for Wings, Meg, and Sarah
“Every now and then
I can see that I'm getting somewhere.
But where I have to go is so deep.
I was angry back then
and, you know, I still am.
I have lost so much sleep
but I'm gonna find it....”
“Wings, baby. Stop. Stop it.”
And it begins. That buzz, that voice, that thing that pegged me crazy at sixteen. That angry sound that’s my own Second Coming. Sweet Lord, how many times has Christ walked this Earth since Ascension? Three times last week... at least twice when we made love. Seven, eight hundred times in just shy of twenty-eight years. He returns in these moments, when He is needed more than the air we take in, in sharp, short gasps.
“No, Wings. No more.”
And I’m shaking my head and standing up and cocking my head to the side. And staring at her message and re-reading. “No...” And then, resounding: “NO.”
And someone wrote her back. But it wasn’t me. Because the hot tears on my face were too heavy for me to see the keys or the screen or the thick mason jar of brushes now shards of broken glass on the floor of my room. Or maybe... maybe what Dad said is true: “Women don’t see with their eyes, Eliza Jean. Women see with their hearts. Where Christ resides.” And so someone, that someone maybe me, wrote, and the words were hot and furious, tempered by the cool, crispness of the medium. Neutered by the distance between our bodies. But so full of everything... so elevated by the passion I feel in this life, for her, for everyone he touches and destroys, for every green-eyed (blue-eyed, brown-eyed) grrl who has ever been bent and almost broken. I know she heard me. Or heard Him. Whatev.
“Baby. Stop it. Just stop it. Listen to me. Hear me the way Jo hears me. My arms around you, us sitting together, fitting like two parts of a strong whole. The overheads are off and the glow of the red strip light reminds me of a club in NYC but my thoughts are with you and only you. Hear me with my cheek against yours and your eyes closed and my voice steady and warm. Just the truth. Always just the truth: You. Don't. Want. Him.
“There you were silent. There you were bent to his will. There you were alone. You are not there. You will never be there again. You are not silent. You will never be silenced again. You are not powerless to him. He does not own you. He will never own you again. No one but Christ. He is the only one. And He cannot be displaced.”
“’Cause when they own the information
Oh, they can bend it all they want.”
You know it. You are smarter than the statistics. You are not a victim. Say it. Say it, grrl. You are *not* what the newspapers say you are. You are at the other end of the bell curve. You *see.* You get it. Open those beautiful eyes for me. Look at me. You see through the smoke and break the mirrors. You don’t wanna stand around, baby, and wait for the world to change. You’re standing up beside me. You’re shouting with me. You want to wait on *him* to change? You wanna live like *that*? No *shaking head* No, baby. You can’t jump off this mountain now. You’ve climbed too far. You’ve fought too long. If I must, I’ll carry you. You haven’t been climbing alone. I’ll drag you kicking and screaming, if I have to. But I won’t let you jump. No. I won’t let you jump.
The Warren Street bridge is not that pretty. I know. I’ve been there.
“Charm is seduction. Anger is exhausting. It is easier to believe the lies. Always easier to believe the lies. Fighting is hard. Oh baby... I just wrote all this last Sunday. Don't you see? I know you do... but you're working so hard and feeling so bad that just a little bit of easy must feel *so* good. Just a little bit of easy... seems like you’ve earned it. But this ain’t the easy you want. This easy is pain all dressed up as rock candy.”
“As a little girl, I came down to the water
With a little stone in my hand.
It would shimmer and sing to me.
And we knew everything.
As a little girl, I came down...”
Here we are. Our End Times. Let me join the ranks of my fine friends, the Rapturists. Let me herald our end. Watch and I’ll call down the sky. All those nighttime clouds are flocks of End Time angels. The stars in the hilts of their swords mesmerize me. I am a little girl (grrl) again... eight or nine... standing in their gaze. The temperature drops to 60... I drop my jacket over the side of the roof. 55... I pop the buttons on my shirt, my eyes on the angels. 52... winds from the Northwest, ten miles per hour. Five storeys high, but lower than the sky. Tank top, jeans and boots. Might be chilly if I wasn’t burning with indignation.
My heads falls back. I close my eyes. It seems so easy. This, right here. Me and Christ and my thoughts of you. On the raised edge that has become my friend. I lay myself back. I own my moment beneath the angels.
“But in a little while, I got steeped in authority.
Heaven only knows what went wrong.
There is nothing so cruel than
to bury that jewel
when it was mine all along.
I'm gonna find it...”
There is glass in the carpet. There is an angel on my canvas. There is a warm stillness in the apartment that doesn’t fit my current mood. Woke up this morning with heat in my cheeks, in the pit of my belly, in thoughts of Cherry Coke. I couldn’t shake the idea that you were right around the corner of my room... you were leaning against my door frame. “Awake at last, Angel? ’Bout time.”
