Failure

Failure,

maybe you can be 

my friend?

Maybe you are a hand

extended to say “you must be

connected.”

Failure,

maybe you 

are that bridge

that keeps me united with my need 

for something greater that 

keeps me in

my reality here now 

that joins me to a friend by vulnerability

apology

solidarity.

Failure,

maybe you’re just a door to the 

Next Thing.

The next experience or exploration.

I go through you and 

discover

something new about God

the world 

me

my spouse and friends and kids

and the nature of humanity

and love

and eternity.

Maybe if I don’t turn the handle

but smash myself against your frame,

these encounters won’t mean much.

But

if I push through you instead of against you

maybe 

I’ll find myself in a new space

where there are discoveries and

possibilities

and failures which are yet more of the same entryways

to be passed through.

Failure,

maybe we can embrace

rather than crash together.

Maybe I can be molded by you rather than crushed–

the way one is by a hug.

You fit yourself into the shape of an embrace.

You can.

It’s all choices, isn’t it?

And I have the power

to choose

to move 

my body

with your reality.

I can be concussed by impact or

collapse against you.

surrender

and recognize and let 

my weight

move you open to new spaces.

Failure:

maybe you could be my friend

not my foe. 

What could this partnership mean? 

What could that give to me–

changed 

altered

grown life?

Death 

after death

after death–

these deaths are doors.

I want to be a house

of rooms opening and opening and opening