Tongue Power

Early morning, I receive the gift
of an unexpected phone call
long-time, dear dear friend of many years
a friend of many supports and tears and stories
told and secrets unveiled
my dear, true friend called early morning
right after midnight early

She say things that buoy my faith
and give me hope, in her throwaway words
that are thrown deep into my cells
she say she knows me and she blesses
me with what she knows
about me, Lover me--
you love hard, she says
and when you love, those of us who are loved by you
can not escape this love, no matter how we abuse it
ignore it reject it receive it want it
you just love us, hard

she has no idea how important
her blessing is to me, the soulful neediness
of them, the substance to my life they give
she and her throwaway words are the life
in the proverb of "the power of life and death
are in the tongue"
and she wags her tongue in a life-giving way
and they water me in the places I had withered

She say "how sweet it is to be loved by you"
and I cry, cry hard as she calls my True Self
my self I know to come from behind
the withering words that had reduced
me to questioning, to doubting 

She calibrates my spiritual compass

It's tempting to withdraw
when you've been beaten up for who you are
when you've been accused of things you didn't do
or of things you didn't say
and how one person's, the right (or wrong) person's opinion
or repeated words wear on you like that lead apron
in a dentist's office, how those words can negate 
the affirming words of (literally) hundreds others; 
how that one person can convince you that they 
and they alone REALLY know you

that you're not who you and hundreds others 
think you are, how that one person can convince you
that everyone else is deceived including you; how they can 
make you believe against all evidence that 
you're not a person of good will, of love, of integrity
that how you show up in the world is a farce, a fake
and if you're not careful you'll believe the lie
their pain has created about you and despite
Don Miguel Ruiz, you will take it personally

My friend goes in for about 15 minutes
about how I'm a lover, about how I love and pray
for those I love, about how I'm a prayer warrior
and about how she met me worshiping and praying
and loving and how that is me at my core
and how I offer that to the world without thinking

she says, "how sweet it is to be loved by you"
and I wail like a woman in labor
like someone trying to give birth to herself
like someone trying to believe her own life,
like someone trying to trust the life in
my friend's tongue.

©  Valerie Bridgeman
January 14, 2013