#typewriter poetry

I’ve worked in the hospital long enough to find:

Not every storm will pass.

Some oceans do not part.

Some things will never be okay.

Belief is powerful—

but it doesn’t magically make the life you want.

Sometimes the cancer wins. The evil gets away with it. The law and medicine and prayers don’t always work.

Life, as you’ve been told, is remarkably unfair. But it’s even worse than you think. If you knew the cold cases never solved, the surgeries that fail, the hate crimes unrecorded, the abuses unreported, the thousands of gofundmes that get nothing, the patients who die alone—it’s too much to think about. I’ve seen nameless people end up cremated by the county without a trace.

These types of catchphrases—

“Just put your mind to it, you attract what you believe, hustle and grind and get up at 4am like me, you don’t have it because you don’t”—

They only work in a vacuum. It assumes the luxury of a perfectly windless environment with unlimited windfall. It does not account for failed systems which actively hurt people who already live in deficit. It does not account for purely bad luck. To blame is only to place a second burden which pushes further down, never up.

Here’s the other thing. Life is made bearable by those who bear it with you. Who crawl with you to the finish line. Who remind you what happened to you is not your doing.

So often it’s assumed we need correction when really we need connection: to know we are not untouchable simply because life itself withdrew from us. To know that grace is not contingent on how we may have fallen. Grace, in fact, is exactly for when we fall.

I don’t need to know how to succeed in three steps. I need the people who will crawl with me when I can’t take another step. I need the grace which whispers to me through grief, depression, and sorrow, in the hopes that glimpses of bare joy will occasionally peek through the wreckage.

My hope is even when the storm stays, you will too.

Even if for a moment, in the worst of it, in the dirt and hurt of it, I hope you will visit a little while.

That in loss and abandonment, grace remains.

That when every prayer goes unanswered: you are the miracle I have been looking for.

— J.S.

[Disclaimer: Some of you will leave after this post. Grace be with you.]

When I was a pastor, a church member came out to me.

He told me, “You’re the only person here I felt okay to tell.”

I didn’t know exactly why, but I was honored. We talked a lot on the phone. He cried and screamed a lot. I don’t remember all I said, but one thing I do: I kept telling him that God loves him and God would never stop.

I found faith later in life. When I was an atheist, I had always been affirming—but when I embraced Christian faith, it seemed the church was telling me to love less. And it seemed selective. Apparently pregnant teens and addicts were not okay. But pastors who molested children and cheated on their wives were okay. It was confusing.

When I was in seminary in 2008, the evangelical church lined up to vote “yes” on Florida Amendment #2. It was to ban gay marriage. I voted “no.” To me, ethically it made no sense to legislate morality. I wrote about it and got blasted. But I didn’t care. It wasn’t about me. All I could think about was my friend crying on the phone.

I’ve visited dying patients who spent their lives hiding. I learned their preferred names. They were free at the edge of death. I wondered how they could be free at the edge of life.

No one’s identity to me is about politics or positions. It is about a soul. And I affirm the soul. I affirm that God loves. I affirm God says some hard stuff about justice and trust and accountability. But it is because God loves.

Is this controversial? I wish it wasn’t. I am a simple-minded person who has seen too much death and suffering—and I am both softened and strengthened in heart, always for the diminished and erased. I have no energy to hate, to debate, to legislate, to separate. And I cannot love less. Why else did Christ become human except to make us more human?

I know this: The God that I know will never stop loving you, because God loves you that much.

So I refuse to refuse the refused. I honor souls fully because they exist. Because they have a name. Because they’re divinely made. Just because.

This chaplain loves you. This husband, father, Korean American, and son to immigrants has no conditions.

— J.S.

It’s been a while since I added any new poems to my Etsy shop. I’ll be updating Etsy listing photos and adding some new poems over the next week. If you’re interested you can find the link to my Etsy shop in my bio. ❤

poet@evrogina

poet@evrogina

poet@evrogina

1/30 #napowrimo

Sifting through old journal entries. Despite our best efforts, it’s near impossible to forget a single soul these days, isn’t it?

I’ve been coming back again and again to the idea of creating and the pressure we put on ourselves to be dripping with it always. It’s difficult to wrestle with the things I feel I must do and the things I would rather be doing.

Sometimes I clock in, clock out, collapse into bed. Can that be enough?

We’re all pumping ourselves out into the world in a million different ways. Look at this, look at me, look at the things that are mine. Aren’t I worth knowing?

They were all worth knowing.

Sometimes I’d really like to Stop This Train.

So goes the way of life & loss.

You know the drill! An innocuous-enough dream that upon waking slaps you straight across the face.

I’ve always been an other worldly type dreamer. And I guess now that still stands. But leave it to grief to flip the whole goddamn script.

Oldie but a goodie that I think makes sense in the (almost wake) of 2020. Or always.

I wanted to breathe new life into this piece from 2015. A quick google search let me know that - no worries! Amazon & Walmart already had.

I know it’s a silly thing to be sad about, but for as long as I can remember I’ve had these words. They are me. Mine. I don’t get to say that about many things. I’m so glad they’ve brought so many people comfort or inspiration or the freedom to go. But it doesn’t make me feel any less sad.

When I started my Tumblr back in 2011, I had no idea what would become of it. But for the rest of my life I will be grateful for the following I built there. It is ours. As much as these words are mine, they are also yours.

Maybe that’s why a cheap reprint cuts me where it hurts: because I remember where it all began. How many times I was saved by a stranger. How many times a stranger, I hope (a little), was saved by me.

We were all a bunch of scared kids. Still are. And damn am I glad you’re here.

I wish you all could witness this median strip. Because we are all so tangled up in each other. And we are all so far away.