She strings the lights
more gold than white
A moment of peace, warmth
Broken by angry words
With teeth that eat at her soul
She sings, dances to anything but
Christmas music
The artificial pine needles scraping
Her hands ’til they bleed
She welcomes this pain
That hurts less on the outside
She rests awash in the glow of
One thousand one hundred lights
And thinks she understands why people
Cut, carve, slice into their skin
To let the inside out
She types on her phone
Silent, edgeless words
Knowing she won’t let him have that
She won’t pick up the shards he spits
Won’t let them become the broken glass that maims her
She did it once
Before
A long time ago
She still has the scar
He can’t have another
She breathes
In the late-night solitude
Breathes
One breath at a time
Beneath a thousand lights
And one silver star
I don’t want give thanks. Sorry, Ann Voskamp, but my heart can’t hear you now.
I gaze at the starry sky, watch thunderheads roll out over the ocean and lightning bolts streak from the clouds to the water; I stand in speckled green sunlight beneath rows of cypress trees draped with Spanish moss…and I don’t want to say, thank you.
Because to accept these things, these moments, as gifts, and to open my heart to offer thanks, feels wrong somehow. More than wrong. It actually hurts.
To thank Him for what He’s given, reminds me of what He’s taken. Thanksgiving requires receiving. And to receive I must open my hand, my heart…see, feel the ugly, weeping wound. To receive, I must let go.
Cup of Tea (Because I actually don’t drink coffee) | Photo by Nichole Liza Q.
If we were having coffee right now I would be laughing or crying or ranting. It depends on which me shows up.
If default-Nichole showed up, I would tell you about how I busy I am, how I love my job and my family and my friends and creating things and fleshing out ideas. How my girls are becoming beautiful women and my dearest friends. How my husband, somehow, all at once, drives me absolutely nuts and yet amazes me with his undeserved love and loyalty. I would tell you that lately, God speaks to my heart in ways so deep they can hardly be searched out and formed into words. And I would listen. I would listen to you and laugh with you and love you.
If grieving-Nichole showed up, I would tell you through tears that I don’t know how to do this thing we call life anymore. That I hate what God has done to our family. I would tell you that I still startle upon remembering that my baby brother is gone. Dead and gone from this world forever. I would remind you that in the last five years we’ve lost six family members and two beloved dogs. I would tell you that my girls are growing up and leaving me and I am crushed. That their going – even the prospect of their going – feels like having the air sucked out of my lungs, like my heart and body are drying out, shriveling like dead leaves. I would tell you that I am alone. And I am lost.
Bare knees in damp, midnight grass
She leans her head over the creek Her reflection just a shadow, rippling Framed by dancing starlight For a moment, she forgets Her sandpaper throat Dipping her hand in the cold water She forms a leaky bowl with fingers, palm Carrying liquid silver to her lips She swallows the stars
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
You can paint a world with words and invite others to step inside.
Also, writing in the second person is for more than just letters and instruction manuals.
Anything by Dr. Seuss
Sentences can sing, words warble, letters lilt.
Also, it’s ok to make up words. Like fedderzhilt or beggarspilt
Or anything that rhymes
with the previous line.
The Works of Shakespeare
Think you don’t know Shakespeare? Think again.
Also, under some circumstances, it’s totally acceptable for an educated adult to use spark notes.
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
“There are no ‘if’s’ in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety…”
Also, this is courage. This is sacrifice. This is love.
The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
In the game of life, nobody gets out alive. Remember who the real enemy is. Love changes everything.
Also, you can always count on Hollywood to mangle a male lead.
The Color of Water by James McBride
A moving, eye-opening, “black man’s tribute to his white [and Jewish and born-again Christian] mother”…how can you NOT learn something from this book?
Also, if my kids could someday say about me what McBride says about his mom: she loved Jesus…
My first ever “found” poem, written in response to Writing 201 | Poetry, Day 6: Faces, Found Poetry, Chiasmus. I “found” my poem on page 135 of ‘Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite books. Judge for yourselves how well I met the requirements. I had fun doing this – though I think the design part of the process gave me an ocular migraine…seriously, though. Pic and text poem both below:
Say more than gods
When the moon’s full
The King himself sacrifices a man, the Word
Determined, He answered
What’s unsaid
In the valley, dark
When gods say nothing
I can’t stand the skin I’m in. I say that often, in my mind, at least, which lies trapped behind my eyes, within this skin. Oh, to claw my way out, scratch through burning layers of anger and regret, scrape away the anxiety and worry and fear and foreboding that crawl all over my arms and legs and back and knees like a plague, a curse, a damned itch I cannot scratch, peel back the sorrow and the shame, and leave the slough behind me on the unforgiving earth. Maybe then, maybe then I would be free.
It’s a terrible thing when you can’t stand yourself. A terrible, lonely thing.
Because there’s no getting out and there’s no getting in. My mind, my soul, my spirit begin and end inside this skin. This prison-skin, this divided mind, this hermetic heart that followed the fall. We touch and tangle, flesh on flesh – handshakes, hugs, and making love – always aching, reaching to be un-alone, to be known – but even when two become one, there’s three.
Not the talking-to-God-throughout-the-day kind of prayers. I’ve reached a point in my life where talking to Him is almost automatic – so much so that NOT talking to Him would require serious effort.
I’m talking about the petitioning prayers. The God-heal-my-friend prayers. The God-fix-this-relationship prayers. The God-show-us-what-to-do prayers.
For weeks, we prayed for my brother’s healing. For weeks, hundreds of people all around the world prayed for my brother’s healing. And there were miracles along the way, days when he defied the doctors’ predictions. Like when he started breathing on his own after a week on the respirator, or when he was readmitted to ICU for internal bleeding and the bleeding miraculously stopped, or when his kidneys began to work again after weeks on dialysis. And we praised God for the miracles and for answering the prayers of many.
The last week of Derek’s life, doctors planned to discharge him. Every day for three days, we waited. And every day for three days, they said, one more day. Until the last day, when they moved him, for the third and final time, back to ICU. He never came home.
Even though I know God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we want…and even though I know people suffer and die every day…that we all die some day…that eventually God stops answering our prayers for healing and calls us all home…and even though I know God is unchanging and good and that His ways are higher than our ways…and even though I know that prayer is a mystery…that somehow God invites us to participate with Him in His divine plan but the outcome does not rely on us…even though I know all that, I’m still afraid to pray.
The pain and devastation, the feeling that God abandoned us – actually tricked us with answered prayer and then pulled the rug out from under our feet – snaps at the heels of my heart and mind like an angry dog. And I can’t run away.
Lightning Bug 
