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On our hearts are written psalms, let our lips speak the same

by Keyoung

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1.
I am my master’s clay and The only imprint that is left on my flesh is by his hands All stripes fade No tear will leave a stain No hate will ring even faintly in my ears No mans hand will stay risen to strike my face For I am two open palms in a field of fists When my enemies scream surrender, I will smile and not contend For flesh rots and riches burn But that is because They are consumed by the fire that fills my chest, that fills my breath My tongue strikes the air like flint My words are of dried wood So when a single spark slips from my lips it sets Babylon ablaze But the day has not yet come when my reflection and myself are one and the same So The skin of my body is the skin of a drum Every lash across my ribs conducts percussive song Scarified 16 bars A note for every flaw Each wound Connecting like constellations I am Ursa Major Den father to sons and daughters Children unaware of their place amongst the stars But Great love cannot be contained Like wine in jars of clay Cracked and thinning pottery We are merely A cup trying to contain the ocean Overflowing and drunken from the our contents intoxicating spirit Gushing forth from our fissures and cracks Our bones may lay brittle But in death they will be stacked Blazing funeral piers scraping against the heavens an indication of our crowning destination For we are made of dust and breath Living only starts at death For our soles were meant for steps Our heads have no place to rest We wave no flags Giving allegiance to no empire For the kingdom we serve is unseen Underfoot Not upon the backs of an ass or a pachyderm Beasts of a burdened political system When asked, who are you? We reply I? I am not, I represent the Great I Am We speak on behalf of the one with a voice like a trumpet call Isa, Living water Bridegroom Great shepherd The burning bush that was not consumed Teaching us that the greatest victories are indicated by the scraped knees of the servant The ones who pad their footfalls by walking on hand and knee Our backs will become bent in the shape of a bell curve Gaussian functions indicting we are dictated by our hearts And we bend north and south from there So awake children of Zion Understand the lamp you hold in such high esteem only blinds you Let us not cling to the safety of steeples and spires Totemism of glass and mortar Built to echo till the voices become one sound That they think is our God’s speech So do not sit with bated breath Stock straight eyes ahead in those wooden bastilles As a great friend once told me There is only death in our safety And We, we serve a God that breathes
2.
Your peers and teachers tell you to sit down Be quiet No! Stop looking out the window! Sit in your seat correctly, face the board! Stop doodling in the text book! They cost money! Parents give acronym suggestions The doctors in turn fill prescriptions Numbing you to the point where You can no longer see the dreamscapes that fill the corners of your text books There! The edges where the text stops and crayon canvases begin Framing the crossing of the Delaware and the great Sphinx the wax bleeding into history Mixing George Washington's features into a color wheel with no beginning and no end until the teacher looking over your shoulder sees what you see You long to grab her hand and trace her fingers over each swirl of color on that dog eared page Ask her to close her eyes and see it! Can't you see it?!!!? His synapses aren't misfiring His inability to sit shouldn't be contained by a water soluble leash Colors were meant to be combined Lines are perpendicular crosswalks opportunities for ideas to bridge markers are meant to be embraced by wooden desks they look so much better together don't you think? But instead they hang a bolus dream-catcher above your bed kiss your head and lay you down with good intentions and By morning your wayward thoughts are caught by Adderall strings and burned off by the daylight I just want to kneel down to your height look you in the eyes and tell you I see I see you kindle your thoughts at both ends till they meet in the middle combusting like dry leaves They are tender and unfold out of your mouth like morning flowers Touching the air with hesitation but then speaking with a boldness that comes from not yet having “mistake” be a part of your vocabulary The words come tumbling out hot and untempered Each syllable bumping into the last Making it impossible for adults to keep up and It’s ok Because you are beautiful and deserve to be heard, You can have an imagination They are easier to carry then responsibility And your shoulders are so very slight and it seems impossible they would ever fill a business suit let alone take on disappointment If it were up to me I wouldn’t change a thing about you Because life forgets how to dance by its mid twenties But your feet still know how to skip sidewalk cracks with perfect rhythm There are no rehearsed strides between your heels and the concrete Each step acts like a conduit to God Because this is what you were born to be The only expectation being the next step Your fingers reaching ever forward Knowing that you will never fall
