Hollow Words

Hollow

Emptied out of all but

This growing void that aches for reprieve

Fighting to hold on

Clenching your teeth in defiance

As though the will(determination) will make you stronger

And not the desire

A clenched fist that makes you tremble

A symbol of all of the fight

That you have left in you

Just to prove that there is something left there

To fight for

Refusing to let them see

The frightened child that is in me

Fearing disgust with no real reason

For the expectation

Knowing in part the revulsion

Unspoken or unacknowledged

Not knowing how long or how much

It would take to come back

Or where exactly we would come back to

A cold face He turned

A silence more ringing than screaming

From the dark

Said too much? Perhaps

Said too little? He would forget

But He would forget anyway

Too much or too little

Taken away

Why such a trigger for pain to cry out

Not to feel, but to express

Turning minutes into miles

Weeks into life-times

This is all I have left

Hollow, hollow

Hollow words on a blank page

Devoid of any emotion but for the impersonal, typed digits

Somehow distanced by their own use

By their convenience

By their repetition

Their similarity to every other letter

Every other phrase

Every other alphabet

A language all use

...But only one voice can know

Only one can interpret

Only one can watch die...

Into a word we call 'meaningless'

Changing nothing and doing nothing

Just ink splotches on a page

Only one who is fading quickly

And a distant, confusing higher being

Where have you gone

Edge of strength

Oh mighty hope for new cheer?

You desert me in my hour of need

With the wolves howling and scratching at my door

And a babe asleep in my arms.

Tear me apart, but leave my dreams

Hanging on the doorstep

Forget me, but never forget the light

That has always brightened my step

Whose love created the strength that coursed through my veins

Now dries me out like a cast-off husk

Rung out like a used bed-sheet

Soiled, blackened, and charred

Defeat was never an option

But is a reality

In some solemn circles

An inevitability

Curse you

Oh weakness of old

That never quite left me

But left me alone

Where are you now, you lost ray of hope

To brighten the solitary countenance

A streetlamp on an unmarked, boundless street

Full only of itself - it's own emptiness

Disregard its consuming disease

To any bystander chancing to pass by

Disregard a kindness

Its only acknowledgment

Too full of its own importance are they

Or... are we?

You, myself, and I

And our cradled, coveted sadness

Jealously guarding the doors of our spirits

Like Cerberus the gateway of Hades

Cold is the light

Revealing the pale skin

The triumph that once was

Now pieced together by fraying stitches

That beg to be torn apart

Hollow, hollow

This is all I know

All I know to do to assuage your implosion

To allay your tears

To bottle them back up and swallow their release

To stifle the breath

That long since ceased to be

An extension of me

Brilliant they say

And they love to see such eloquence

Such passion on a page

Encouragement, ah, I sneer in disgust

At myself, for what they cannot see

Much less grand than they

They so much more tolerant

Of what I must be

What I have been, now and then

How much more they want

Because in their eyes they see

Something that I cannot

Blindness makes for an enchanting friend

Covers up ugliness

But hides the warmth

Your arrogance I greatly disdain

And yet You are there

As bile rises in my throat

And I know that my ramblings are wrong

That they are vomited out as a desperate recourse

For what I cannot define or explain

What I cannot control, abuse or obtain

But abuses, controls, and contains me

And love

So full of promises that it cannot keep

But it is vital, and strong, and alive

A love that I draw on and define as myself

To charge me to write and to scribe

To maintain a sanity I am far from feeling

To resurrect and come alive!!

I take in a breath

To try to gain calm

I've loved too much, the voice says

Whose voice?

Whose panic?

And what choice?

What choice there is left is limp and completely foreign

A viable option no more

Love you hurt more deeply than dying

Your torment sweeter than pain

But too much of you is a poison I cannot escape


That will destroy me, I think, in the end
Love you have already alienated me

To the grief and despair

Of losing those I hold most dear

How clueless and vain they must be

Or *I* must be?

Totally caught unaware

You have polluted what once we had

I did not recognize it then

And I do not recognize it now

Curse you

Curse you!

You lying adder, forked tongue between your teeth!

Keep your snake's wisdom, your treacherous lies

And your filthy despair to yourself!

What is born of tomorrow

Is not your to claim!

It is not your right, or by your name!

But what is left of tomorrow

If it is a residue of today?


The cast-off and forgotten of yesterday's hopes
The dreams of a fool

And the shy wanderings of an incompetent mind?

What is left in the dark

Of this pain-clouded day

The murky remnants of an aggrieved mind

...Does innocence die as thoroughly

The second time around?

