New Year Poetic Kick-Off #1

Happy 2022, everybody!

Yes... I'm still alive. Yes, I know my last post was months ago. The good news is I completed grad school in December and made it through the retail holiday season. So, now I'm ready to make writing my life and make this site what I first envisioned: a taste-testing arena and sounding ground for my words which I deem casual enough to blog rather than submit for publication.

I'm also putting feelers out for my career path, including a content writer application I submitted tonight. One of the application's short answer prompts was: "Write one paragraph (200-300 words) on the topic of friendship."

Hoping to make my application stand out from the rest, at first I started writing a poem but soon decided it might be too liberal with the prompt. Instead I included the poem in my cover letter. I'll share the poem here-- but first, a quick story:

Three months before I met Bilal, I thought my eight-month discernment was nearing completion. Never had I felt so called by God, nor so ready to plunge headfirst, as when I applied to seminary. Sudden rejection shattered my heart. I began a Franciscan Outreach service year, hoping to discern my lifepath. My living community witnessed my first sobriety collapse when I began a final futile attempt to self-medicate depression with marijuana. Healthy habits fizzled one after another. It saddens me to consider how much of my Chicago service year was a selfish, mind-addled blur.

One of my roommates, Bilal, amazed me with his passion for learning, pursuit of excellence, and loving heart. He seemed to have a self-discipline cheat code, and not only when his Ramadan fast began. We talked about our faiths often, his Islamic and my Catholic. It was my initial intention to fast with him in solidarity but, when the time came, I was too far receded into my vices. Soon after my relapse, I asked Bilal his secret for self-control. I forget the context— likely it regarded my sweet tooth and our soup kitchen’s pastry donations.

He said, “I look at things and ask myself, ‘Is this poison?’”

We stayed close our whole time there. Maybe he hoped his model lifestyle would encourage me to stop polluting myself, but addiction turns poisons into cure-mirages. It took me a year and a half of poison to understand how far I had once again deviated from God’s will, fallen prey to self-sabotage, and how the former ‘friend’ marijuana is spiritual kryptonite. When I re-entered sobriety in March of 2019, Bilal’s wisdom was waiting for me.

Former ‘friends’ reinforced the worst in me.

Corpus Christi’s Sacré-Cœur grieved to see me

floored-speed morph from organic wheat to

fallen grain deceased,

a thorn-choked seed.

Aura bleeding, more torpor than orcas beaching,

I short-ordered amnesia, forgot it’s my court if the torture freezes.

Future fleurs-de-lis’ deformities only revert to normalcy

when venomous enemies flee rescinded Lenten lenience.

They’ll deem it torn allegiance and purport the Lord agrees, but

freedom is restoration of our origin’s credence.