Black dress, white skin
Fierce eyes pull me back again
Long arms, but strong
Reaching out in the dark for souls alone
She walks barefoot
Through the trees at midnight
Unafraid of the dark
Every broken heart is worth the fight
 
Her name is night
Her name is strong
She wont break no,
Not until her work is done
She reaches out
Her bone chilled fingers to give you warmth
She is me
And I’m afraid of her
She wears her grief
Nightmares haunt her every night
She scares grown men
But children run to her side
Her voice pierces into many broken hearts
But she doesn’t mind being left alone
Left alone in the dark



Her name is night
Her name is strong
She wont break no,
Not until her work is done
She reaches out
Her bone chilled fingers to give you warmth
She is me
And I’m afraid of her

She terrifies me
Is this what I am?
A lover of rain
Unafraid she stands
I want to dance in a white dress with flowers
Feel them in my fingers
Not mud under my nails
Maybe she finds those they all say are lost
And she holds her own when attacked
But I want to dance in a white dress with flowers
I want the little girl back

Her name is night
Her name is strong
She wont break no,
Not until her work is done
She reaches out
Her bone chilled fingers to give you warmth
She is me
And I’m afraid of her

Can’t, can’t even explain the depth of this pain I feel
When we’re far away and I know that you’re hurting
A hole, in the pit of my stomach it’s boring right through me
I’m doubled over, can’t make it stop when you’re on my mind
 
We’re all so far away
I think of you in the light of each day
You’re hurt and I know that you are alone
And you’re waiting for her to come home
And maybe my life is shining in beauty
But I’m awake cuz you’re all a part of me
And I can’t just breathe you out
 
A bond, deeper than deep, you have with me
Without you I’m at a loss of who I might be
I’m waiting, awake in this night, for the day that I know it’s alright
And you all are no longer so far from me

Chorus

Cast your burdens on him I know you’d all say to me
So I’m putting a pen to my paper in hopes it might quell this anxiety
I know, I know that worry you’d say it just isn’t godly
So tell me God, how dark must this night be
Before it’s gonna get better?
Father, can’t you make it better
Tomorrow can it all be better?

Chorus

Thinking of using the chorus of this piece in the musical I'm writing Whatcha all think?                                                     
​
Your fingers clench your arm turning white
Your eyes are full and raw with passion
And you tell me what is in your heart
The woman and the children
All abused and you feel powerless to help them
I say
I’ve been trying to find some healers in this world of pain
I’ve been fighting for years and I’ll be fighting again
And I know there’s so much more to be done
You see, I am a healer
But I’m just one
 
Poor student trying to make it through the year
Five dollars once a week’s all you can give
A little bit of time trying to help those downtown
All you see is more need
Thousands more without a chance to live
You’ve been
Chorus
Just one piece in a massive puzzle
Just one voice in a roar of noise
Just one dollar every day
It won’t make the pain go away
Just one act of compassion cannot fix milennias of oppression
But if enough healers can get off our asses
Maybe we can make us change.
Chorus

Am I weak as I squirm in my chair when I'm told women have no place of power?
Is my spirit just not gentle and quiet enough as my temper flares
I've already been told I'm too loud sent to the back, am I a fragile flower
For hating every moment I'm the only one who cares

Prechorus
I'm not crying cuz I'm fragile, I'm frustrated I can't fight
I know some women can do it but it's just not in me tonight
So watch me scream like a crazy person 
Tell me all the ways I'm wrong
I'm sure you're right 
You're definitely right
But I won’t stop my obnoxious song

Is it wrong to want a place at the table
So less will get hurt
Is my existence too offensive when I'm loud and absurd
Are women just around to be seen and not heard? 
Am I overreacting about women in the church?

