Civilians / by Jessica Norris

By Julie Tu

You trade your trash for mine
and it’s a burdensome exchange
but when our mess combines
it forms a bridge of pain
which hope then travels by
and satisfies; selves lain
bare with words known dry
compared to summer city’s rain
inside your chest and mine.


There is a café in East State Village, and behind the café is its tiny parking lot lit by one crooked light pole, and on this light pole is a sticker, or was a sticker, as the majority of this sticker has been torn off or worn away. One could make out in the remains of the sticker the image of a cartoon girl holding a sign which presently reads, “erve better.” It is unsure whether the original, undamaged message was “serve better” or “you deserve better,” but somehow I find it fitting that passerby might only see “erve better.”

Aren’t we all struggling to find the balance between pleasing others and treating ourselves well? Is one selfish or the other negligent? Are both either or is either both? There’s no answer here, only an awareness of an existing tension and a statement to move. Erve better


1 AM
She texts me, “Are you still up?” and I say, “Yes, why?”
and I get, “I can’t sleep, please come to my room.” and
I say, “You come to our room instead!” And
she knocks and walks in and crawls into bed
with me, and she is warm and
familiar, and she has no idea the breaking
it took for me to allow this. 

And we talk. And she has no idea the gratitude I feel
for someone like this, to listen to every detail of every emotion
since the last time we were together. 
“We were with each other literally a week ago,” I laugh,
“But this reunion is still a special occasion." 
She laughs and we laugh together, our heavy topics
pushed aside for a moment. But they resurface.

She trusts me. I listen and I silently thank God that she trusts me.
I ask Him to help me be the friend she needs. 
"Don’t let me hurt her, please don’t let me lose her.”

“How did I get so lucky?” I heard someone ask
in reference to the people in her life. 
“It’s by your hand, God, that’s the answer.”
And I nodded in agreement.


SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN FORGIVE. Seventy minutes in the dark with my naked knees to my naked chest, water pouring down on me, my soaked hair like a heavy blanket hanging by my face, heel crammed over the drain to stop the warmth from leaving. A puddle slowly forms and grows into a bath, a pool, a small ocean, my escape and my prison. The sound of ripples and tiny splashes surrounding my skin, a liquid body cast to set my broken body right. Do you think I can wash away the feeling of this sin? “God forgives me long before I forgive myself” and I forgive everyone else, but why can this water not burn enough? “Go and sin no more” He said to her, but what if she did? And if my flesh is alone then my heart is crying out, and my brain cannot forget, and my soul God you saved but I cannot accept what is not brokenness. Surely you transcend how I do not understand, and your love you promise me will heal all eventually. Then I admit I’m scared, and trying to be strong, but I can’t escape the labels in my mind telling me I’m wrong. Do I trust you? In theory yes and practice no. But I need you, because you are more than I can on my own.
Turn the water to ice cold, feel. Release the drain, watch change take place, surround. I am his, I Am is. This was evening and morning, the first day.


And Oh
My God
I found
myself
in a spiral
of words,
the things
I’ve told
not anyone
else, but I  - 
I wanted to tell you. 

We watched the sky do its dance of hues, so aware of the change in the air, and the magnificent movement of the Earth itself. You pointed to Orion and we whispered tiny thoughts from our tiny mouths, including how many have come before us and done the same. The universe moves madly on in its indifference, and so still were you and I that we almost forgot
the moment was ours,
and ours alone. 

And here are the things which break my heart, won’t you tell me what breaks yours? 
But don’t you adore the flutter of birds, the crooked blades of grass, the way noses are uneven, and how when we cry, our cheeks work just as hard as when we laugh? 
I almost died when I drank a bottle of wine by myself and 16oz of vodka, and I wasn’t scared but my friends gave me water and rice anyway, and I vomited everything they put into me but I lived. The world looked like a bad VHS tape, when the images sway back and forth in jagged, noisy waves while bouncing up and down like a tennis ball, bouncing between the top of the screen and the bottom, up and down, sometimes as if on a loop. When I was a kid, I used to think the people in my TV were having so much fun on this ride, but then the alcohol got to my eyes and it was not fun, and I cried, and I wasn’t scared but rather I was indifferent to dying. 
It is that indifference, not the event but the concept, which fuels my passion, 
but no one wants to understand.