I guess if not, then it is a death for another day

In some long forgotten, lone dream

The unfocused daydream becomes

A reality too harsh to bear

Brilliant? Hmph.

What is brilliance to do with doubt

Or fear to do with trust?

Yet they trust

And they love

And time, and its Maker have not forgotten them

Perhaps then, in their faith lies more truth

And more hope

I will not see my way out of this

Or feel my way out of this

Or write my way out of this

...
In the dark I hear that abused

Disconsolate baby crying...

And I wonder whose breath she borrows

And if she is better left dying...

And where did You go?

You promised me truth

But You did not promise me armor thick enough

To take the arrow most sharp

That are clutched tightly in my own hand

You promised me comfort

But You have hidden it beneath too many barriers

You promised to tear down walls

But more are erected with every uncertainty

And like a parrot will mimic its Master

That too was filtered through

I felt love

Only to have it strangle me

And leave me dangling by my hair

Impossibly upside-down on a high-rise called life

Called obligation

Called 'no time'

Are you really as dis tractable as the sheep you love themselves?

I despise the question and what compels me to say it

The expressing is uncontrollable and cannot be stopped

A part of me lies in hope and in expectation...

The other lies grimacing in illogical anger...

Where did this come from?

Doomed to a pauper's fate

The fate of the forgotten...

You hold me

But let me go

Comfort, then oppress

With Your purging,

There will not be enough left of me to define

To even know from where I came

How can You remake a child you love

Into another, yet love them the same?

Who am I to You???

Who am I to...anything...

Just fragments of self

Scattered pieces in a glass jar

Hoping that the fragile glass will not break

-Kaylie

Written: Friday, Jan. 29th, 2010

Cardboard Trappings

When all our carefully laid plans

Our tissue paper walls of security and future

Collapse like a tower made of cards

There oh Lord, You promise we will find Your strength

When all that the world says you need

All that they label 'responsible', 'normal', and 'right'

Falters in the space of a heartbeat

And all the truth leaks out of the inked in lines we drew

You remind us that real truth

Is found only in You

The plans for good

To help us and not harm

You decorate them in modest trappings

So unlike the glistening, colorful wrappings the world would use

And You assure us that the glitter, and even the gold beneath

Is not the real worth, or even much of a treasure

But what is of lasting value, is You

-Kaylie

Ascension

Ascension

~Pride~

Does she ever look down
From her high and lofty place
So unaware of her own majesty
And realize how high she has been raised?

* * *

~Broken~

From a flower, crushed and battered
Bruised into the murky soil
Color once vivid has faded
Vibrancy had once made her seem so alive
Yet now the cloudy sky
Has left her heart scarcely beating
So resembling the mud that’s caked her surface
She breathes, and chokes.
Uncertain of why she cannot rise
Cannot see the sun behind the gray clouds
Merely reflecting the raindrops
Teardrops in foggy puddles

~Shamed~

Around her, above her
Skies soften from harsh white
Into darkness
Gifting the cover of night
To hide her gloomy plumage
To conceal an otherwise pale
And pathetic gaze.
So sad, with no reason
So frightened of nothing but a shadow
So disgusted by nothing more than her own reflected face.

* * *

~Forgiven/Redeemed~

Golden spring
From where do you return
With your tilted halo?
Your soft winds and sultry breezes
Had been my sheltered pillow.
Slowly brightening like a spark gradually flaming in the dark
Restoring color and brilliance
And causing the dull lassitude to shrink back
And melt away into its own silence.
Filling the emptiness with song
And raising to life deaths saddened victims
Snatching them from its clutches
Gone, gone
Gone are you night from whence
The melancholy banshee came
Now sings her final cries
Into a lullaby
Come morning sweetly awakened.

~Restored~

Winter, pale and fair as you may be
You cannot withhold the sunshine forever
Like dandelion seeds in sunny fields
Like butterflies her memories linger
As soft as your new snow
But soothing
A blanket from your chill
Is this mantle of sunlight
Reaching and dripping into every shadow
Spilling out of heaven’s fountain
Like a rainbow caught on fanning rays
A bride greeting her adoring morning
With dew a gentle kiss

And a flower that had slowly faded
Budding
Rising to take a breath…
Drinking in the renewal of your longer days
And forgiving nights
Like water poured out onto frozen ground
Defrosting the paralyzing touch
Petals and her dry, thirsting face
Rising and reaching upward…

On the pinnacle of the highest mountain
Oh the depth from whence she’d risen
Buried now beneath the hope
Replaced with love of a depth we cannot define

* * *

~Humbled~

Does she ever look down

From her high and lofty place

So unaware of her own majesty

And realize how high she has been risen?

