I want the universe to know I can write about small things.

And by small, I don’t mean brain-clot-small, I don’t mean prison-cell-small, I don’t mean urn-of-ashes-small,

I mean, door-hinge-small.

I could write about door hinges.

I could find a story there. I see beauty there.

One time, a contractor told me that most door hinges don’t usually break, they just stop being able to do their job. They warp, they rattle, and — though the hinge mechanism holds– their job is not so simple as that, and so they are retired, dumped in the trash.

If that’s feeling like a metaphor for something, I promise you it’s not.

It’s just a small tale about door hinges. Something I could write about if I were not always distracted by big things.

I would maybe write about how the pieces of a hinge are called things like leaves, and pins, and knuckles. Words that bring to mind a once-broken-always-broken hand, holding a tiny flap of autumn, thinking about how a snapped bone or branch is often part of the plan, part of the let go, part of the try again. Sometimes hinges have a steeple top, too. It’s not always so, but sometimes a simple thought like that is a kind of prayer, after all.

A lovely thing about prayers is that they do not need a roof, or shelter, or secret knock.

Prayers are, themselves, a sort of butterfly hinge. The mechanism that swings clear of trims and trapping, and lays you flat open in front of the universe– an autopsy of the past, an accounting of soul.

When I set my heart down on the great scales, I promise:

I can write about small things.

Door-hinge small.

I could write a hinge so tiny, my whole life could prayer inside of it. I could cocoon my life down to that size without problem, without question. I could butterfly with a wingspan so small I am barely seen, with footsteps so light I leave no mark.

If I am given these very large stories only because I can write about them, if I have been typecast from my prior work, please know, please look closely at the inside of my heart and know...

I could write about door hinges, too.