Will you listen anyway?

We watched the last hint of color and luminescence fade into indigo haze, and like our Parents whose eyes were opened to their nakedness we became knowledgeable of our cold.

No, that’s not a star, it’s a satellite. 


Excerpt from a letter to my future self.
Get over those insecurities. They are bred from the work of the devil, ingrained in you through the pain of your life, the result of sinful actions and reactions, imperfect human love, and fear deeper than it needs to be. God is greater than all of the hurt which grew into a shell over your heart. You once thought this shell would protect you, and it felt familiar and comfortable. But it never felt like peace, and it never felt like wholeness. You were conditioned by a broken world to fear your beauty, to hide your voice, to be cautious of others, and to take what you can because it might be all you get. But God says you were fearfully and wonderfully made in His image, that you were not created with a spirit of timidity but of power and love and discipline, that you are part of a body that cannot say it does not need any other part of it, and to trust in Him, His grace is sufficient for you, and He will provide. All good and perfect things come from above, and if you are to live fully, you need God to free you from the prison of your insecurities. You will thrive, and in doing so share these good and perfect things.


Forgive me.
I hold my own hands
to still their shaking,
to interrupt cruel plans
in the making.
I bury my head,
hide my face in shame,
trying so hard but in vain,
I can’t even whisper your name.
Beyond countless, internal screams,
inside senseless, sorrow-filled dreams,
clawing at my heart, 
it’s only me, it seems,
pushing us farther apart.
It’s all my fault.
It’s all my fault;
isn’t it about time
for the artist to draw the line
and end this myself-aimed assault?
I’ve had too many lifeless days,
merely pretending to see, though I just gaze.
I’ve had too many empty nights
filled with tears, hate, aimless fights,
and wondering when, finally, I
will reach the end of falling
due to reaching for false heights,
and what’s right in worldly teaching,
but wrong by your Word’s light.
I hear my name now, you’ve been calling.
I’m no longer broken; crawling.
I know it now, the meaning of love
I will never understand
until I take and extend
your strong and guiding hand,
both to enemy and friend.
Binding troubles you release,
enveloping me
in your peace.
I hold my own hands
to still their shaking,
to better live your plans,
designer of all makings.


On one is being written
the words I love to hear, 
though the sounds are never clear. 
They tell me where I fit in, 
they whisper late at night, 
and scribble down
in ink to drown
out internal fights. 
And this is the hand
which I want to hold, 
the one which I want to believe
will for once fold its fingers
around mine in return.

Two days and I’ve not much, 
but a million more won’t give me
what it is I want. 
I keep chasing after things that are not
who I am inside and who I’m to become. 
I can’t even begin to pretend
that I’ve the least bit of control, 
but I’m reminded once again
not to try life on my own. 

Of three of one I have been taught,
but to my head, not to my heart.
Love so immense does not make sense,
but I won’t reach for what’s beneath my feet;
undoubtedly it’s there, it’s merely concrete.
And the wind is all around me,
whispering yet unheard, moving yet unseen,
and nonetheless still felt.


There’s a little girl next door, 
a yard and a concrete sea
away from outstretched
arms; away from me. 

Inches of glass
can deafen me, 
but over the surface
it’s plain to see - 

Child, my dear, 
we hurt to see you cry. 
Listen, your tears
were never meant to crash 

Into me, I swear I'll
hold you tight, 
Child, my dear, 
why do you still fight? 

Look at me, I’m here
by your side, 
as close as you will let me be. 
Your eyes can’t hide 

what these walls have tried
is killing me, imprisoning
lies with bricks
standing guard
and a concrete sea
apart from me, 
Child, my dear. 
Open the window tonight. 
Together let’s hear. 
There will be a bridge tonight