Lingering Goodbyes

Perhaps I should have grown from this….

I don’t know

No, I don’t know

Perhaps I should have seen it coming

Winding down the road to say ‘Hello’

Perhaps I should have built the walls

Girded my heart with iron fences

Just to guard against what I didn’t know

Yellow roses in a twilight bed

Wave hello to the southern sky

Whose fading glory casts a passing shadow on my soul

Summer breezes whisper past my window

And rustle tender leaves still numb with snow

And don’t know where to go

Moonlight sings a lullaby

Dreams the lazy hours all away

Yay yay yay

Forgot to turn my eyes back to watch you go

Walk away from yesterday in every dream

In every happy glow

You walk so slow

Maybe when then sun fights back the darkness

And morning wakes the memories from my sleep

There you’ll be

Maybe if I keep wishing, always believing

Then you’ll come back to me

Or maybe I should give up on my foolish waiting

And know that dreams can only bring you back for moments

And will not last through the day

Perhaps I should have turned away

When you walked up to me and said, ‘Hello’

Perhaps I should have locked away

The way my heart turned your way

Even when my lips told you ‘No.’

Maybe someday I won’t see your eyes

In every sunrise

Or hear your voice in every song I hear

Maybe I won’t hear your laughter in every child’s voice

Or feel the pain of your parting with every lost goodbye

Maybe I’ll forget what it meant to me…

When I knew that you were near…

Hovering above the water

Barely taking in a breath for fear of the ripples on the water

That they might shatter the image of you

That I’ve kept close inside my heart

Is there some law against forgetting someday

What I once held most dear?

I wrap your weeping limbs around me

Pull your leaves into the pond like falling, falling tears

You ripple in the breeze like waves on the sea

And tremble just like me

When will we be free?

Written: 05-19-2010

NOTE: (a few months after writing)This was written, in part, to express a grief in letting go, and losing two children. I have since gained a better perspective I believe, but there are moments that are still difficult. It is a pain that is largely inexpressible to all but to those who have been through it and understand. But no longer will I be shackled to memories or a person that I used to be.

Wrestling With God

My hands are full
But my heart is empty
My mind is weak and tired
But my will is still strong
My ambitions are in vain I say
If I cannot handle all this strain.

And so again You find me here
Alone and scarred, beaten to my knees
Too much for too long I've carried along
Wholly unnecessary weight upon my back
Forgot to give up what I could not hold onto.

So You wipe away the tears of anger
Brush away the dust of apathy
And help me to understand that what You have given to me
I should lift right back up to You.
And what I've come to love more than You
Can be taken away in the flickering of an eye.

You wrestle with me as I fight with You
Just to get me to look up into Your face
And remember who is carrying who
Nothing, no nothing
Can ever take me from Your love
Yet so easily I lose my sense of direction
Can't give You more than a moment's attention
In all of their eyes so focused
But somehow never completely with mine

You call me to wake up
From where I've been sleeping while wide awake
To reveal just how far off track I've come.
I wrestle with a God who I will not let go of
Though hanging sometimes from my fingertips
But a God who even more desperately clings
Who will never let go of me.

Your desire to be near me never falters
Even when my head turns this way and that
A foolishly nervous twitch
A pensive owl so prone to these distractions
Distractions born out of love
But it is You who I should love first.

Never have I loved more
Than when I fear I will lose it
So it is with me
So it is with you
We cling to these earthly things
Even gifts that you bring and tailor just for me
I cling to them as desperately as I should hold onto You
And loosen my grip on the only One able to save me

I wrestle with a God who loves more deeply than I ever could
Who will not let me fight my way
(Or think my way, or cry or write my way)
Out of His arms
A God who understands that as hard as I struggle
I need His embrace
And even His wounding
Even more

Written: May 2nd, 2010

-Kaylie

ps - I guess it's really more of a ballad.