Am I imagining slights, is it unbiblical to care about this?
My church is run by men, is there a problem there?
And when I speak out am I the only one who absolutely hates it
That every time I do everyone seems so awkward and weird and scared
Prechorus 
Chorus

Everytime we say something, Paul says something else
Proverbs has a word or two as well
Peter threw his hat in there, chapter 3 I think
And now I'm supposed to be quiet and gentle
I'm probably completely and entirely unbiblical 
But acknowledge my existence not as a fragile girl to be protected but as an equal

It's not wrong to want a place at the table so less will get hurt
My existence is not offensive when I'm loud and absurd
I am not around to just be seen and not heard
I am a woman in the church
I am a woman in the church

This is for my home town, thanks for everything.

Streetlights down the rainy street, shining on the puddles on the dark cement
It's almost pouring down november in the little town that I grew up in
I'd walk the streets with the weirdos and the outcasts in the school and I never felt so real
I knew who I was, I loved who I was, I wasn't afraid to feel
But I got this idea in my head that I needed to be something more
So I left to the city to study and work
Lost more than I gained what I had had before

I had my friend, she lived downtown with the purest kind of smile
Knew a poet who could mix sick beast he'd walk the streets with me for awhile
I had a little church I'd bring all my favorite people to
And we were crazy, strange and messy but I never felt so close to you

It's hard for me to let it go and leave it all behind, leave it behind again
Some of the friendships are still there but it's so hard with the distance
I know we can't go back but I wish so badly somehow that we could
Just be those awkward messed up teenagers I loved more than I loved my own soul

Chorus

She's expected now to be a pretty lady
He hasn't changed that much except he's become a whole lot braver
She doesn't really talk to me anymore
Maybe she thinks I couldn't relate to her
You were the people who showed me who I was
I know I let you down when I moved away
You taught me to see beyond the surface
to care like you were my family, helped me find my place
I only wish I could go back and choose to stay

With
Chorus
 
It's hard not to regret leaving when I know all I've done since I left is lose who I was and find it again only to be right where I started and missing some of the best people on this earth.

​Yesterday, she heard me say
I wish I hadn’t done it
I wish this year hadn’t been so heard to bear
So full of pain and shit
But tonight I find, as the year is almost done
No feelings of resentment
Despite the trauma and personality change
I don’t regret it
 
I don’t regret the battles I fought
Even when I lost
I’ve saved lives this year
And I’ve become a boss
I had to give control a few times,
Well several up to God
And despite the way my brain has changed
I’m proud of what it cost
 
I’m not the same girl no more
Maybe lost a bit of spirit
But I’m still loving, kind and now I’m sure
I’ll get up though I’ve been hit
It’s not like how it used to be
But humans are resilient
And I’m smiling now as I say
I truly don’t regret it
 
I don’t regret the battles I fought
Even when I lost
I’ve saved lives this year
And I’ve become a boss
I had to give control a few times,
Well several up to God
And despite the way my brain has changed
I’m proud of what it cost
 
 
Even if my love meant nothing
I stayed true to who I am
I can leave this year smiling
Saying I am a powerful woman
And maybe I lost my mind this year
But I never did lose God
I don’t regret it, not one thing I did
I’m proud of what it cost

In the wake of another mass shooting, increasing violence, and several devastating natural disasters I wrote this. Usually I'm a bleeding heart type of person because there's not always something to say when tragedy strikes. But there are things that can be done, that should be done to help these thousands, even millions of hurting people and I would encourage us all to search our hearts, be in prayer, and ask God what it is we should do about these tragedies.

