Today Means Amen Quotes

“Today Means Amen

Dear you, whoever you are, however you got here,
this is exactly where you are supposed to be.

This moment has waited its whole life for you.
This moment is your lover and you are a soldier.

Come home, baby, it's over. You don't need
to suffer anymore. Dear you, this moment

is your surprise party. You are both hiding
in the dark and walking through the door.

This moment is a hallelujah. This moment
is your permission slip to finally open that love

letter you've been hiding from yourself,
the one you wrote when you were little

when you still danced like a sparkler at dusk.
Do you remember the moment you realized

they were watching? When you became
ashamed of how much light you were holding?

When you first learned how to unlove yourself?
Dear you, the word today means amen

in every language. Today, we made it. Today,
I'm going to love you. Today, I'm going

to love myself. Today, the boxcutter will rust
in the garbage. The noose will forget

how to hold you, today, today--
Dear you, and I have always meant you,

nothing would be the same if you
did not exist. You, whose voice is someone's

favorite voice, someone's favorite face
to wake up to. Nothing would be the same

if you did not exist. You, the teacher,
the starter's gun, the lantern in the night

who offers not a way home, but the courage
to travel farther into the dark. You, the lover,

who worships the taste of her body, who is
the largest tree ring in his heart, who does not

let fear ration your love. You, the friend,
the sacred chorus of how can I help.

You, who have felt more numb than holy,
more cracked than mosaic. Who have known

the tiles of a bathroom by heart, who have
forgotten what makes you worth it.

You, the forgiven, the forgiver, who belongs
right here in this moment. You, this clump

of cells, this happy explosion that happened
to start breathing, and by the grace of whatever

is up there, you got here. You made it
this whole way: through the nights

that swallowed you whole, the mornings
that arrived in pieces. The scabs, the gravel,

the doubt, the hurt, the hurt, the hurt
is over. Today, you made it. You made it.

You made it here.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“I’ve hoarded

your name in my mouth for months. My throat

is a beehive pitched in the river. Look!
Look how long this love can hold its breath.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“Mantra to Overcome Depression

Vitamin D. Sunlight. Go
outside. Get a good night

of sleep. Not too good.

Not shades drawn forever
good. Not like you used to.

Open the windows.

Buy more houseplants.
Breathe. Meditate. One day,

you will no longer be

afraid of being alone
with your thoughts.

Exercise. Actually exercise

instead of just Googling it.
Eat well. Cook for yourself.

Organize your closet, the

garage. Drink plenty of
water and repeat after me:

I am not a problem

to be solved. Repeat after me:
I am worthy I am worthy

I am neither the mistake nor

the punishment. Forget to take
vitamins. Let the houseplant die.

Eat spoonfuls of peanut butter.

Shave your head. Forget
this poem. It doesn't matter.

There is no wrong way

to remember the grace of your
own body; no choice

that can unmake itself.

There is only now, here
look: you are already

forgiven.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“tonight
in yoga, I realized for the first time

that breathing is not the process of being filled
and emptied: breathing is the act

of actually making love to the whole world”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“I am trying to teach poetry in school districts
that only know how to starve. I am trying
to show my students, who don't know

how to spell, how to write their lives
in anything but blood. I am trying to learn
how to give and foster forgiveness in a body

that wants none of it.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“Tonight in Yoga

I realized I have been afraid of meditation
my whole life, which is to say,

I have been afraid of myself my whole life”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“God Bless Your Fingers

Ten sugar-dipped strawberries. Ten humming sailors. Let the church say amen. Let the chapel doors open and open again. Ten gentle explorers who found my body buried inside itself. Who can see in the dark. Who can baptize me from across the continent. Let the church of my legs say bless. Let the church of my breasts say oh god. You have found the presents I hid from you. You have grown in me a basin I can never fill. Ten wise men. Ten pilgrimages across my stomach. Ten lit candles. Ten holy ghosts. I am a séance. I am a séance.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“I emote
not unlike a blender on high with
no lid and lots and lots of ice.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“Change, it moves like a bullet and you already pulled the trigger.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“It Rained for Two Days Straight

Yesterday, Ryan told me his grandfather was admitted to the hospital. It was raining the way it rains in the movies, like whoever does the dishes left the faucet running, heavy drops polishing everything in the city dark. We ran from one drooling awning to the next, quicker, then slower, quicker, slower. If one had watched from the sky, our bodies would have looked like two small needles being pulsed forward by some invisible machine, stitching the streets together. Today, Patric was left by a girl he did not love but did not not love. He told me it was impossible to imagine himself both alone and whole. It was still raining--the sky's silly metaphor for sadness, untimely, startling, the way it makes the whole world more honest. Death is like this, too. Heartache, also. The sudden absence of what was there but now not. I touched Patrick's shoulder, attempting to pass my human to his. I sent Ryan a poem. I cannot do more than this art of bearing witness, to be both the bucket and the mirror, to say, yes, you are here but I am here also, to say you won't be here forever, or to say nothing and just walk beside each other in the rain.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“Livia, your words are weapons; your voice
is the strength it takes to wield them.
Better yet, let's free ourselves of violence

as you have only ever been a valiant
champion of tenderness. Livia, your words
are lightening bugs. Your voice is the darkness

that allows them to glow. Please know
every sound you have ever made and will
ever make will always lead to grace.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“I’ve hoarded your name in my mouth for months. My throat is a beehive pitched in the river. Look! Look how long this love can hold its breath.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“You, this clump of cells, this happy explosion that happened to start breathing, and by the grace of whatever is up there, you got here.

You made it this whole way: through the nights that swallowed you whole, the mornings
that arrived in pieces. The scabs, the gravel,

the doubt, the hurt, the hurt, the hurt
is over. Today, you made it. You made it.

You made it here.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“Language is the passing of water from hand to cupped hands. Impossible
not to spill, we lick the bounty off our wrists.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“But I could never come to America, she says. Your police, they are too aggressive.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen

“Breathing is not the process of being filled
and emptied: breathing is the act
of actually making love to the whole world,
which is to say the world is
your lover, which is to say love the whole
world, in all sweaty folds
and scabbed pockmarks, which is to say
love your dirty corners, your
stalk-like legs and barrel hips, love all
the no and the no and the no
that brought you rigth here, to this moment
and love the yes. The yes:
the breath that found its way to you, built
a home in your blood cells,
changed itself to better suit you and for it,
tonight, you say: I was made to
breathe and move and give, which is to say love.
Love. I was made to love.”
― Sierra DeMulder, Today Means Amen