3.
Sometimes I hear your voice singing in the downpour So I constructed my house with a tin roof So I could adore you from a distance Masochist I must be Taking your love in any shape that you gave me Hail is a hell of a first embrace Your touch running roughshod in tracks of yellows and blues on my ribs making me hesitate But I quickly learned It’s better to steal a kiss when your evaporating off the pavement Than be caught drowning in your presence when the barometric pressure dips The fog on my glasses the only reminder that you still exist But still I decide to play the human rain gauge Every rainfall gathering the few pearls of your existence that my rain coat collects Filling you in buckets, in cups, Trying to arrange your precipitated portrait as it once was There you go again splashing against my windshield as I drive past The wiper blades catching your silhouette as they cut the last Drops of you diagonal against the pane The weatherman, my personal seer prophesying from my radio Speaking in tongues of atmospheric conditions and pressure systems Dictating when next we shall meet But I’ll be ready with my guard up this time, the forecast calls for sleet
4.
Don’t wipe your hands on our pets that’s what napkins are for and no Chocolate milk does not come from brown cows Spaghetti sauce is not the same as water because your goldfish cannot survive without oxygen or in boiling liquids made out of tomatoes Pulling the emergency brake in my car while the vehicle is in motion is not ok The hole at the bottom of our toilet is not for exploring, your arm will become stuck if you explore too far The 911 operators never find your late night conversations as funny as you do If your teacher ever calls home and couples your name with the words explosion or fire hazard in the same sentence, I will always, always, side with them Beer was made for drinking, not chugging, they give it a flavor for a reason Being a teenager does not give you a license for stupidity or the right to drive But you do have the right to sing out loud Singing is for the tin eared and the musically impaired The ones who think treble cleft is something fixed with plastic surgery When you open your mouth you are Sam Cooke in his prime, Marvin Gaye and Al Green with 10X the charm And don't let anyone tell you differently Because songs may end past the lips But they start somewhere between the shoulders and hips And that's where the soul resides And all souls are equal Dancing is not just for school functions And no, it’s not the motion people make in music videos where they’re trying to make their zippers kiss one another I give you permission to stake every walking surface as your own personal dance floor As if you are a footloose Christopher Columbus and the only way to claim the Americas was to do the electric slide You’re going to discover that conversations are best at 4 am The heavier the eyelids, the sincerer the words Those are the talks you’ll remember It’s ok not to know the answer and silence is not awkward It’s shared, so share it more often than not Labels are for soup cans And when you were created you weren’t mass produced (just ask your mother if you don’t believe me) Pornography is only two people getting paid Authentic romance does not begin when the background music starts Son your sweetheart is not a princess, she is a temple And your body a burnt sacrifice Daughter your lover is not a knight, he is a compass and you a map So do not treat each other like glass, with delicate hands Because like dough we need to be punched and kneaded to know our weight and worth Remember that sincerity may not always gain you friends but it will keep heaviness from your heart Love the world or love God For you cannot do both Just don’t grow up too fast Don’t be afraid to run so fast both feet leave the ground When you stop learning hopefully it’s the same time you stop breathing For every kid is born with color vision but adults have chosen to see the world in black and white So when you’re offered a pair of 3D glasses grab them like your life depends on it, because it does The adult world is full of numbers that will make your head spin and wallets and bank accounts that are filled with abstracts, it will tell you that you are what you make, you are what you have, you are what people remember you to be But realize this if nothing else, that you have a God and Father that says, I always was, I always am, and your empty palms and open heart are enough for me

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released October 30, 2011

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Keyoung Columbus, Ohio

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