Only to smile at the distance

And the miraculous memories

Coming from a most High and Holy place.

Written: January 23rd, 2010

Transformation

It’s a painful transformation

It is as though the muscles and bones and sinews of our very souls

Are being constantly re-arranged.

And while we know that it is for the better,

We trust that it will work out for our good as promised

Having put our deepest and most vulnerable

Our most weak and dependent selves on the anvil

Completely exposed beneath the brilliance

Of a Holy God we cannot comprehend…

We fear

Written: January 23, 2010

Infinite

"I don't want to get so excited for heaven that I don't notice the joys in the journey..."

* * *

I feel as though I slowly spin

In my small sphere of humanity

My existence focused somewhere in the
vastness
Of limitless space.

I cannot begin to understand what makes the planets turn,

The earth evolve and the air breathable;

Nor the consistence of the passage of time

Life-times to me, moments to You

And yet, with all that infinance

Occurrences I cannot possibly imagine,

Understanding I cannot hope to obtain, nor do I want to

...You still care so much about my little breath
of life

You count it precious.

* * *

Wheeling above in pearl-gray skies

I observe from a distance the sweeping winds that blow

Like a solitary bird witnessing its own demise

In a time long-past, or so it seems

Its death, burial, and re-awakening

Its renewal, as a phoenix might rise

On the wings of the misty dawn above the sea

Watching the storm form in a distant cloudv
That steadily creeps closer mimicking the turbulent waves

The waters of the sea below, above...the sea, the sky

Eternally seeming the same

Endless and yet encapsulated in moments

Time

Here, past, future, and back again

I keep a desperate hold on my shaky foundation

Instead of letting go to blow in the wind

The storm will release its fury

It's white light will flicker all around

But here on the current woven by Your hand

I will not be shaken

* * *

I am like a raindrop

Weighted down by my own importance

Locked as my own individual entity

Trickling down a window

But only one among a thousand others

The storm cast its ghostly flicker, the silent white before its howl

How long did I take comfort in its unbridled anger

In the danger that rippled on its electric currents?

The fear made the deadened part of me feel alive.

It dulled the pain into numbness.

A desperate attempt to distract my mind from what I would not face,

Desperation that bordered on hysterics.

And I was alone in my suffering.

You were never more than a breath away,

Yet I raised up a barrier of pain, keeping You at a distance

Illogically fearing You were its catalyst

That you would despise me for not being what everyone else

Tried to force me to be

I tried to force You away, yet You never completely left

I fought to stay above my turbulent circumstance

But too often drowned in the deepening flood

I tried to kill the anger inside

By destroying what my world had become outside

I hated who I had always been

Even more I hated what I had become.

Enslaved to a life of grief I wanted only to abandon

Unable to reach the goals of what I wanted to become

I wanted to fly

But was using tattered wings weighted down by chains of despair

Helplessly buffeted by diverging winds

Torn apart by what was labeled 'right',

But had brought nothing but grief

And what was called 'wrong',

That brought relief on the surface

But more pain underneath.

I believed that You had robbed me of justice

When You had reached beyond justice for me

And would do so many times again.

Justice had ultimately been disrupted by mercy

And thus forever confused in my mind

My human, complicated, but too-simple mind.

So, twisted and torn I waged my own internal battle with You

I hissed and screamed and cried

Throwing curses to the sky whose sharp edges cut my own soul.

Like a wounded animal dumbly, stubbornly lashing out

At the only one willing, and able, to save it

Till in the ashes where I lay

Like a forgotten, ruined rag-doll

Sodden from the inky remains,

From the potential I had utterly conflagrated and burned

You approached me

Helplessly I stared up beyond the clouds

And beyond what I had feared would rain more lightning

It was not until on my back in my reeking heap

That I could look my disfigured shame in the face

And see Your hand reaching down to meet it

And from my ruin you drew me

Like the faintest fragment of diamond

From the refuge of coal

A master-crafter whose care was of limitless patience

Who knew where this journey had begun, breathed the first breath

Knew each paragraph of every page

And sees its finish, at the close of some distant day

You awakened me from the death of my soul

The disease of despair

As you took in my bruises and scrapes

The damage of a life of broken dreams, idle hopes

Wrong decisions and willingly inflicted lacerations of the soul

Your hand carefully brushed away the smudges from my face

And saw the child, Your child, beneath

Looking up in fearful surrenderv
And You smiled

'Now,' I could almost hear You say

'You are ready.'

