God help me

ive forgotten how to pray
ive forgotten how to humble myself
ive forgotten what more there is
more than me
God help me

i am ready now
i want to know more than
me
more than my own little pains
and little joys
my own little life
i want to sacrifice myself
to something greater than
the life i can envision
i have too long carried myself
away from you
too long kept myself away
from life
i sacrificed my life in favor my control
i made the wrong choice
or stayed comfortably secluded
longer than needed
i courted my loneliness
and my separateness
together
and the cost of this courtship
is all that i have always venerated
everything i thought of as high
and above the world
above me
Lord
i am tired now
i am tired of walking alone
i am tired of this plane of individual conscious development
i have attained all i care to of it
i need something more now
something greater than me
greater than everything i have known
i need the thing i have modeled my life around
the thing made central and yet untouched
the thing i separated myself from
thinking i was heading toward
fear has owned too much of me
i dont know what i have left now
to barter
for this new thing
i dont know that i have strength left to change this course

i made gods of small things
Lord i courted
trivial depictions of that which is holy
never the truth
never the sacred
only its immature picture
and now i dont know if can recognize it
should i have chance to see it
my eyes are too full of tears
too dry from tears not cried
strained by the distance between them
and what they ached to see
that voice within
the voice that spoke so softly
and knew of so much more than
my eyes and mind and fingers have tasted
i can barely hear it now
it weeps uncontrollably for those things
it could not bring me to
what it could not,
in its gentle guidance
point me toward
it feels now that all that is lost
or that i am too lost to find my way back to it
the road i took
too long, too dark, too lonely
to travel back on
and the path is not circuitous as i once believed
i am not coming home
as i have often consoled my weariness with.
and now
alone
and tired and weary beyond words
i cry out in muted tones
in a faded memory of what
prayer was
to a God
i hardly know
anymore
can you help me despite
despite my turned back?
is my cry coming too late?
beyond all forgiveness?
is the penance too much
for this haggard soul?

i thought i was punishing you
for pushing me into a world
of pain, and ignorance
of decadence and decay.
i was punishing you for veiling
goodness
too well.
but i punished you wrongly
and myself in the meantime
separating myself from you
as if to test you
to test all of you
to come find me
to prove your love to me
to prove your worthiness
as if i was something to be won.
i see now
i punished myself
for not being enough
i am not enough
and i ask now for help
to stop this self imposed flagellation
deserved or not.
i want more.
please, God help me.

these very words
keep me
from myself
naming things
limits unnameable things
can you ever learn anything
if the names keep you
from them?
Eve unnamed the animals
and so knew them
more closely
and yet i try so hard
to name the things
that even Adam couldnt
and i am disappointed
in familiar names
familiarity breeds contempt
and comfort
comfortably contemptuous
and so despite
my disappointment
i name
unnameable things.

sometimes i do things i shouldnt do

and i know it while im doing it
i know it while im waiting for it to happen
sometimes i say things i shouldnt say
i dont usually know that until after
ive said it
but mostly i just think things
i shouldt think
not so much shouldnt because its bad
but because its bad for me.
its thinking about doing things
i shouldnt do
and in so doing
distracting myself from the things
i should do.
waiting for the shouldnts
shoulds pass by.

its just that there is something so
attractive
about shouldnt
and equally
repulsive
about shoulds

17 yr. old rebellion
more than a decade later
and i am younger
now
than i was
then.
and furthermore ...
not sure i want to grow up.

Ambivalence
a hallmark greeting
of young adulthood.

checking my pockets

ive carried it with me
my past
my future
in my present
in my pocket
ive worn it on my sleeve
my girlscout patch of honor
wounded in battle
childhood childless
but somewhere
i took myself captive
a POW
at my own hand
and now ive found myself
MIA
i shackeled myself
to that wound
and ate the key for safe keeping
never thinking
it might be safer outside
that in.

but now its independence day
the start of my 28th year
and im searching
for any tool, a secret weapon
that might set me free.

ive built an arsenal
consciousness
enlightenment
but knowing is only half the battle
and this war
the war i waged on myself
my past pitted against my future
will be won much deeper
in me
in my present
in my back pocket
i will call this day
my independence day
the day i walked away
from a war never to be won
the wounded victor
and the proud defeated
keeping one in each
of my back pockets
not as weapons & not as wounds
but as my inspiration

in my left hip pocket
my past
to always know that i will not be consumed
by this fire
in my right hip pocket
my future
pushing my courage to ensure
that this dream
will not ba made a liar
and in my hand
my present
my truth, my story & my prupose
and a humble hope to inspire.

i wanted

i wanted to write you a beautiful poem
i thought it might lift you
but i havent found words
good enough to hold you
it must be inspiring
if it is to float you
above this lonely place
i wanted to use me
my singleness & my pain
to pull you

but that seems
wrong

so i wanted to write you a beautiful poem
that might lift you
give you the silver
to light this cloud
to open your ears
to open your eyes
to open your mouth
but i cant seem to open mine

but i wanted to write you a beautiful poem
so you would know
that you are loved
and cherished
and adored.
so stop waiting.

i wanted to write a beautiful poem
for you
but this is all i have.

Quickly

before they come
find something
something like clarity
sticky hazes
and blurry faces
is it alredy too late
its early
very early yet
sometimes there is confusion
there.
like dawn from dusk
a matter of direction
the direction of light
the only difference
so which way is the light going
tonight?
too early to tell
or maybe
too late
an inconsistent buffet
never knowing how to plan
or if to
or to half expect
the surprise
but this night it seems
futile
to half expect
the surprising clarity
that comes with
light.

the time has caught me
stopped me
here in the dark.

There are worse things

than any of my things
and that alone
makes me normal
i hoard my lonliness
while i covet
the others togetherness
i cant seem to recitfy
my ends
with my means
i cant ratify my days
with my dreams
not like i used to

ive spent years now
expanding my self-awareness
but now i fear i have become
absorbed
by myself
and i want to know
more than me.

One Word

put the baggage in storage
for just this moment's sadness
and not a moment's more

i'm left
wondering
if the virgin ran out the front door
instead of up the stairs
would all innocence be saved?
could all innocents be saved?
i told her that was the struggle
with authority
as if i knew

my brother died
so that our innocence
might survive just this one life
and yet i squandered it
on fairytales
i've taken all these days
to disprove all these words
to leave the one
the one word i still believe in
and so i can't say
in fear of its disproving
my silence faithing it
into fairytale innocence
if not reality

i had a new fear today
if we've lost our innocence
and our children inherit
our disproof
and no one can say the only word
they don't want to believe in
then will Jesus change his mind?

i once had a story to tell
but it used words i don't believe in
and told truths that never existed
if you never really have anything
than why is loss
so real?
more real than any of God's promises
i never feared the end of loss
no ramble of words could disprove it
the breath it takes to say the word
is all the loss my lungs
need proof of

if i am made in His image
and i lose hope everyday
than does God lose hope in me
everyday?
if my innocence went with that breath
and the children learn
nothing
of it from me
nothing of life
is there any hope to be had in me?

i have nearly everything i have ever wanted
i never knew that it was the one word
that one word i still believe in
and haven't a breath to say
that was the only word
that would save me.

and all i have tonight
is my syrupy comfort
cold in my hand
and half a breath of hope
that Jesus won't change his mind
about me.