I Hope It Is Okay

my photo

I hope it is okay to have holes in the knees
of my sweatpants—well, almost holes, 
they are worn so thin you can see skin 
through the last remaining gray cotton strands. 
I have patched up the seams many times. 

I hope it is okay that I get this dead look
in my eyes and bruise-colored bags under them
whenever I stay up too late or socialize 
too far past the listing split-rail fence 
staked around my storehouse of energy.  

I hope it is okay that I don’t always know
what to say or how to dress or how to pose
for the camera or what I think about Very
Important Issues or what your expression means
or what you need or I need or the world needs.

These pants are the very softest that I own.
Safe behind my fences, rest has built a garden. 
One day I will know just as I also am known.
And God says he knows we are but dust and so 
I hope it is okay, in the end, to just be human.

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This is one of my favorites from this year’s NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month—a challenge where each April you write a poem a day).

I was going to include some thoughts on what it means to be human—we’re studying Genesis at my church, reckoning with what it’s telling us about what it means to be human—but for once I’m just going to let the poem speak for itself. I’m so thankful for those in my life who respond to me again and again, it’s okay, it’s okay.

In Other Words…

goodreads (books)

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson (4 stars)

letterboxd (movies)

Fantastic Mr. Fox (3 stars)

~Aberdeen