It was as though you raised my spirit from the broken shell

That had once been my hiding place

It was permeable, pitted with cracks and dents

But it had locked me tight against Your control

You raised me up from that solitary darkness

And into a much greater light

I could still hear the wind whistle

And I knew the worst would still come despite Your presence

But I would not face it alone.

Not alone again.

The thunder smashed against the windows like a living hand

The lightnings edge was razor sharp

And there was the fear, the desperation to pull and threaten to overwhelm

But You, my anchor, my preserver, held firm

I still cried out and screamed

But for deliverance, not in defiance

And as much as I kicked and fought

You held tighter still

Gentle instead of demanding Your voice quieted the waves

And the howls of the wind were as distant lullabies

Suddenly powerless to drown out Your voice...

Walking as light as breeze

Over a sea that surged

Yet beneath me it was still and merely rippled with our passing

You held my hand for every first step

And every step was the first

Yet still further on towards the other side

In time, the pain brought only clarity

And though difficult to interpret on the outside

It was truth none-the-less that spanned the impasse of understanding

That I sorely needed

Looking around, I saw a sea of blessing

Like flowers finally blooming

Where hope had seeded and begun to blossom

What had begun and evolved as a mighty storm

Vanished into a spring rain

Healing though my body died

Strengthening my spirit while my body was weak

Still more I know I must endure
The sun will be cooled by shadows

And the gathering dark will deepen

Storms will surge still more wildly

But here... Here I will remain

Safe, though constantly changing

In the Creator's hands...

* * *

Circling quietly above

As the sun departs and moon has not yet risen

The last of this storm is passing

As every hue and colored ray of this day

Sighs and melts into the sea...

Jan. 2009'

Guilty Bystander

I hear the hammer
Of your heart
Above the hammer strokes
That nailed You to the cross
I see the tears that fell
Not for the pain of crown and nail
But for love of me
It rained to drown the sorrow
Of a Father and His Son
Straining beneath the weight
Of sin scarring the Holy one
How can I watch from afar
And not be near this man
Who gave so much
All that He had
For a hypocrite like me

State of Dependence

Dependence

You lead me Lord with a gentle hand

Or perhaps a guard-railed fence

To guide my steps

And yet I wrestle away from Your clear wisdom

Deep as a mountain pool

And allow my own distorted truth

To become chains around me

Cloudy dissolution to fog my path

To trickle wispy tendrils to tug at my feet

And curl phantom fingers to beckon me

Away from my narrow path and Your guiding hands

But I've walked too long

On that broad, easy path of least resistance

It's shadows are far too familiar

And the screams from all sides

As reckless travelers tumble off the un-boundaried precipice

Sometimes laughing as they go

Still haunt my dreams

A night mare waiting in the dark...

Shadowplay: taunting the shadows and mocking the mist

For too long have I done this

Drawing too close to Your boundary lines

Instead I will remember the youth

Of my restoring spring-time

When You picked up this sodden

Mud-splattered rag-doll

And held her close instead of tossing her away

There was a brokenness there

That I had not previously known

A place only reached at the very end

Of human endurance and strength

A despair in the emptiness

Of all I had tried to replace You with

That left me utterly alone

Still You called me to You

Drew my eyes up to see

The shared tears in Your timeless gaze

And it was only there

In that most broken of places

That I clung to You with a child-like trust


Desperation born of helplessness

But that same recognition

That You are God and I am small

And You are all that matters

All I had

All I would ever need

When I clung to You like

A trembling child in the dark

I thirsted for Your word

Like a parched prophet in the desert

For living water

More like a man drowning

In the thick, inky shadows

Gasping for breath

Through his streaming tears

It was then that I knew You the most

Then that the road was most clear

When its way was unknown

But not cluttered with questions

And the bends it took

That hid the future's obstacles

Caused no fear

Nor any doubt in the arms carrying me

It was when my contemplation

Did not outweigh my longing for You

Or distract from Your wisdom

I ran to You

Recognized You as the Savior you are

And knew I would find solace in no other

Lord, draw me back

To that state of dependence

To that most innocent, trusting place

Reserved only for You

May the eyes I lift to You remain

The eyes of a child

Who knows only to trust

And has only begun to truly see

Written: Aug. 2007'

