Radical Discipleship of the Lost

Watching her fall asleep after, wishing I could visit her dreams, comfort her for real. Washing dishes after everyone's in bed.

Miles no longer matter the way once upon a time they did. The image of John Lennon, burnished the way it was burnished by me why?

Hatred rises like a hot stone in my chest, a demon I don't want to face but must. How long one falls when one is jumping to impress a girl.

Hostage costs. The house fills with memories of rivers growing up.

Pictures of me when Jeremiah was a baby, hard to look at. Together we make sense of the loneliness and fear.

Among other things he taught me how to fish, how to canoe, how to ask for pain and how to bury the dead. One day the axe falls, as every chicken knows.

Before language. I was confused and did not know how to leave but wanted more than anything to leave.

We used to ask growing up, what is your favorite number and mine was always eight. We talk in the back room about surgery, agree to put it off until summer at least.

What a cavity shows. The specific experience of nonviolence, the radical discipleship of the lost and forsaken, those for whom no other God but this God will have them.

Lick me, liberate me. What the dead have to say about our shovels.