Cindy GreenCindy Green is a forest-wandering, poetry-scribbling stargazer with messy notebooks and messy thoughts. Despite her love for all of God’s creation, sunflowers and stars in particular have a way of sneaking into both her writing and her heart (but you won’t hear her complaining about it). She is an amateur sword-wielder with a Highland-dancing warrior spirit who also writes letters to the moon and considers the sky her best friend. While Cindy enjoys a wide range of smile-inducing activities such as camping, downhill skiing, and reading, her favorites include listening to the whispering of the wind and singing along to every word at a Skillet concert (resulting in the temporary misplacement of her voice). A focused daydreamer, organized pack rat, and oblivious observer, she is a self-professing ambivert (or a living contradiction) who deeply feels both the beauty and fallen state of the world. Through her words, she hopes to describe the indescribable and form personal connections with people while reflecting a love for her Savior and a passion for everything she touches.
Why does heaven feel closer in the woods? I ask that as if I do not know the answer. Maybe I simply want to tell myself why. The sky is closer up here in this tree, and the forest is where I pour myself out, always hoping, always asking to be filled back up—but not with what I had before. Never what I had before.
I learned to bury myself in exams and exhaustion, in pink highlighters and black thoughts, in study guides and late nights, in straight As and tangled headphones. I learned everything I was supposed to be, and everything I wasn’t; I learned that I could live my best life and still see pieces of my worst.
Sometimes poetry stumbles. I think you can tell because of the way this began—not quite poetic, more like strings of consciousness tangled together like Christmas lights, the only exception being that I don’t like Christmas lights.
If I were to make a list of the best feelings I know, the ones that smell of safety and taste of tenderness and call me with loving lungs, I would write: being held in small, strong arms and knowing I am protected with the very lifeblood running through them.
Unread texts swiped across my screen. I’d never call it personal—I’ve left him on read for a week, and I don’t reply to her as quickly as I used to. I hear the ding, I watch it flash, and for a few fleeting moments, I stare at black, bold text with fading, flooding thoughts.
To the white and yellow wildflower sitting next to me in the grass, you look lonely. You are the only one of your kind in all the field, and I understand how much that aches.
When you think of poetry, what comes to mind? Language strung together that you don’t understand but somehow exemplifies the standard of literary beauty? Sentences that drop off in the middle and flow onto the line below?
Poetry is written for the quiet ones, the soulful ones, the ones who let thoughts tangle in their throats before they ever get tangled in their hair. Poetry is written for the soft ones, the shy ones, the ones who dance in midnight shadows and sip on moonlight tea.
If you’ve ever met a demon, you’ve known leashes, locks, and ties, you’ve known every filthy fingerprint that’s lined you with its lies. If you’ve ever met a demon, you’ve let pretty pretense go, because surely it’s no monster if it’s here to help you grow.
Tornado winds raged when I was here last. Your fingers ran through my hair and calmed the strands the storm had tangled. I wondered how long before I felt that safety again.