When Good Men Do Nothing
I’m getting tired of grief
I’m getting tired of death
I’m getting tired of disaster after disaster
Can we do something about them instead?
There comes a time when tears are rendered worthless
Where crying’s just a face for lethargy
You cannot say you care
If you will not dare
To do something
 
We have unchecked terror in our large cities
We have natural disasters everywhere we turn
We’ve got bitter, selfish people, each of them saying
It’s gonna be alright
So we just go along and hide behind our grief
 
None of us are innocent in injustice
We either play along or choose to fight against it
And I’ve been watching everything play along the sidelines
Saying I will be in prayer instead
But faith without works is dead
My righteous anger without action is false
And I’ve just been sitting here
With my eyes full, my hand behind my ear
So I can hear it and grieve it all
Still
Chorus
Sometimes pain is so great we cannot answer it
And sometimes there’s nothing we can do
But these days are the days when we should act
The days when we should face the truth
We all are accomplices if we don’t stand, if we don’t fight
For evil persists when good men do nothing
Chorus 

This is a year we'll all remember
For its wars and refugees and death and hunger
And in this time of year we like to remember
A rejected child, born to parents so poor
They wrapped him in old cloth and laid him in a manger

Now years have passed and it's become a symbol
stained in glass mounted high upon our steeples
But if you close your eyes right now
That picture might not be an ancient as you think

There's a woman in a shelter trying to block out the wind
Her hair is covered and she's scrounging around for something to warm her child in
She's young and afraid for the future of her newborn son
Does this sound familiar? It should, she's in Lebanon

Remember all the halos in the picture
As the sunlight streams in onto the pews
But we know Mary and Joseph probably weren't wearing brilliant shades
Of red and blue
The picture is so archaic I think
We forgot how it really was back then
A homeless child born to degraded parents
Only hurt and scorned by the government
That was then,
Now
Chorus
Remember the part of the story
When they all shut their doors
That's the part that makes me most angry 
Shouldn't this make us more?
That Jesus came to bring hope and healing 
And we are extensions of his hands
So maybe we could afford to do a little less remembering
And open our doors this Christmas
To
Chorus

I’m somebody who catches strayed glances of sadness
I’m somebody who can hear a tragedy in one sentence
I can tell if your soul is in chaos and have no words at all
Because what can I do
What can I do?
 
I’m a nice sweet Christian white girl
With a poster home life to boot
I don’t get half your dirty jokes
Probably can’t even think on the same wavelength as you
Never done drugs
Hardly drink
Decently talented with a pen and ink
So how can I speak all the words I mean so deeply
Because how can you even relate to me?
 
Sometimes I wonder if I will just explode with suppressed love
That I can never express cuz it’s really weird to do that
My heart burns for every sad story, glance and joke I’ve ever heard you say
But what can I do
What can I do?
Chorus
Here’s what I have, all that I can offer
Is the love God put there to begin with
If you need it I’m also cool to sit with you while you cry
I can deal with it
I feel so helpless in an ocean of tears
There’s not enough healers to bring comfort here
I offer my hands, Father, give me something
To give to them, I’d give anything
I just wish they knew how deeply they are loved by you
But what can I do
What can I do?
Chorus

Yesterday I spent the morning mourning. In light of the terror crisis and the refugee crisis and how the line seems to dim between them, Confused and angry I sat in my school hallways pulled out my journal and wrote something.         
I'm angry in this corner where I sit against concrete, on the floor
My heart feels like a hungry hole in my stomach, I'm shaken to the core
Please tell me God, can you hear me?
As I whisper at the stucco roof
Something is going wrong
No one has the love to change it
It's called war
and there's more

We have homeless people running from their land
Gassed away, bombed like only they can understand
And over here we argue if these people plan to murder us in our sleep
Cuz some have a different faith a strange belief
​We have terror to enrage every land
And it seems like we are playing right into their hands
Because nobody wants to be the bigger man

Tears fall onto smooth tile as I mourn
Cuz I remember how you showed a better way
Fear will get us nowhere, fear will force us downward
Fear will only bring us racist hate
Father soften hearts from all this rage
Because I know that only you can do this
Combat all this fearful hate with self-less love
And end this war
Because we can't handle it anymore

Because Chorus

Imagine if for all these years we were being prepared
Just to open up our hearts unto others
Self-preservation won't get us anywhere
We all bleed the same, they are our sisters and brothers
God, teach us again
What it means to love in war
Open our hearts
Open our eyes
To understand more

​That Chorus