Rough Drafts

I've defined myself as a writer for the majority of my life, but it is one of my biggest insecurities. For Fine Arts this year I drafted and redrafted, entering a poem that I was largely unhappy with for Sectionals, and another one for Districts that I worked on, more than I do for 95% of my poems. Here are some drafts.

This is the first and roughest one:

I've grown inside coccoons of theology.

My meat and my milk have often been

combined into one shake, energizing me.

My days smelled of parchment, of myrrh,

and of the dankness of caves and Galilean

seasides. Sometimes the scent of incense

curled around my closed eyes. I would

feel it drift into high heaven.

I drank from many communion cups.

When the flavors clashed with each other I

began to brew my own: formulating

mixed drinks of feeling and faith that

were heady and disorienting. I forgot

about the bread - the taste that always

stayed the same - while holding it in my hand.

I pounded my knees into the altar

ground, circles of worship rippling

out around them. I knew what I believed.

I was persuaded. I knew that I was

made for God and for God I would

remain.

But I turned focusing on God

into focusing on myself. I turned

the Scriptures into a galaxy, and I

was on fire in the middle of it.

God didn't cut me down.

I didn't burn out.

I fell in love.

I found that in trying to

be so spiritual, I became so human.

I fell out of love after two years,

realizing a million things.

I sucked in God's love, as much

as I could get, for years. Seventy

times seven, He said to forgive,

and that always frightened me because

I had used that up and more, trying

to deserve His love.

I have picked up my cross, and

I feel a new splinter every day

dig into my shoulders. But it's not

about me this time. This time

my cross isn't holiness. The most

human thing ever - to love others

as He has loved me.

Because it is about me, for Him.

Because it is about them, for Him.

Because it is about Him, for me.

Because it is about them, for me.

It's a different way of those

ripples of worship I sent out

with my knees, except this time

with my hands - helping. and with

my heart - loving. and with my

mouth - preaching. This is my cross.

Pick one,

In the circles of worship that rippled out from my knees when I hit

the altar, I staked everything I believed.

The Sense of Accomplishment.

I've finished. It's beautiful. 3 o'clock in the morning, my hands are shaking but my mind is in that state of seeing the words open behind my eyelids. For me, emotions translate well in the early morning, when sleep is the norm.

Meh

I'm rewriting my fine arts poem for the second round. Hopefully, now that it's crunch time and just about midnight, the words will come easier. I have so many things to say, and none of them rhyme. Sadly, that's the only sort of poem I'm 100% certain will appeal to the adjudicators of Fine Arts.

I have a bone to pick with whoever chooses these adjudicators. I've done this long enough to predict what an outcome will be, and free verse is the only iffy thing. If it's done with plenty of inner rhyming of words put close together, it has a chance. Big words seem to do the trick, too.

Gosh, all this angst. I don't like it. Especially since the theme is Compelled by Love, and angst doesn't count for anything in Fine Arts.

I Love Love

So many things I hoped for are happening, along with many things that I never thought I'd deal with. The most beautiful and happiest thing is the smile I'm constantly getting from him. It feels good. I can talk to easily to him now, most of the time. I wave and smile and laugh and ask things I never would have thought to, months ago.

The funniest thing is that I'm not in love. In fact, letting go of that infatuation has given me a freedom of awesome proportions, in looking with interest in another direction. It's not a serious interest, but it's there. I don't deny it. And the most awesome thing of all is that I am confident and secure in his and her confidence, in their love.

I acknowledge what it used to be and let my heart be illuminated by this love and open pride.

In the midst of strange and troubling circumstances, there are a billion bright lights. That's what I see. I see a future that remains hopeful, in spite of all my shortcomings. I see a family that is not perfect, not by far, but is as close to me as my blood family. We have grown together; it's not something that is easily thrown aside.

Emotional.

Even the gentlest roller-coasters can make you sick if you stay on them long enough.