utter

I am hanging up my sword.  At least for a little while.  

Hope feels a false pretense.  

I am an exile in a foreign land that has little to do with me

And I little to give or to credit it

You give much

And yet I fail utterly

Why is it You did not give up long ago?

Of what worth can I be to You?

I hang my head in shame

And cannot look up at the sky

Progress drives away a million miles past

And me somewhere staggering far behind

What I once was, I am no more

What I thought I could be

Is some false memory

In so basic a trust, I fall short

In so natural a task, I am a farce

Can I say that I have had enough?

That I can bear no more?

Or is despair an even greater failure than defeat?

I cannot bear the results of my own sins

And cannot laugh in the face of myself

All I can do is grimace in disgust

At what I have so poorly made of myself

How weak an utterance is this excuse

How poor a vessel to hold any truth

Faith can disintegrate like sugar in the sun

And leave behind a bitter vapor

You rain down blessings
And I catch them in a cracked siev
Empty because I cannot let go
Grieving because I cannot heal

Purple sand in a sin-sick sea
Sinks and builds on the floor
Collects the wearied, broken dreams
As they decay and fragment with time
Sand is a cloud of fog around the ruined, drifting trove