Rivers and Roads

You know, the Bible doesn’t teach us to be defensive in relationships. It doesn’t tell us to protect your heart and be extra cautious ‘cause you don’t know who’s going to betray you, who’s going to leave you, no it doesn’t say anything like that, it just says love. And it says love always trusts. And it always tells us to forgive; forgive means they’re going to wrong you first and then you’re gonna forgive. And then go back up and trust again. That’s what the Bible says about our relationships. It never says, ‘No, close your heart ‘cause you’re going to get hurt. Be protective. Protect your own heart.’ No, it never says that. It says, ’Get hurt, I will heal you, I’ll restore things, reconciliation is for you, and then get back up and love again. Trust again. Go belong to that group again.’ That’s how the word of God teaches us.

When was super depressed, I wasn’t working—I was always too depressed. Hemingway did his best work when he didn’t drink, then he drank himself to death and blew his head off with a shotgun. Someone asked John Cheever, “What’d you learn from Hemingway?” and he said “I learned not to blow my head off with a shotgun.” I remember going to the Michigan poetry festival, meeting Etheridge Knight there and Robert Creeley. Creeley was so drunk—he was reading and he only had one eye, of course, and had to hold his book like two inches from his face using his one good eye. But you look at somebody like George Saunders—I think he’s the best short story writer in English alive—that’s somebody who tries very hard to live a sane, alert life.

You’re present when you’re not drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day. It’s probably better for your writing career, you know? I think being tortured as a virtue is a kind of antiquated sense of what it is to be an artist.

Get out of bed, make a hot drink and go outside. You owe yourself that much. Maybe you still cry in far too many public bathrooms, but I swear, you stay a few seconds less every time. Smile at strangers if it’s all you can do, know that life doesn’t start when the sun rises or the credits roll but when you decide it’s time to go after what you deserve, and you deserve everything because we are alive both only once and a million times every day and every minute is something new to learn and someone new to love, and if it all crashes and burns as it so often does cling on to hope through it all and don’t ever ever ever let it go. Start your life again whenever you need to. Repeat after me: it is not yet the end. It is not yet the end. It is not yet the end.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

God,
why is the sky blue?
I don’t want some scientific answer,
but why you chose it to be blue,
and the water, too.
Is it the same reason facebook’s main color is blue?
When Jesus came down, did he die knowing one day that people would be making statements on the internet about how they think the world should be,
or what kind of slushee they are having from target?
What’s your favorite color?
Does it hurt you more when I lie, or when I forget to love?
Will I ever fall in love?
How can I make all the suffering end?
Is saying I love you, even enough?
Who doesn’t feel loved, who is the one person who needs love more than anyone?
Can I go to them?
Why do parents leave?
Why do people hate?
Will I ever get married?
Why do marshmallows have gelatin in them?
Would you be with the picketers or would you be the one in the homes, loving people, having dinner with them?
Would you be telling me I was wrong, or would you be hugging me?
What does it look like to really and truly love?
Do you really hear us all when we talk to you?
How do you keep all the voices in order?
Do I really look like what the mirror shows me?
How did you feel about The Office finale?
Do you ever cry?
Do you weep when I degrade myself?
Do you love yourself?
Do you ever get self conscious or anxious about anything?
Did Jesus have acne?
Tell me, God, will everyone be with you in heaven?
Why does popcorn ceiling exist?
Is there a wrong way to love?
Why can’t I tell everyone in the world that I love them?
Why are plane tickets so expensive?
Are you listening?
How much do you love the hurting people?
What happened to the world, when did it become so gray?

If the others are going to hell, then I am going along with them.

You think your heart is a game of Jenga,
and after five or six heartbreaks,
five or six people taking a piece of you,
maybe a freckle from your left arm,
or your third rib,
or maybe they took your kidney,
but once they do,
you fall apart,
game over,
you lose.

So you move onto the next game,
your heart is now a game of Cranium,
and after being broken,
someone has to win the game, get to the end,
to even have a glimpse of your heart.
Answering trivia questions,
sculpting themselves to fit what you want,
and acting out some sort of challenge,
but when they get there,
and they turn and walk away,
and put the game up,
you just sit on a shelf until the next person comes along.
game over,
you lose.

You are not a game,
your heart is not a trophy,
it’s not the finish line,
and it’s not something that loses.

Your heart is fragile,
but strong at the broken pieces,
it is pumping blood through your body,
and keeping you alive,
your heart is strong.

Stop letting your heart be a game,
when it deserves so much more.