in defense of vulnerability.
Category: Words With Myself
how to draw water for someone who is thirsty.
it is entirely possible to love someone
without sending God’s name out first,
without reminding them
of how their hands have failed
to hold water from the well,
and
how you are the answer.
if you love them right,
they will eventually in God’s own time
unfurl
untwist
unlearn.
they will grow beyond your reach
and
the Light will find them.
if you love them right,
you won’t have to use
God’s name
once.
— how to draw water for someone who is thirsty.
© Liezel Graham 2020.
Photograph by Amal Ali.
how to climb out of a foxhole.
when i find myself walking on a beach again,
sand soft and ocean lapped,
i shall be brave.
braver than i have ever been.
run into the water without a thought
of how i might look
to anyone passing through
on their way home from war.
aren’t we all?
hiding from each other
in foxholes all day
in plain sight.
i shall allow my hands
the freedom to throw joy
into the foam of the green, and
i shall not use them as a holy covering for all the parts of me that are hungry
to feel cool air salted with joy, and
the ordinary blessing of water.
do i really need to earn this right?
i refuse.
pale and dimpled in secret places,
i am a velvet map
to a place called courage.
it turns out,
that despite all my hiding from others,
and me,
that i have been naked all my life,
anyway.
aren’t we all?
and i am slowly dying.
ever since my birth,
time is slowly being taken
from me
and all the nights
that i did not walk into love
feet bare, fingers searching,
has been loss.
the weight of it all was enough
to make me walk away
and live.
— how to climb out of a foxhole.
© Liezel Graham 2020.
Photograph by Jordan Donaldson.
thoughts on failure.
let your failures leave you a better person, not a bitter person.
you are not alone in failing.
let the mistakes you have made—all of them—even the big ones, especially the big ones, leave you as one who will walk back to search for the one who needs help.
you are not the only one who has been lost.
everyone says let go of your failures—let go of your past. i say, all the things you wish you could undo in your life—those three am regrets? don’t let them go. hold onto them, but hold onto them loosely, so that you will always remember what it feels like to get it wrong.
because you are not the only one who has to fight off their past.
don’t let shame define you, but don’t forget the taste of it in your mouth.
give others what you needed when you were on your knees, with your back against the wall.
do this without any ulterior motive.
just be kind.
kindness, compassion and love like to get their hands dirty. they’re not ones for standing around looking holy.
so, take your hurts, take your memories, your failures and your regrets, and go out there and be a safe place for others and give them grace like it’s water.
you hold light in your hands and hope in your mouth.
and you might be the only one doing so.
this is how we change the world. this is how we save lives.
— thoughts on failure.
Photograph by Ander Burdain.
this is not my usual style, but things that need to be said.
liezel
in defense of vulnerability.
faith | new names from old.
black birds flying darkly
up
and
down
the spine of my life.
i give them names
that sound like light.
faith
falling
brazenly
from my mouth.
— faith | new names from old.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photograph by Matti Johnson.
Sometimes the black birds of fear, shame and guilt will fly up and down your life… they like to go far back into your past and remind you of all the reasons you have failed. They like to fly into your future and prophecy that things will never work out; that you are not deserving of the things your heart dreams of.
You might listen to what they whisper.
But you don’t have to.
Give them new names—new names from the old ones.
Handmade names that sound like light.
For all the things that you are hoping for, let faith fall brazenly from your mouth.
liezel
unwrapped.
i made you a gift
with my own hands, and
from all the parts of me
that have
no name
but they live in the dark places
where love grows, and
i watched
as you held it in your hands
for a moment
i was still
and then you put it down
on the table
with the empty coffee mugs
and yesterday’s news, and
i hope that you will find it there
when you look for it
later.
— unwrapped.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photography by Annie Spratt.
…let’s be brave with each other,
but let’s be gentle with what we are given.
some gifts have no receipt attached.
liezel
