I DREAMT, I DREAM #31 | Shua Wilmot

Last night I dreamt
He beckons me back
Back into that toxic environment where I once lived

Like a fool who tries again to grab a scorching pan
With fresh blisters on his hand
I acquiesce

I cross the threshold and know at once I must flee
But cannot will myself to abandon them again
Despite the inevitable torment should I stay

I compromise with my internal conflict
Calmly sweep their floor
Then politely slip back out

Today I dream
We have the power to resist
Resist the pull to the harmful familiar

Like a child who hears words of comfort
And pretends not to know they are false
We have hope

In our optimism we ignore the peril
Reason that we must not abandon our duty to love them
Thus ceasing to love ourselves

I dream we will overcome
Calmly say our “No”
Then politely slip back out

This poem is one out of a long series of poems I have been writing about my dreams and nightmares. Sometimes our indelible traumas resurface years later in our subconscious dreamscapes, as this one did. Writing poems about them is one way I have been able to take ownership of my experiences, build resilience through creative processing, and share a meaningful message. My suffering is always more worthwhile when others can learn from it too, so I hope you find valuable encouragement in the second half of this poem.

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SHUA WILMOT

Shua Wilmot is a writer and producer for Shagika Tales, a feminist art company based in Uganda, and a full-time Resident Director at Greenville University. He is passionate about community-building and striving to live life with integrity to universal values.

EX NIHILO | Amanda Brindley

i woke up this morning
to find a day dawning bright
with sunshine
and an empty ache in my womb

as I sip my coffee
I want nothing more 
than to cradle an infant in my arms
I don’t want this day
with its unmet expectation

there is no “instead” here
only tension
pictures of other women’s babies in their arms
in a facebook feed (I know, I shouldn’t look)
and a handmade mug warm between my palms

curled in my chair, crying
for all anyone needs is nothing
and I feel as though I have it

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AMANDA BRINDLEY

Amanda lives in Southwest Ohio, where she works 9-5 in a local bookstore warehouse while dabbling in many creative endeavors--writing children's books, poetry, and creative non-fiction, watercoloring, drawing, baking and gardening. She loves connecting deeply with people, laughing and adventuring with her friends, hiking, and recommending Leif Enger's latest novel, Virgil Wander.

PIECES: A PARADOXY | Krystal Hart

A semi-truck jackknifed and ran over my car. That moment - encapsulated by metal, glass, and pavement, suspended between the earth and the sky, became the catalyst for the work that engulfs me. My work is preoccupied with the essence of human transversion. I investigate physical, social, psychological and theological constructs of our human existence as we navigate a world in flux. The psychology and physiology of regeneration (resilience) in tandem with cacophonic environments interest me. 

The work rests in duality as I ponder what is and the possibilities of becoming. I stage environments suspended and void of time. For me adversities are human connecting points. I see my process as acts of intercession and networks of human connectivity. The work catalyzes hope and promotes empathy, endurance, and peace through experiential expression. 

In this selected body of work some of the adversities abstracted include: natural disaster, medical diagnoses, auto accident, relationships, loss, trauma, and pain.

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Hart’s current series invites prayers and thanksgivings from friends and strangers. These abstract works painted with natural matter are influenced directly from text and imagery taken from personal, social media, and other outlets. Some works are time-stamped with specific notes to persons encountered trauma or adversity. The first works of this series was exhibited in a group show “Escapeism” in early 2019 at Atlantic Gallery in NYC’s Chelsea art district. A body of this work is currently on view in Durham, NC at her recent solo show “Pieces: A Paradoxy.” Hart’s painting processes are acts of intercession and a bridge for human connectivity, catalyzing hope in individual and shared adversities.

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Hart, Krystal. “‘Live in the Already’ He Used to Say. 2338 hr.”

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Hart, Krystal. “Though Mangled She Mingles.”

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Hart, Krystal. “4:10pm Dawn from Death.”

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Hart, Krystal. “Heartstring.”

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KRYSTAL HART

Krystal Hart is a North Carolina native. Hart received her BFA from New York Institute of Technology and is a distinguished recipient of various honors and residencies, including a 2007 Chair Person Fine Arts Award, a 2009 and 2012 Limner Society Residency, a 2011 and 2017 NC Regional Artist Grant, and the 2018 Mass MoCA Masters of Abstraction Workshop in Residency. Hart has a passion for serving her local and global community. Her work often provides a platform for cross-culture and cross-community experiences of a shared human condition. Her aim at shifting perspectives towards restorative and regenerative communities motivates some of her noted exhibition participation.

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE KNOWN | Shigé Clark

Lips move in constant procession,
printing pageantry on newspapers
to turn a profit:
headlines of heartache
and the weight of grief.

I watch the eyes and hands—
they hold nearer to the truth.
Sometimes in yours I see a flicker,
somewhere beneath the iris pools,
like a glint off of the stone that sank us,
and wonder at what you cannot say.

Weight does not call and cry, it sits
frozen like a glacier at the center, compounding,
carried as it crushes. And I
scan all faces for the creases of pressure
and fingers for the tinge of frost.
One cannot call a crowd’s attention
to that which has no name.
But a single bearer may see 
how you drag your body beneath a smile,
and wonder—have you known?

