Poetry
Am I praying in vain?
dear god,
I strain to you
reaching for creation
that I may be as Adam was
that I could look to you
as a son to his father
and see that I am made in your image
Am I just too small?
When you made me,
did you know I would be just shy
inches out of reach of your hands
Is it funny to you?
to watch me struggle and cry
to look me in the eye
as I reach desperately for you?
If I stopped looking to you,
if I walked away from your grasp,
would I find my own?
If i build myself up out of clay,
build up angles off of curves,
Carve contours deep into my flesh,
Will you see me as I see myself?
I will build myself in my own image.
There is some piece of me,
deep under my skin, that is missing.
I feel its absence with every step,
with every breath, every thought.
I feel it the strongest, when I see you.
The professor says the story says that plato says
When we were created, we were all split apart,
Two heads, two minds, four arms, four legs, and one heart.
Could we be that fated pair, slotting together
to create a perfect whole, a threat even to the gods?
Was it Plato that said that?
Would it be fair to the people who love you,
really love you, to claim you?
The people who can be there for you, to care for you,
The people who could really, truely, be yours.
Two broken things,
missing pieces under their skin,
Who feel it every step,
even breath, every thought.
How could they make eachother whole?
I
May the lambs and lions lie together as we may never lie again
Even in damnation, if i would pray for anything,
I would pray, Christ, that if you are in all things, on heaven and earth,
May you be in hell as well.
If I am to suffer, as I am to suffer, for eternity,
May I feel your presence beside me
A dove above the serpent’s pit.
II
May all hell be still, if only for a moment, Lord.
So perhaps, one day the dove may perch beside me.
Christ, if you are in all thing, in Heaven, Earth and Hell,
May I see you before me.
I do not doubt you, as I once have, but I am selfish
A sinner through and through, wanting that which may never be.
III
May the lake of fire over take me,
May i be burned and whipped and dragged beneath the surface,
If only to escape the hell of my own making.
For I am selfish and stupid and pitiful, my lord, my christ,
For I can not be contented to feel your presence or see your face,
not when I know what it was to stand by you.
To touch you, as young men in Judea.
If you answer no other prayer lord,
I ask you leave me.
IV
You were always too forgiving
Carve out the world, reach the sky
Pull yourself up above the drowning proles.
Breathe deep the air that floods your lungs
Wet and painfully heavy
Picked from salvation by unknowing gods
Thrown back into the sticking earth.
Is it worse to drown, to be consumed
Then find a fleeting peace
Before the water is burnt from your skin,
Stuck, mummified to the grounded
Kissed by the heat of the sun.
Is it the mark of a martyr to love his torment?
I’ve been tied like this before, pinned and pierced by roman arrows,
Eyes doey and dark, gazing up to the lord.
I was an army man when they turned their gaze upon me,
When the men tied me down with coarse rope,
Aimed their weapons to my flesh and shot to me.
For they dug themselves into my throat, my gut, nearly my heart,
And it burned through me, bloodied and bitter. Salt and copper.
I became weak with the pain, how my knees faltered under it.
But the lord gave me sweet strength in agony,
A glimpse into heaven. He gave me passion.
In my passion, I was left for dead, cold and sticky-wet.
But I was lifted up, cleaned by the woman who would bury me.
She removed the bolts from my skin, washed me of their poison,
And she healed the parts of me that had broken.
I would do it all again.