the things I can't do

I can’t wear my brown moccasins with the blue laces

I can’t sit on the couch in the nook in the basement

I can’t go in either of those aisles in Michael’s

I can’t drink from my Camelbak water bottle

I can’t see the colors red and green together

I can’t throw a football outside my dorm

I can’t bite the skin around my nails

I can’t talk about my favorite book

I can’t use that coconut body wash

I can’t think about the number 22

I can’t wear the navy blue shorts

I can’t go into the science center

I can’t look at red pick up trucks

I can’t look at my soccer pants

I can’t listen to country music

I can’t wear my favorite ring

I can’t watch The Lion King

I can’t make a wish at 11:11

I can’t look at chicken salad

I can’t cuddle in the blanket

I can’t walk past room 118

I can’t think about doctors

I can’t wear the blue scarf

I can’t wear a grey hoodie

I can’t go out on the dock

I can’t ride the elevator

I can’t talk about Spain

I can’t sit on the swing

I can’t bake brownies

I can’t love monkeys

I can’t watch sports

I can’t ice skate

I can’t dance

Without thinking of you

[alc]

Unraveling Threads

My dear friend, I hope that you know that I never meant to hurt you, and I never meant to scar you, and I never meant to cause this rift. If I could go back, I'd change it all. Somewhere in the beauty of our friendship I found a lose thread, and rather than cutting it right at the source I started to tug at it. I took it between my aching fingers and twirled it, stretching it, and at first it was innocent, but soon I saw the damage I was causing. Soon I saw the surrounding threads begin to loosen their grip, and before I knew it the entire piece was unraveled at my feet. And for days, weeks even, I starred down at this tattered, broken thing trying to see what was ever so beautiful about it in the first place. But today I crouched down, and I got real close to those tattered threads, and I picked them up, and I let them run through those same aching fingers, and I felt their weight and I wept. And I began to see their colors, so rich and bright, so vibrant and full of life, and I scrambled for a way to restore them to their previous condition, and when I couldn't find a way I began tying knots, haphazardly, chaotically. And I look down at what I made, and it's not perfect but it is beautiful, and tonight as I lay down to sleep I only pray to God above that those knots don't come untied. ----- And, to you, the first, I hope you know I'm not doing this to hurt you, I'm only doing this because I have to. I am regretful that I'll never know, but I'm learning to be happy with the things I've come to understand. And I hope you know that what I got from you is something no one else could give me. You were the first after the one I thought would be the last, and that is far more and that is far greater because it revealed to me that I really will be okay and that I really can feel again. But what I also know is that it isn't something more than that. It could never be something more than that. So, with pain in my heart, I accept what is, and what was, and what will be, whatever that is.

[alc]

overwhelmed by His presence

                                                               + ___ Great I Am ___ +