Have you savored the orchestral swell and known 
the dead way limbs hang
in the reverberating silence
beyond a heartbeat’s final note—
wrestling to applaud
beneath immobile arms
and hands welded to your ribcage
like an art piece
meant to depict the irony
of how the greatest works are never appreciated
in their time?

Has some runner passed you the baton
and bid you carry on the work
(or thrown it to the ground
and dared you pick it up)
and having spent your best-laid years
training for this race,
have your legs fallen numb beneath you?

I have no lips to print papers,
nor ears to hear them read.
But my legs have grown strong beneath the stone,
and my arms, though cold and stiff,
now press with greater force.
I have no warmth to melt the silent weight.
But if your limbs fail to bear it, know
that I have learned to lift.

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SHIGÉ CLARK

Shigé Clark is a poet and contributor to The Rabbit Room blog. She grew up a wild southern child in Alabama and studied Psychology at West Point. After spending some time as an Army officer, she is now pursuing her masters degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Shigé believes in the power of poetry and story to shape our lives toward redemption, and she hopes to continue supporting that mission through her current work at The Rabbit Room. You can follow Shigé and her poetry on Facebook and Instagram. She recently published her first book of poetry, “The Beauty of People.”

Artwork by Eric Peters.

BEING A CAREGIVER | Morgan Burke

Resilience is being a caregiver.

It’s a series of routines one would never choose to become used to. 

Packing a bag for the hospital, again.

Waiting in the emergency room for hours, learning about new treatments, recovery methods, medications.

It’s developing a whole new set of skills: changing dressings, working a pump, maintaining a feeding tube, learning to watch the dosages and increments of time.

It’s opening your heart to someone more than you ever imagined you could, while simultaneously being more tired than you ever dreamed. 

It’s acts of selflessness, over and over and over.

Why? Because you love the one you’re caring for. You love them so much more than the doctors and nurses could, because somewhere along the line this person was diagnosed with an illness that broke your heart into pieces. Somewhere, at some point in time, you realized how much that person meant to you.

And you acted. 

You gave up your schedule, your normalcy, your sleep. 

And when, at long last, the days creep in that are dark and frightening and unnatural, with the hollow shadow of death lingering in the corner, you continue pressing in.

Despite the sadness, the unknowns, and the terrible indefinite grief that looms with every moment, you hold their hand, you bring a cup of water to their lips.

Your patience is limitless.

Your recognition is nonexistent.

Your love knows no bounds.

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MORGAN BURKE

Morgan is a former teacher, staying at home with her toddler while learning to embrace her love for writing. Her family is currently waiting on their next baby through domestic adoption. When she’s not at home chasing around her little one, she is most likely reading, cooking, going on a walk or spending time at the lake. You can find more of her writing here.

BROKEN PIECES COME ALIVE | Kristin Kjorlaug

The paintings are what started this all in my mind. I am so very visual, and I must see first. So I began sketching. I brainstorm best in pictures. I had recently spent time with a broken friend who makes art out of broken mirror pieces, and the word “broken” kept coming to mind as I painted.

I was tasked with how the night would look. What would people see as they walk into this anti-trafficking fundraising event? The committee had all agreed on birds and the phrase “Freedom to Fly.”

I continued to play with shapes, forming birds and trees and wings. The birds made of shapes reminded me of origami, and “hanging” them on trees would give the illusion of leaves when the birds were painted green. 

We were now nearing 600 green origami birds with 2 months left before the event. A woman I had just met sat down beside me to fold birds with us. We were all volunteers for Valley Against Sex Trafficking (VAST), hoping to do something to help erradicate human trafficking here in the Lehigh Valley. It’s our local anti-trafficking coalition to raise awareness and work with rescued survivors.

Then, the woman asked the question I had heard so many times. “Why green origami birds?” 

I smiled, relishing these intimate opportunities to make large ideas more tangible, holding and intricately folding small bits of paper together in community with others while speaking the truth.

Asking them to fold origami birds is a simple and beautiful gesture. I explained to her that the birds are a fantastic symbol of flying free. We long for the victims in our community to experience this freedom. Origami, being made of folded shapes, is a perfect representation of broken victims. These broken and folded pieces become beautiful birds in our hands. We desire to re-shape their brokenness and help them fly. 

So this is why we are putting green birds in the hands of those who are generally unaware. The art will be hung where their eyes can’t ignore it -  in businesses and coffee shops. I know the power of a picture to stop busy feet and stir up questions; “Human Trafficking is happening here?” 

Art can begin conversations where words cannot.

And as we hung the folded green birds on the trees the night of the event, it looked like the tree was starting to come alive. 

Fixing brokenness speaks to the desire of all humanity, but we as followers of Jesus know the Fixer of all broken things. This is Who I think of now when I see an origami bird. He became broken so that we could be free - not just free, but alive! That’s the power of a tangible image in front of your eyes and in your hands.

Kjorlaug, Kristin. “Come Alive.” 2019

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KRISTIN KJORLAUG

Kristin Kjorlaug uses her grandmother's artist name in her absence to honor the love for art that has been passed down to her, and the Scandinavian heritage that influences it. She is married to a Polish pastor in a messy city called Allentown, where they have been church planting for 8 years. She is always working on ideas for books, while slowly studying art, raising awareness against human trafficking, and trying to figure out how to be in her community while raising two kids. They love the city, electric cars and biking. They have a yorkie, a white dove, an outside cat and a bearded dragon. Jesus is Kristin’s true love, and they often talk through pictures.