poem: room enough

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remember how in middle school dances —
well i guess for some of us it was like this —
we would gather in the gym with all the trappings of a party
and none of the celebration,
just nervous wrecks of developing teenagers
ready to throw down drama,
held back by school standards.
and when the slow dancing started,
the chaperones would make sure our little bundles of hormones
were standing arms distance from each other
not exactly dancing
but waddling left and right
as we slowly moved in a circle
around the visibly invisible gap between bodies
because
you know
we're supposed to
"leave room enough for jesus."
fast forward 30 years
to my body's little bundle of existential crises,
a desire to connect,
to feel,
something,
anything.
instead i'm just waddle-dancing around the void,
at the non-party party
where no one is having a good time,
hoping a chaperone would pair me up
with, i don't know,
the perfect man?
yeah, the perfect man.
but instead there's jesus,
standing on the other side of the gym,
lined up amongst the many gods and gurus i could pick,
nervous,
tucking his hair behind his ears,
with all the pick-me energy
a humble deity could exude.
i know his family history —
his folks and mine go way back —
so i'm not sure i'm picking him
cuz he's a familiar face
or what
but
here we are
circling around the space between us,
not knowing if this slow dance means we're about to go steady,
or if slow dancing is just a thing this school does.
my relationship with jesus
has room enough for jesus,
arms distance,
not exactly dancing,
but feeling something, anything.
-@