When I saw that look on her face, I quit.
I quit worrying and trying so hard.
Because she had already accomplished everything I had always wanted to do,
And at a much earlier age,
And yet, here she sat with that look on her face.
And I have seen that exact face many times in my own mirror,
And I know what it means.
It means it's never enough.
It's never good enough.
It's never done.
It's never complete.

And when I saw that look on her face, I knew
It never would be.

So I decided then and there that it could be.
It could be enough right now,
And now, it is.

-jenn

When the cat mrrrrrows,
And he has the food he likes,
And I've just given him water,
And scratched his whiskers real good,
Then I know he wants to pick a fight
With me or the dog.
Better pick the dog today, buddy.

-jenn

All of my children died when hers did.
I felt her pain to my core.
I identified with her completely
And none of my theologies worked anymore.
Nothing made any sense.
Nothing was right in the world.
For if a child can die before its parents,
Then nature is to be abhorred
By the vacuum that we try to call reality.

But can there be two sets of laws?
One for idealists with rose colored destinies?
One for scientists who say that every effect must have its cause,
And every cause its fate?
For we say whatever goes up must come down,
But certain rockets launched up
Into the heavens will never return,
Unless we call reaching the sun
And entering it's atmosphere
And burning into unrecognizable ashes
"Coming Down."

-jenn

If when I'm me I become more like you,
Maybe, because we've been apart so long,
I've quit reacting, protracting on queue.
Even when I think I might be wrong,
Genetics and deep memories set at birth
Define the faces that I make and girth
I carry and my gait, and outlook, too.
I find I look like you, and if some pain
I find in that might seem to make me blue,
I have to smile and shake my head again,
And wonder if you ever felt that way too.

-jenn

I can't believe what I believe these days,
And what I don't.
My beliefs are unbelievable,
While more credible creeds I find unpalatable.

Why do I feel there is more
Behind door number two
Then there is in full view
On the pedestal,
There for me to take at face value.

Beyond the illusion--
Is there truth?
Some say the universe has edges like a great picture frame,
Or, as once, in the ancient days,
When the world was new and flat,
And ships fell off when they sailed too far.

Maybe someday our cosmos will grow up round,
As the earth has in these modern days,
And we find we can sail east to go west.

Or if the 'edges theory' remains
And proves its truth,
What masterpiece of Reality might we find behind the canvas?
Or what great wall?
What fantastic nail will it all be hanging on?

-jenn

I break my supplements in half
And swallow one each day.
Thus the chosen ones for me
Are broken ones from yesterday.
Now I don't know,
So you tell me
The meaning of this analogy.
Am I a god to them
Or they to me?
Does God break us all,
Yet all will be chosen eventually?
Or do we break our gods
So they will be
Easier to swallow?

-jenn

One fossil at Vesuvius shows
A man who faced the blast.
He embraced his destiny,
Faced his fear,
And forgot about every past second
That had built his life up to that point.
He died with dignity,
Not cradled away in a fetal position,
Hiding from the futility of that day
In some last ditch moment.

And when the sun goes red giant,
And a gray vapor starts to rise,
And life gives way to the same green house gas
That exists now on Venus,
Yes! When our skies,
So once, so blue, erode,
I think that I will face the heat,
Or I'll face you,
And we can take each other
Hand in hand,
And become pillars of salt together
Looking ahead,
As strangers
In a very strange land.

-jenn