you can only take from me what i choose to give

your gingerly chosen, love-laced words
are the same i feel for you.
Knowing every eyelash as i blink,
sometimes wishing i could undo.
Frantic running destroys the path;
i'm speaking of love, you're speaking of math.
i wouldn't require what you cannot give,
your heart is one i see.
drowning in your what-ifs;
trust, an idea you rid.
"Quit trying, just be."

I have no idea how this will come out.

I pulled onto the interstate, heading East. The only thing breaking the silence echoing off of the interior of my car was the British voice of my GPS, telling me to merge. I was finished. Another semester under my belt. Another GPA recorded, another week of finals finished, complete with little sleep and lots of reeses pieces and coffee. My car was silent, but my mind was screeching, in competition with my racing heart. My eyes, covered by my knock-off Ray Bans were painfully dry and swollen, a sure sign of the episode that had been the night before.
I was terrified. Absolutely terrified to enter battle.

"I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism."
-Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

I love this book. I'm currently reading it for the second time. And when I first read that quote, I probably wore my pen out, underlining, starring, and boxing it in. That is me, in a nutshell. But not just with guys, with everyone.
Over the Christmas break, my mom and I somehow got on the subject of my childhood one day. I can't go into too many details, but my home is toxic right now. For all involved. It was a morning of hurting one Saturday specifically, although nearly every day was. The moment I woke up, Satan met me at the foot of my bed, following me into this conversation with my mom. At first, it was just comical things I used to do. e.g. when I would wake up in the middle of the night, needing to use the bathroom, I would ask my mom every time (she would come with me because I was still very young) if I should flush the toilet because it was so loud to me that I was afraid I would wake someone up. When I was done with nap time in the afternoons, I would knock on the INSIDE of my door, checking to make sure it was time for me to come out. It is embedded in me. I don't know if one would call it love, compassion, or insanity, but it is in my genetic coding.
It was then that the conversation took a turn for the hurt.
I love my older sister dearly. But lately, she has been the topic of conversation on the lips of many people back home, and that day, with my mom, was no different.
When discussing the nature of my sister, my mom said she could tell from a young age that my sister always wanted to please people. She had a hard time sticking up for herself, of going her own way. And so, she prayed and prayed for another child to come and take care of her: eventually producing me. She compared me to Samuel, declaring it was obvious that God had dedicated myself to Him.

In that moment, I couldn't decide which emotion was going to win. Anger, confusion, frustration, and just heart breaking pain. Because lately, the gift of love has felt like the heaviest burden, acting like the invisibility coat in Harry Potter: consuming me completely. The only way I even know how to express it is exhaustion. Spiritual, emotional, mental exhaustion. Love's not supposed to feel like that, right?! Why me? Why. I don't want strive to show perfect love anymore, especially when I had just convinced myself that even from birth I had no other choice.

And yet even in the most desperate of times, even in the most desolate spiritual deserts, Truth breaks through, usually in people around me, no less. I am reminded that Love is always worth it. Not the love that says, I'm going to do something nice for my friend today, I'm not going to give a dirty look to that nasty girl that I don't like, I'm going to call my mom. No, the Love that sits with a women who prays to die so that she can no longer wake up to her life. The Love that sits and tag teams the burden that's on a best friend, whom you love, when his heart is breaking from the weight of his love for another woman. The Love that comes back when everything and everyone around you screams to run away. THAT is Love. And that is what we are meant to be. I believe without a shadow of a doubt that that's what Abba intended. But it is the most difficult thing to even consider doing, and if done incorrectly, if done while relying on my own strength and will and selfish considerations of what I will get out of it, I will fail. I have failed. I will become burnt out and angry. I only know because I have done it. I was stuck in that desperation for too long. Abba is that Love. All the time. He is the example, He is the beginning, He is everything.



p.s. I have a best friend. He is a mirror of myself. A reflection of who I often become and who I am, bringing me back to the feet of Abba. Yea...you should be jealous. I'm very often humbled by his existence.

my heart is screaming but the words don't translate.

"I will be ok, of that I have no doubt.
It's the road to that destination I'm worried about.
How to let go of something I'm so certain of
Bending, breaking, under the weight of love."

a long time ago i prayed for patience. Abba delivers.
but it is not easy.


"Allison, no one ever knows that anything's wrong with you. You always seem so put together, so strong."

i promise that one day, i will be able to write again. i've posted a lot of unfinished thoughts lately. i fully intend on actually writing what i say i will, but i'm not done learning it yet, although i pray every day that i can be.

no titles needed

Stepping out of the skin; fresh terror, fresh hope
Wouldn't even call it mine, no idea how to cope.
Time has left me stunted, one size does not fit all.
Untouchable now appears to be the tripping to my fall.

Where to go from here, an unfair answer to my cry
The page is left empty, the canvas left wide.
A crossroads, just around the riverbend
At this point, I know my heart I'll have to lend.

----------------------------------------------------------

My eyes dart back and forth as Your breath washes over my cheek
Strong under Your Arms, but in this condition, so weak.
You are jealous for me, I heard you once say,
the tangible glitter and comfort of idols lead me astray.

Angry and ashamed, I cast my head downward
Constricted by these chains, instead of free as a bird would.
Lost in your Love, a sojourner of Your world,
feeling like a pebble when I know I'm a pearl.

burning bush

Filled with doubt as the bush burns in front of me
why is this so hard?
a love so perfect, people start running
too afraid to see that they're scarred.

It feels like a faint desire, burning around the edges
Unsure of what I was accepting
Only a spark, compared to the flame, gripping to where the ledge is.

A soldier in an old war with a bruised and broken helmet,
fighting for the loss of the innocent.
Overwhelmed with deception, blinded by Who dealt it
Destined not to cry, 'it is finished.'

Weary against the storm, battered against the losses
Tunnel vision now.
Impossible to turn back, impossible to go on...I've come to where the Cross is.

please just love.
i have so so much to say. so much...
but i'm emphatically exhausted.

and if you aren't going to love as you should then quit hindering it.