poems are just prayers in disguise

praying to find peace between the lightning strikes

I don't know if I am a poet.  I am not sure if any of what I write is actually poetry.  Maybe I'm just a person who writes my most desperate prayers, places them in glass bottles and then throws them into the tide hoping that an angel will come and rescue me from this island I stranded on.

The thing is - I'm starting to come to understand that I'm actually not praying to be saved from the storm.  I'm praying to find peace between the lightning strikes.  I'm praying to be a witness to wonder amid the sound of my breaking heart.  I'm praying to not take a moment for granted - even during these most terrifying of my days. 

Maybe, these aren't poems.  Maybe they are all prayers.  Maybe they are all just an endless litany of my hopes and fears. Maybe I am not a poet.  Maybe my existence is a long form prayer.  Maybe that's what all life is meant to be - an unfolding invocation of awe and a call to embrace every second of this wild runaway train we are all riding on at the same time. 

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“I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God. It changes me.”

― C.S. Lewis

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I like to think that every prayer is an invitation for hope to come and make a home in our heart.  It's possible that my prayers will never reach a divine shore...but it doesn't matter because whenever I write them down I can feel my heart start to float and bump into my ribs. 

Here is the poem/prayer/psalm I wrote for myself late late late last night while my nighttime anxieties chewed on the tips of my toes.