Sadness

 

Its just a pain that squeezes your heart and steals your breath

Makes you desperately gasp for peace.  

Quiet.  

And the next day it will be the same.  

And the next.  

Pain that never fully ends.  

Wounds that cannot fully heal.

Inexplicable torture of the soul

Worse than death

More consuming, more final 

The totality of love must embrace its futility

Farewell to the dream

Tie a ring around your heart

Watch it strangle the life out of love

Puncture lung and breath

Leave it gasping alone in the darkness 

I'm falling asleep in arms that cannot hold me
That have dropped me to my own devices
To my own self-torment

Mirror Of The Sky

Blackbird upon a wire

Staring down into a mirror of the sky (pond)

Movement beneath the ripples

Darting between the long-grass

Peeking up beneath the waters shadows

To You who watches up above

Compare Your posture to one who grieves

One numbed by too much hurt for too long

Eyes that stare and see

See through and not at all

Wandering but not seeking

Knowing there is nothing left to find

You hear the stranger with your face

Scream futily at the clouds

'You did this!  You KNEW it would happen!'

Now only silence remains...

Never Easy

You never said this would be easy

Still we pray things turn out right

We hold on tighter fearing what we could lose

Watch the lights burn low at night

We wonder where we've come from

That life can hurt so much

And yet we remain alive

We breathe and move pedantically

While part of us has died

We dare to say 'Hello'

Yet so often say 'Goodbye'

Old and far away are memories sweet echoes

Yet nearer to the heart of the matter

Than anybody ever knows

Bleeding Colors

The color has bled from the world and is pooled in these sporadic, leaf-like shapes

Amidst the dark and brackish water

Like blood coagulating in some undiscovered, murky depths

Deep and fierce the pain blossoms in these stars and clusters like late-blooming blossoms of despair

As the bitter wind has drained out the feeling from warm skin, now pale and numb

So has time drained out the vibrancy and pungency of this grief

Yet still, in lonely deep layers in some hidden place within my heart

The colors have concentrated, fallen into darkened waters

Like infection set into deeply scarred wounds

This beyond the sight of waking eyes, beyond the hearing are soft cries

When all is still and covered and cold

Forgotten the summer's warm touch, the sun's embrace against this chill

Amidst the colors marking hurt as a flag heralds its country's pride

Gold glistens faintly, as hope emerging in the blackest chasm

Stars against the blackness of space

Who can know, who can tell

What Mind and matter, but mortal cannot see?

How Far

I told you once
That I would never leave you
I've repeated it every moment that has passed since
Ripple passing on to ripple
In a pool of summer sunlight
Stretching to an invisible crystal shore

I told you once
That I love you
It has echoed down the moments like trickles becoming a stream
Stream becoming river, river meeting the sea
Ending in a bottomless waterfall trickling to infinity

I told you that you were forgiven
And it was extended from fingertip to fingertip
On a rough-hewn tree
Hammer-stroke to hammer-stroke
Each stifled cry and parting sigh
Becoming a breath of pity, a prayer gasped for your pardon
Even as the nails were driven deeper
The sun becoming black above my brow

I remembered you as I was forgotten by my Father
Drew you close as He turned me away
Bleed for you as you heal before me
Hurt with you when you cry

Though you can never understand how much
My love is extended towards you
Never fathom how much was the cost
How great a sacrifice given
My love stretches to you
Farther, wider, deeper than any you could ever dream

~Jesus

(written: 04-02-2012)

outreach

So many unasnwered questions
So many broken tries
So much beyond my comprehension
And this world tells so many lies
I'm trying to live by a truth that I know
In a world full of deception
Help me to see through the eyes of Your love
And learn not to compromise

Empty me of expectation
Take all of my pride
Grant to me a heart that sees
Beyond these weary eyes
Help me to be the unexpected stranger
Willing to carry the cross

written: 2-21-2012

Demons In The Dark/Spiritual Warfare

I stand as a lone figure in the dark
A person of no consequence to my mind
But of enormous worth to forces I cannot see
As a solitary figure against the wind
The lone wisp of straw who stubbornly clings
And refuses to let go and be swept away

Of what significance could a life be
So patterned by rebellion and regret?
Yet like a simmering cauldron
Vibrant and full, passionate and repressed
Waiting, simply waiting to be set free
To be dynamic, to be powerful yet gentle
To be used

I dream of dark werewolves that jump out of closets

Friends are around me, yet distant
They want to help, but their lives go by in an otherwise normal fashion

But the demons in the dark are after me alone.
In every corner I see them
Their glowing eyes are laced with hate
They are ready to pounce out and grab me
Hold me until I must give in.
But they have not yet killed me.
It seems their intentions to to torture me
To drive me to fear
Always holding out that last snap of the jaws
That tetheres me to this life, to sanity

I never see what is happening when they attack
I do not have their eyes of eternity
Yet they work so subtly and lethally with my fears and my hurts
So as to render me helpless to all but flight

They follow me then, even in flight when I try to run away from them
They are with me on every street-corner
In the car when I drive
When I visit with friends
When I sleep and when I wake
Though consciousness cloaks them in a mist of reality
A veil of the physical to mask the spiritual
Hiding their true forms and their methods of attack

But always they are waiting for my eyes to close
For my guard to be let down in a moment of weakness
For doubt to creep back in again
And as strong as I have tried to be, they wear me down
Until I am helpless and vulnerable again
Till the most opportune time to attack
And they show no mercy
There is no light in them

They are what follows along-side my path
Just beyond the boundaries waiting
To snatch away any hope or strength or endurance that I have found
If I stray but a little outside of the narrow walk set before me

What is this endless chatter
That clacks and vibrates inside of me?
It will not be silenced
Its a broken dream or blurred reality
Too confusing to utter, to complex to share
Too simple to make sense to this convaluted mess of a mind