Lydia Luke

I am a ship lost to the sea.
For windless miles
I wander,
sun salt crackling
along the soggy beams of my deck.

For mindless hopes I watch.
At every blood-soaked sunrise I wait
for the island
that never comes
the dream that never becomes.

If only I could sink
become a home to yellow
and pink anemones.
A buried treasure
concealed at the bottom of
a cavern so deep…

But I cannot give up.
I know there is still life
and it beats heavily
within this tattered heart
locked away in the belly of my hull.

Built then hidden under layers
of self-condemnation
of self preservation
a fear of invasion;
a fear of myself.

So through these waters
I wander and drift.
Left with only a memory
of calloused craggy hands
gripping my helm
directing me home.

I am conditional. From my emotions to my actions, the choices I will make on a given day are all subject to how I feel and perceive the world around me. One thing that I find the most conditional in all human beings is the way that we love. In fact, I would argue that it is the root of my condition. Love sucks. Not because it is not good but because it is painful and goes against what I may feel on a given day.

We enter relationships with expectations and often re-word “expectation” to “hope”. They are extremely different. Expectation is… well, expecting something in return. Hope is wishing for the unlikely, but not expecting it to happen. I’m beginning to realize that love holds no expectations, it has it’s hopes, but not expectations. Serving someone does not mean they will show you the same courtesy, pray for you with the same vigilance, or take the time to hear you speak. Those are hopes. I have to surrender my expectations approximately every 10 to 15 minutes.

Sometimes you have to say, “I love you” with a small “i” and a big “YOU”.
Sometimes you must expect nothing but just hope that they are happy.
Sometimes you’ve got to cheer from the sidelines and watch them be victorious.
Sometimes you need to walk away when the job is done.

……. I feel like I’m writing a bunch of fluffy bullshit right now.

You may have just read all of that ^ up there ^
But this is what I mean.

Sometimes you just have to love people because you can’t handle your life without them in it. And maybe that means you get hurt, and you feel really dumb, and you’re that character in the movie that everyone wants in their life but no one wants to be; the fan on the sidelines.

I don’t know if it’s worth it.
I can word anything in a way that will make you believe that it’s good. I can write that love without expectation or hope is super great and worth all of the risk and the pain and rejection. But honestly, I have no fucking clue.

Yep, I just said the f word and I meant it.

and my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right
but they’re heavy and I’m awkward…always running out of fight
so I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship
hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks
because I am made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea 

Wooden Heart
-The Listener

That’s it. That is where I’m at.

Pretty epic adventure, I know.

Being transparent and truthful is most comparable to throwing yourself under a bus and hoping for the best outcome. But look at it this way, at least I go down with a clear conscious. I know that my transparency, or honesty, is not necessarily for anyone else, but for the health of my own soul.

The soul is such a funny thing. I, most often, don’t think I grasp what my soul is and therefore am unable to understand who I am or the God that created me. I will never stop searching, but also, I will never pretend to comprehend all the mysteries of this world.

The important thing is that love exists and can speak without word or thought or emotion. Love is what ties us together. Love is what animates these bodies, these fickle earthly minds. How can you look at love and not believe that there is some sort of magic in the world? Maybe magic is not levitating or pulling a white rabbit out of a hat. Maybe, just maybe, magic is when the earthly body sacrifices itself for love.

Maybe magic is believing that fairy tales, do indeed, exist.

Maybe magic is in the grace of second chances.

Maybe magic is believing in the impossible; trusting in the unimaginable; hoping in the improbable; being patient during unlikely times.

Knowing that by giving something away, it can be made new.
If you open up your clenched hands, if you just let go, then there is a chance they will be filled again.

Someone wonderful once told me that nothing is so broken that it cannot be fixed.
There is always hope for reconciliation, but there isn’t enough time to wait for things to work themselves out.

On the back of Naked Juice bottles there is a logo that says, “Shake well! Separation is natural.” Maybe we need to start shaking things up, not for personal gain or revenge.

For love. For friendship. For grace and second chances.