Turntables of Grace
this was written to be read at status. it’s from the perspective of God speaking to us. when i’m thinking clearly it’s how i envision His love.
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i’ve got cosmic turntables of grace that have been spinning since before the dinosaurs and i’m playing this story on repeat:
my love strings from venus to your heart and i’ll go miles more if i need,
just to show you that i don’t know how to play small,
i only know how to make a real big scene with my real good ways.
the problem is, is that you keep looking for me in the blue sky and fat books that never say it right,
you keep looking in the desperate moments when you feel alone and afraid,
when your fists are white like sand from clinching the bars of shame on your throat
you keep saying how you don’t see me or feel me or taste me.
all i hear is about how far I am,
and you keep putting mud on your face so i won’t see what you think you’ve done,
all the things that you think make you so ugly, so disqualified, so far from anything good,
you remember all the wrongs,
all the mean words that strangled someone’s day,
all the drunken nights that left you with a headache,
all the dark moments with the door shut too tight-
all the slip-ups toward destruction.
you say you’ll do better next time, wearing tears like costume jewelry
but i never know what you’re talking about
all i know about is the blood that’s bittersweet but saves and covers and quenches all the pain
my love is a hose set on soaker mode and you keep moving out of the way.
won’t you quit moving out of the way?
a torrential downpour since day one
please stop fighting with tired arms, with your busted super hero suit that declares it can’t be real,
i’m saying it’s real
this is my ocean story and i’m giving you every wave of love,
every section of salty embrace.
i’ll hold you with the sea,
i’ll gather the shells and press them to my chest,
write your name on each one and clench it in my hand until you stand up straight and see that your raft has been gone for so long and i’ve been saving you all this time.
sons and daughters, you’re filled with a million bathtubs of chilly fear and i’m draining you out in the the rivers that dance with hope with purpose with ever extended grace
this is a story of holding a hundred flags of patience to every time you turn away and curse my honor,
this is a story beyond clocks, kings, empires, black holes:
here is my heart again,
here is my heart again
i pick you, all of you
because you deserve better and your brothers and sisters, they deserve better too.
i pick you to trade your lighters for holy fireworks in a room that’s barely lit
i pick you because you’ve got eyes that are perfect and with them i’m begging you to see that i’ve made all things good, including yourself.
everything that you are is made by hands that are without fault.
my hands, my Creator hands, they know not how to make something broken.
so see yourself with 20/20 dancing in the street of the day of jubilee eyes.
see yourself as loved, like everyday is your golden birthday and you have a surprise party waiting for you.
and in the moments when you don’t, when you get tangled in the muzzle of disbelief, when you feel like your heart is black and ashy like a finished cigarette,
i’ll remind you that it’s brighter than a million suns parading strong,i’ll remind you that i’ve numbered every hair and named every single tear—
and so i’m just going to keep holding your hand and kissing your forehead until you know that my love is untamed and strong like the sound of cannonballs coming undone it reaches further than the moon.
my love is with you and falling on you and most certainly for you,
don’t let all this truth, this love story truth, don’t let it escape you.
