Easter

They say Christ died for us in that garden and suffered for our sins and that the weight of it all squeezed the blood out of him like an olive press does to an olive. And I believe them, even though I wonder how much weight it takes to crush Jesus Christ. They say too that while he was in the garden he felt all the sadness we felt, and that because of that he can judge us perfectly. And I believe them there too. But even if you don't, I think you can still wonder about all the sadness that crushed Jesus Christ, who conquered even death. All the heartaches, the disappointments the siblings he watched die of cancer, how many tons of grain and rice and cotton he harvested until his thumbs bled, how much frostbite and all the hunger the goodbyes the miles walked away from home the cuts scrapes scars the abandonment left crying alone in your closet crawling from Tennessee to Oklahoma on your bare knees smelling the odor of your loved one's ashes of gunshots and shipping off to foreign shores and the smoke on the thirtieth floor stinging your eyes or down in that mine choking your breath and loss loss loss. It's all loss and that weight you feel in your heart that you can hardly bear. Our hearts are fragile. That weight doesn't have to be much. I don't care how you divide it, seven billion times anything is a lot, and that doesn't include all the people way back when. What would the world's sorrow weigh? I wonder sometimes if with all the sorrows trials and tribulations, if he felt all the joys too. And if he did, whether he divided it up so that he had all the trials and then could look forward to all the joys, or else if they were all mixed together like how we have it. And then I wonder if he felt the joys that came from bad things, like getting away with stealing, and if it was on the tribulation side or the joy side. And if the joys were so much that they hurt him too. The earth weighs 59,721,900,000 kg (131,664,251,759.7 lbs). It's such a big number it doesn't even matter that we are on it, the mass is still the same. They estimate 107,602,707,791 people have lived on the earth so far. And let's assume that during their whole life everyone accumulates just one pound of sorrow, then sorrow alone would be almost the weight of the world. And that's not counting all the babies waiting to be born and that's not counting all of the sins, and all the people who carry a lot more sorrow in their hearts. All the sins are just ways of keeping sorrow in your heart anyway. I'm not trying to evangelize here, I'm just saying that's a whole lot of sorrow, and a whole lot of world. But let me tell you, all the sorrow and all the pain and trial and tribulation would be a lot less heavy if we started helping each other out and lifting each other's loads. And if we stopped forgetting what each other was. Choosing sides is important, we all need to do what we think is right. But not if it makes us forget that He suffered just as much for them as he did for us. Even if you don't believe in Him don't forget that. Don't forget that everyone has a mother somewhere. Don't forget that judging someone doesn't make you any better than them, but more importantly that telling someone to stop judging you doesn't make you any better than them. Because we're all heavy, and all our hearts are creeping down our rib cage and they're going to keep creeping until we stop the dichotomies. It just makes the world heavier. It just makes us forget that it is a heavy world around us, that we got to stick together else the world's sure to cave in on itself.

She Told Me

She told me she couldn't stop laughing,

but she didn't have to because 

I could hear each giggle hopping like frogs from her lips.

She told me she had stars in her eyes, 

but she didn't have to because

I was already tracing Orion's belt and searching for Polaris.

She told me she had butterflies in her stomach, 

but she didn't have to because 

she hiccuped and one fluttered out.

The Groom

The trees weren't sure where she came from that December's eve. They had been conversing quietly among themselves, shaking a branch here and there in approval, when she collapsed in their frozen grove. Her breath came out in clouds before her face as she lay there a few moments. There were no gossiping flowers or feathered birds to attend to her, so the leafless trees became her bridesmaids. They wove twigs through her hair, left leaves on the backs of her hands. The sky set to work weaving a delicate dress out of snowflakes, glistening as it fell upon her back. Ice crept through her hair, forming a  ghostly bridal veil, while her periwinkle toes sprouted from the bottom of her gown. Days went on and still her groom never shone is dreary face. Soon wildflowers sprouted through her hair, through the holes in her skull, made bracelets around her wrists. In autumn the leaves wove too-late mittens around her hands, lay like earrings beside her alabaster face. Still she lay alone, her groom as absent as her flesh.  By next spring, the flowers covered every part of her, their roots filling her body like veins, hyacinths swirling out of her sternum. At last the pale-faced groom arrived to take her home with him, at last his dark cloak appeared where she had lain for a year. But he could not take her: she was laughing in the leaves above him, her heart beating in the earth below, and every flower cooing, "It is warm here" in her sweet sing-song voice.