Peace, Child

she has stories that fill her mind to the brim,
forlorn words that drift about and
overflow from her eyes.

she has whispers that keep her up at night,
memories that replay and regenerate,
but always she sees
people, people, real people, inexistent people,
people who laugh and talk and move in her mind’s eye.

threads and tendrils of life
spiraling about in her brain,
stray connections of colored patterns,
blank patterns that aren’t really patterns at all,
yet somehow her mind plays with even cold darkness.

she has musings she longs to
fit on the paper,
crush between letters and
soak through ink
but sometimes
even paper can’t handle her mind.

she lunges at wisps of brilliance,
or seemingly brilliance,
but they slip between the spaces in her mental fingers,
spaces she thought she had closed.

she wonders of so much
or so little, it seems to her.

sometimes her mind is chaos in a bottle,
swirling and twisting and turning and screaming and
she is the girl between the glass,
trying to cover her ears but it
doesn’t stop the thoughts —
thoughts and words and swirling twisting abstract figures that
somehow speak her language.

oh her mind is complicated,
her thoughts complicated,
her words complicated,
a chaotic rubble where she stands and seeks peace,
or the essence of peace.

her flesh does not know peace, true peace,
peace from a screaming mind fed by a
screaming world;
her soul thirsts for it.

she wanders for awhile,
lost and confused,
afraid of her own doubts,
until she hears a sound unlike all else.

hungry, hungry, she falls to her knees
crying God please,
calm the chaos, remove the madness.

hungry soul.
seeking eyes.
longing heart.

ancient pages of truth stirred by
trembling, searching hands.
another prayer.
a voice.

rest here, child.

in His arms
her raging storm is calm,
her chaotic mind is flooded with tranquility,
her soul is filled to the brim with peace.

suddenly her thoughts,
her words,
her stories,
have truly happy endings.