Not Knowing

We don't know

We don't know what you will be

In one years time or ten

What you would have said or seen

What you would have looked like then

We've never known your voice

Your touch or your name

Never heard you laugh or cry

But the love we feel now is the same

Transparency

Transparency

~Former self

How cold and deserted you seem

Willfully detached

Refusing to look or turn

Towards what could bear your soul

Numb, but lifeless

And despite all the warmth and life

Breathed into these weary bones since then

Still

Still, you are so drawing to me

Wrapped up in blankets of forgetfulness

Still resistance, repression you would make your shroud

Clouds can cloak many things

But not when the sun's golden rays are compelled to break through

Before we've seen through the clouds as a screen

(I also a somewhat perplexed observer)

The light filtered as through a filmy shade

Yet no more curtains God, You bid me

Allow You to come through clean

Why am I so afraid to pull back these last few shades?

.....

~Looking up

I who remember much

But whose mind retains so little

How hypocritical I must be

To trust for today and tomorrow

Yet refuse to allow You yesterday

.....

~Former Self

I despise what I was then (you)

And still despise that part of me that continues to be

Linked to you

You will not leave me

And I long to be free of you

Yet I look down and find my knuckles white

Somehow still clinging tightly to your frayed edges

.....

~Looking up

God, I've trusted You blindly with the future and circumstance

As such trust must be

But You did not leave me without a history of examples

Your faithfulness through all that's gone before

So why now, with all that has gone before as proof

Now further strengthened by new miracles

Do I hesitate?

.....

~Former Self

I will NOT give in to this

I will not let go of You

I will not forget You, nor will I ignore what is coming

Emerging from the foggy past

As a ghost-ship's prow cuts through the water

I will not allow this oppressively stubborn past-self

Re-surface and drown You out again.

Crosses You have given me grow heavy

With the weight I myself impose.

.....

Written: Dec. 1st, 2009'

Untitled

You were cradled by arms

That once cradled me

Loved with a love I could not afford

All the love I needed from Him and did not feel

Was provided you as well

Because I could not

What kind of a monster must I be

To look at you through such indifferent eyes

While I lay huddled

Child-like and alone

Cowering before a divine power

I could not control

But could only break against.

You were created to be

Through my evil disregard

Then ceased to be

Sent directly back into His arms

A gift I was not ready

Or meant to have

Like some macabre, overwhelmingly sad gift parcel

Marked 'Return To Sender'

Why not withheld from the start?

Let me be like You

Fully able to forget the mistakes

In light of mercy, though undeserved

Able to love wholly in spite of me

In spite of all that I was

All that I am

All that yet remains in me

.......

Written: Dec. 14th, 2009'

Icy Wind

Icy Wind

The air so cold it seemed to turn

The face into a block of marble

Frigid and numb

The breath misting in small puffs

Back against the skin

Like a cloud beating against a glacier

Everything seems slowed

It moves, it breathes

Yet the color and fluidity of life

Seems drained away and frozen

Stiff-legged and numb-hearted

Trudging through arctic winds

There is a warmth that has sunk deeper

Than icy wind can touch.

~Written: Dec. 12th, 2009'

Icy Expression

Icy Expression

Like a multifoliate rose

Fragile layer upon fragile layer

Deep and complex

Each skin fragile as the chill of winter's first snow-flakes

Melting at the slightest touch

I wither in the sun

Or wilt in the cold

Bend beneath the wind

And am beaten by spring hail.

Yet there are moments

When I am overcome with wonder

Wonder that transforms this rudimentary shell

Into something quite unlike a dying flower

Only when reflected in the garden's staring eye

This reflecting pool

And image of You

Expressions

Like ripples in a pond

Cold fingers, icy branches

Dripping idly into a pool

Ripples in black glass

Frozen waters transfer their dark hue

Like a ghostly fingerprint

And icy shadow on my silhouette

A spiderweb of frost

Jagged as white lightning

Curling into intricate lacework patterns

A bridal veil for a snowy night

And some invisible bride

Written Dec. 15th, 2009'

Black Bird

Black Bird

Fond as you are of sunlight

You linger like a cool shadow

Decrying the morning mist

Sullenly eyeing me

Sizing me up with haughty regard

Then returning to your intent perusal of the earth

Raucous as your cousins are musical

Choppy as they are graceful (in flight)

It is you they look to to forecast dark portents

Prudently I avoid your shadow

But I will not avoid your gaze

You present a challenge to me

A challenge I MUST rise to face

Indifferently you flap your wings and fly away

Your dangling feet rising and falling

With the pulsing beat of your wings

Written: Dec. 16, 2009

'