This is the part where you weep, and it isn’t pretty.
Admit to all that isn’t working.
Everything that can’t be fixed.
The deadlines you’ve missed.
The ways you’ve let yourself down.
All the reasons he or she or they would have done it better.
This is the part where you let it break.
It’s not going according to plan.
You’re tired.
You don’t know how you’ll finish.
You can’t quite see the way.
You haven’t been able to see the way for entirely too long.
This is the part where you hold your heart up,
barely beating, and ask why anyone would want it anyway.
This is the not the dramatic victory. Nor is it the defeat.
This is the eleventh hour.
This is when you invite bright faith to join you,
together listening for the steady pulse beneath it all:
This matters,
this matters,
this matters.
You matter,
you matter,
you matter.
This is the part where you don’t believe a word of it.
This matters, you matter:
fuck no, it doesn’t, and you don’t.
This is the part where you scoff and cry
and rage against everything you know
for as long as it takes.
This is the part where you pick up your tools,
dry your tears, and do your work.
This matters, this matters, this matters.
You matter, you matter, you matter.
Like it or not, it’s true.
You feel it now.
This is the part where you are blessed
by the eleventh hour
one more time.
P.S. 69 more poems here.