When cooking you measure spices with your heart not with a tablespoon.
Because a recipe isn’t law but a guide to follow as you please.
The death toll is 45 on a Monday morning.
Men, women, children– someone’s baby who isn’t coming home again.
Did you tell him you love him before he went out that door?
Mami, le diste la bendicion?
It’s not a terrorist attack or natural disaster, it’s just another month gone by in Chicago.
These are the things you read when scrolling through pictures of puppies and reports about winning teams.
Something must be done!
Hot air and empty promises.
Men in suits telling me how we should live,
But bullets speak louder than words.
Why are we killing each other?
Will I ever know the desperation that leads me to pull a gun on my neighbor?
The anger?
The rage?
Don’t speak to me about the problem with gun violence when you have no solution.
Speak to me with opportunity and art and beauty.
Speak to me with options instead of liquor stores on every corner.
Speak to me with playgrounds for our children instead of empty lots and chain link fences.
Until then don’t talk to me about a problem like I’m not drowning in the tears of broken mothers.
We are not well, you and I.
Could be why you’re having a conversation with yourself in the mirror.
You’ve been crying at your desk again.
You almost cried at lunch.
You are not fine.
Why are you so hard to love?
Why aren’t you like the other girls?
“Is it raining there?”
No. You lie
“Did you walk the dog?”
Yes. Another lie.
“Are you going to sleep?”
Yes. You spare him the truth of you laying here too apathetic to even want to get up to relieve yourself. You move because even you aren’t that low.
You go out eventually. It’s raining, but you’re too far gone to care.
The rain makes you feel something and that’s better than nothing– even if it’s purely sensory.
Rain is water. Water is wet. You are now wet.
The dog is wet. The dog now smells.
You feel nothing, but that you are slowly getting wetter.
So you walk with the dog trotting besides you, the two of you drowning in April showers.
On that morning, early they went, that grave, it stood empty, because He was risen.
Like a lamb to the slaughter, He was lead.
Abandoned.
Betrayed.
Despised.
Father forgive them, they know not what they do.
The Father turned his face.
A sacrifice so great.
A story of love.
The skies turned black.
The earth cried out, weeping for its King.
The earth trembled, it shook, it ached, from Glory so great.
Death is defeated.
It is finished.
The veil is torn. Here I stand in His presence. I am no longer ashamed.
Why do you seek the living among the dead?
You know—He is risen.
Death has no power, because He is risen.
I am healed—because He is risen.
All chains are broken, I am bound no more—because He is risen.
We stand here free—because He is risen.
He is risen. He is risen. He is risen.
I am redeemed, because He is risen.
Everything is being made new.
I walk these paths and feel the churning of the earth beneath my feet.
The plants that have laid dormant spread their roots and break free.
Spring has come.
What has died is born again.
Can’t you feel them stirring?
Rise up my wild girl, throw back the shroud of winter, and feel the sun warm your face once again.
The Secret Life of Pandas 