reprimand - "Shh, shh; too loud, too soft, too bright, too dark, too false, too true" - and I will reprimand the reprimand. It cannot silence me forever. Some day I will be free.

When I feel the dance begin to wind its way through bones and tendons, curling tight and fierce around my limbs, I will not force myself to march straight ahead like a little toy soldier. When I feel the laughter rumbling somewhere in my ribcage, I will not confine it. When I recognize the tears that come unbidden from eternity past to swallow me whole in the black sorrow of the ages, I will refuse to paste the plastic smile across my face.

No. Some day I will exist, and you will see me.

Skin

The sweet little tongue through the teeth
The dagger of innocence
ripped from its sheath

I can't get it out of my head
The image returns
like a body in bed

I wonder how many there are
How often the bandages
cover a scar

Is somebody striking a pose?
I watch as injustice
bleeds out of your nose

Nobody deserves to be skin
We can't disembody
the person within

No matter how dead we may feel
The soul is alive
and the sorrow is real