Today will be a good day. I will count my blessings. Not because they need to be numbered, but so I don't forget their abundance.

Pearl (draft)

In your city, it is considered a tragedy when bone crushing is involved.  Something like a drunk driver and a little old lady.  Something like a car jacker and a family minivan.  Something, something like a newly licensed driver, losing control and spinning into a tree.  The crunch of a body.  The sudden melting of marrow, spreading of soul onto bark like butter and toast.  Glass attacking the canvas of their face like an angry artist. 

This is what your cadence sounds like.

Your older sister thought that when crushes were finally brought up, boys would be involved.  I picture you in the car with her.  Asking her to please not tell your mom and dad as if this was the moment when you threw all your eggshell bones into one basket of a closet as if there is no turning back now, and you wonder-

Growing up in a home with a bible of morals, how could you end up as broken as a rib cage after a crucifixion, when you were raised to be as sturdy as a cross. 

Was there a point when you noticed your joints were bending too far?  A morning when you woke up a little more crooked than usual?

Surely, we are both searching verses for the perfect answer.  Psalm 139:13 says that you created every part of me; you put me together in my mother's womb. Did he plan on the shin splints that would show up in seventh grade, the ones that would turn into broken legs?  Did he plan on you pulling at skin, until you found answers?  A skeleton so crooked, surely not even a mother could love it.  

Did God create you as everything he says not to be?

In an attempt to solve everything, I say maybe it’s just a phase?

In naive hopefulness, you ask how long a phase lasts.

After you tell me about coming out to your sister, I face the reality that there is nothing I can say.  You tell me that this is your life.  You don't expect anyone to help you with it. 

I thought I could never be more caught by surprise than then.

I never thought I could be as deer in the head lights as when I didn’t know what to say.  Caught between religions and reassuring.   Never thought it could get worse than not having the right answers when  your car crash tragedy of a life crashes right into me and forgets not to ask: what do I do?

I know this will send me to hell, but I swear to God you're worth a few fourth-degree burns.  So put down your bible, and listen to your skeleton, it is closer to your heart than anyone can claim to be, no matter how straight the bones are.  I will never know how to answer your questions, but I hear that the closets in this city, they’re big enough for two.  One skeleton, and one friend to make it a little more comfortable in there.

By listening, and staying.