Though I don't remember
I remember my birth was my first "yes"
Though I was pushed, "yes"
Though there was screaming, "yes"
Though the light hurt, "yes"
I wanted the "yes" to last forever so badly, later on I told myself
"We're built like drums
"We couldn't make songs if we'd never been hit"
It was a desperate theory
When they told me God was always watching
I said, "Who wants to worship a diary thief?"
I didn't dare say, "Who wants to worship anyone
Who would see everything and just sit there doing nothing
While the Devil flossed his teeth with the bow of my prettiest violin?"
Oddly, they told me the same thing about Santa always watching
And I didn't mind, because that fucker was bringing presents
God was only bringing life
Which I was told was a sin to return, even if it didn't fit
My "yes" never fit into the "no" of this world
I was just a little girl trying to get rid of the "just" and the "little"
Got rid of the "girl" instead
Got rid of my "yes" trying to make a "no" so big it could go back in time
Swallow everything that happened, that should not have happened
And that's how I live
I mean, that's how I've been living
Decades of "no," "no," "no," "no," "no," and that's okay
An accordion couldn't make a song if it had never closed
But then, I met you
And I started feeling myself open
I started feeling my "yes" coming back
And it was the sweetest thing I had ever known
Like the reverse of being haunted
Like taking a deep breath and pulling the fog off the glass
My love, my "yes"
Do you know how many times a day
My gratitude frames your autograph?
Come see me in the good light
Come tell me what you tell the truth
Come trouble me
Come lightning strike
Come read out loud what I can't yet pronounce of my own life
Come wiser than the past
Come make me make you proud
Come hope too much
Come with all your ghosts
Come clown around when the timing's bad
Come promise me the world
Come trust me to do my best, even when I don't
Come ask me to give you everything I have
Come knowing I'll give you my word
That if you fall in the forest when there's no one around
I will be there before you land
Come be everything you are, my love
Come love this world, come hate it too
Come undone, come falling apart
Come every age you have ever been
Come tantrum in the grocery store
Come screaming for what's sweet
Come willing to spill
Willing to stay in the windows of the angry church
Come nervous-brave
Come tender as the trees, forgiving the books for asking to be made
Come with all your beauty, leaving evidence behind
Your fingerprints all over the thing that changed my mind
That made me better than I was
Come, love. make me better than I was
Come teach me a kinder way to say my own name
Come knowing I, like everyone, have had my own blood on my hands
Come help me to a gentler truth
Come share my parachute, come let me share your storm
Come hush the weatherman when he calls it "bad weather"
Come light as a feather on the bird that stuck around to see the snow
I used to drive along the coast of Maine searching for the fog
Come with me to where the sea lifts up into the sky just to slow us down
Come make it count
Our finding each other like we found God
Come root for the salt
Come believing we can heal it all, even everything
Even everything that has ever been done
I know how much the pain of this world weighs
But I can still tip the scales in light's direction
Whenever I have your name on my tongue
Whenever you say, "Love is a ladder to our highest selves"
I say, "May our falling be the most beautiful climb"
"May the rings of our ladder shine on our hands"
"In the good light, and in the lightning strike"
My love, come become beside me
'Til I find your first silver hair in our tub
'Til I find your last silver hair in our tub
Come love, come love, come love