Awake at last.
And my earbuds turn this warm silent softness into a world that reflects my interior space. Echo on. Rolling in. Play it twice. Once again. Slower... now. Dance with me.
“Don’t take it. You make the rules. Don't let him twist up your world. I will talk with you about this every night if you need me too. I will hold you and laugh with you. Don't dream yourself there with him. Dream yourself here with me. I won't hurt you. I won't lie to you or insult you. I won't crush you except in my arms. Dream yourself laughing with any of us who love you. Dream yourself plotting and scheming and fighting and *living.* Dream yourself raving with me. Hiking. Drawing. Singing. Dream anything with anyone but not him. No. Not him.”
Alone you are so strong. I see you. I hear your words. I know you. Let me know you? We only need them when they tell us we do. In those magical moments when the alchemist turns our gold to stone and then fills our pockets and pushes us under. You think I haven’t sunk beneath that current, baby? You remember, right?
“Can’t imagine a woman being so stupid...”
“You’d be beautiful if you gained a little weight...”
“Is there anything you’re actually good at...”
“Took you long enough...”
“I love you sometimes...”
“EJ. I’m not actually listening.”
Jo says to me that anything that hurts us, that makes us miserable, is not by the hand of God. Christ doesn’t hurt us *here,* at our core. I bleed for Him, yeah. I fight. I struggle. But He doesn’t hurt me here *tapping my heart* Satan does not manifest like a horned beast with a leery glare. He struts and charms and seduces. He peer pressures and murmurs and twists the cultural dictates. He weaves magic so shiny it blinds us to the snakes that are biting us. He wraps us up in his arms of smoke so that we can’t see ourselves and our own pain... so that we’re hidden from the ones who truly love us.
But I can see you. I see you.
“You're shining. I can see you.
You're smiling. That's enough.
I'm holding on to you
like a diamond in the rough...”
He knocks. Our door is almost always open. But he can’t cross that threshold. We have to invite him in. He might be obvious. He might be less so. He might come as the stranger on my porch (why did I open the door?). He might come as a lost child. He might be brother, grandmother, lover, mother, friend. He might come as denomination, holy and structured. It is hard to realize that sometimes the people we have known the longest and love the deepest can have moments of weakness when they allow that possession to take them. When they become conduits for him. When Satan manifests in our lives (as lover, mother, friend) we have to be brave enough to turn away. No. More. We have to say, “Go. Leave me be.” We have to see past the vessel to him. We have to make the decision not to let him in.
Wings? Don't let him in.
“I'm not here for your entertainment.You don't really want to mess with me tonight.Just stop and take a second.I was fine before you walked into my life.”
This is my Sunday sermon. This cold winter air that cuts to my bones and makes my eyes bright. Here, alone, alive, my muscles taut and my breath misty with desire, I feel in control of everything I see and everything I feel. My world is here, somehow held between Rapture and Earth. Beneath this sky, I find it. That jewel, that stone that authority buried, that woman that you tried to break. I reclaim me, take back my night (which has never been silent), rediscover my truth, here, beneath my angel.
Beneath this sky of my Lord’s. I am smiling. And that’s enough.
“Thank you, terror.
Thank you, disillusionment.
Thank you, frailty.
Thank you, consequence.
Thank you, thank you, silence!”
We are born so ready. So pure. And we are broken again and again as our parents try to form us. Their hands sometimes move with love but we are impossibly fragile. Like dandelion tuffs, a million seeds on the wind, scattered just as easily to stones as to fertile ground. We are rarely witnessed, more often molded. We are hemmed in, fenced in, taken down, taken out. Even those of us who buck the system fall pray to the whispering commands of culture. We love, hate, take, give, live, die, as we are told is right, moral, expected.
Christ was rebel among the rebels. Christ was warrior-brother. Gentle man. Furious and brave. Articulate in the voice of the people. The working man’s Christ. The Christ of whores and children. The Christ of nonbelievers. A real man. A real changer. My Christ.
I am whispering to you on canvas. Fingers in feathers. My breath passes your lips, gives you life. I am praying. I am alone in the darkness. I am every where under the sky. I stand on the edge. I close my eyes. I jump.
“How about how good it feels to finally forgive you.
How about no longer being masochistic.
How about remembering your divinity.
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out.
How about not equating death with stopping.”
End Time Angels, carry me home. I am as bold as I need to be. I am stronger than I ever thought I could become. Let me walk with these apostles I love. Let us change the world. Together.
I am tired of waiting.
“Snakes in the grass
gotta step on the gas.”
EJ
