the furrow of a brow
that looks over promised land
and sees a newly barren desert;

the clench of a fist
in hands as thick as worn leather,
as brownly red as the dirt;

the grind of a boot heel
into pasture turned dusty,
fertile mud gone dry;

the silence of the field
marked by absence of crickets,
of songbirds, of bees, of mice,

broken only by the hum
of machinery, the crackle
of the fire as it burns

from the release spout,
the bellow of the press
as it pushes gas along the pipeline.

my love for you is a promise
that you will be safe, and grow old, and be well.
my love for you means
that even while you can't understand electricity
or gas or power or bills,
there will always be light,
and there will always be heat.
my love for you means you will never lack an advocate,
a defender, a companion, a friend.
my love will see that your little hands
and your little feet and all your little toes
are never broken, or bruised.
when you are tired, my muscles will work enough
for two of us. when you are angry,
my heart will make enough peace for us both.
and when you wake in the night,
upright and full of fear,
my hands and my voice will be there,
sure as sunlight, soft as spring.
my love for you is a promise
that while i am in it, there will be a path in this world
for your feet. and my love for you is a commitment
that when i leave it, the world
will be better for the love i have left.

i am a writer, a poet, an essayist, a blogger,
a social media commenter, an online forum frequenter,
a speaker, a teacher, a trainer, a mentor,
a friend, a confidant, a partner.
i am a weaver of words, a singer of songs,
a lover of nouns and verbs and verb phrases,
a user of adjectives, a writer of rhymes,
an educated, opinionated, thoughtful mind
behind a neverending stream of language.

my words are other peoples'.
my ideas are rehashed, reused, regurgitated,
not even upgraded but just recycled,
reordered and retched up in various forms.
my voice is the voice of deliberate liberalism,
my opinions belong to educators and indoctrinators,
my thoughts are the thoughts of privilege.
i am a girl who says nothing.

the taunt, lying in wait,
heaves its sun-dappled flanks under the shade:
plotting, scheming, stewing,
its long pink tongue rolling over its fangs,
it waits under the tree for you to pass.
thinking of all the ways it will maul you,
the taunt cackles to itself,
hyena's sarcasm and loon's macabre
combining into the long, low hiss of laughter
that issues from its dank, hot mouth.
in the summer sunshine it waits,
biding its time during the midafternoon pause
when the earth breathes a sigh
and your body sighs too, complacent.
the rasp of its quick inhale
a counterpoint to its slow-ranging gaze,
the taunt scans for you,
scents for you, keens for you.
traveler, when you pass, the danger
will become intensely immediate.

when i got stuck in awkward adolescence, someone told me,
figure out what you're good at--
learn everything you can about it, be the best at it--
and get a job doing it.
(nobody told me i couldn't have a job writing bad poetry
or rapping along with common or making street art or.)
so now i'm stuck in awkward adulthood,
seeking and not finding something tangible to do with myself,
with all of my manifold talents and dreams,
something sun-warmed, dirty, and free.
i demand an opportunity to prove myself, to be as wild and rash
and positive and forceful and loving as i know that i can be,
an opportunity to earn what i'm worth,
the chance to give all that i am to a cause that is worthy.
somewhere buried under all that plenipotentiality
remains an awkward adolescent, learning and creating and listening,
and ready to push adulthood into the full flower of possibility.

it's enough, now, to swallow pride
and tongue and tonsils in my efforts to be still,
to prove that i am capable of quietude.
it's enough to learn forgiveness,
to force grace upon myself, a willingness
to breathe in and breathe out.
when you come home to me,
when the burn of your absence subsides,
it will be a blessing.