Dive - Andrea Gibson

I often repeat myself and the second time's a lie.

I love you.
I love you.

See what I mean? I don't and I do. And I'm not talking about a boy I might me kissing on. I'm talking about this world I'm blissing on and hating at the exact same time.

See, life doesn't rhyme. It's bullets and wind chimes, it's linchings and birthday parties. It's the rope that ties the noose, and the rope that hangs the backyard swing. It's a boy about to take his life, and with the knife to his wrist, he's thinking of only two things: his father's fist and his mother's kiss. And he can't stop crying. He's wanting tonight to speak the most honest poem I've ever spoken in my life: not knowing if that poem should bring you closer to living or dying, to drowning of flying, because life doesn't rhyme.

Last night I prayed myself to sleep. Woke this morning to find God' obituary scrolled in tears on my sheets, then I walked outside to hear my neighbor erasing ten thousand years of hard labor with a single note of his violin. The sound of traffic rang like a hymn as the holiest leaf of autumn fell from a plastic tree limb: beautiful and ugly. Like right now I'm needing nothing more than for you to hug me, and if you do, I'll scream like a caged bird. See? Life doesn't rhyme.

Sometimes love is a vulgar word, sometimes hate calls itself peace on the nightly news. I've heard saints preaching truths that would've burned me at the stake, I've heard poets telling lies that made me believe in heaven.

Sometimes I imagine Hitler at seven years old, a paintbrush in his hand at schoo, thinking: "what colour should I paint my soul?". Sometimes I remember myself with track marks on my tongue from shooting up convictions that would've hung innocent men from trees.

Have you ever seen a mother falling to her knees the day her son dies in a war she voted for? Can you imagine how many teenage lives were saved the day Mathew Shepherd died? Could there have been anything louder inside his father's head as he begged the jury: "please don't take the lives of the men who turned my son's skull to powder!". And I know nothing would make my family prouder than giving up everything I believe in, still, nothing keeps me believing like the sound of my mother breathing. Life doesn't rhyme.

It's tasting the rapist's breath on the neck of the woman who loves you more than anyone has ever loved you before, then feeling holy beneath the hands of a one night stand who's calling somebody else's name. It's you never feeling more greedy than when you're handing out dollars to the needy. It's my not eating meat for the last seven years, yet seeing the kindest eyes I have ever seen on the face of the man with a branding iron in his hand and a beat-down baby calf wailing at his feet. It's choking on your beliefs. It's your worst sin saving your fucking life. It's the devil's knife carving holes into your soul so angels will have a place to make their way inside.

Life doesn't rhyme. Still life is poetry, not math. All the world is a stage, but the stage is a meditation mat. You tilt your head back, you breathe. When your heart's broken you plant seeds in the cracks and you pray for rain. And you teach your sons and daughters that there are sharks in the water, but the only way to survive is to breathe deep, and dive.