Hey Yehoshua (Joshua),

How did a nice Jewish boy like you become the savior of the world?  They transliterated your name into Greek and called you Jesus, but to me you will remain a Jewish boy from a podunk little town.  You were probably lonely and out of place like me, a shy immigrant boy from Korea growing up in Western NC. You had giant expectations to fill.  Your dad was larger than life and sometimes a little demanding,  I relate.  
  More than my savior, I want you as a friend and a fellow traveler.  Sometimes I focus on your divinity so much that I forget you are flesh and blood like me, a God with skin.  You've felt the long sleepless nights, the thirsting and hunger for a God sized whole to be filled.  You've experienced the pain of betrayal and most important you know how hard it is to love and be loved by imperfect people trying to love with all their brokenness.  
  Josh, I'm not sure if this is a poem or letter, but I wanted to say hello.  Thanks for welcoming me into your life and calling me a friend and a brother.  I'll try to pass on the message by living it out, and share how my life changed when I encountered a God with Skin in the depths of my despair.  I keep walkin' the walk a day at a time.

Peace,

EunSung aka Silas

One day
I want to write a poem
That captures your soul
In the adjectives
Describing the sky

One day
I want to write a sentence
That you will carry
In your memory
Scarred and stained
For an infinity

One day
I want to write a short story
Of a guy
A lot like you
And a girl
A lot like me
With no lies
Only honesty
And a forever that lasted
Just a while

One day
I want to write a paragraph
About the sea in you
And the sea in me
And how we fell in
Each other
And never needed to come up for air

One day
I want to write a dictionary
With all of our own definitions
Of everyone else's words
It will start from the letter Z
And end on A
Because it will be easier
That way

One day
I want to write an essay
On how the sunlight
Made patterns on your skin
Even after you lied
And shadowed the constellations
Screaming honesty
Into the dark

One day
I want to write a novel
About the way your voice
And his voice
Sounded
Just before
You both were about to cry

One day
I want to write lyrics
For the song
I meant to sing to you
About the moon
And the sun
And how they dance
Whenever all of our eyes are closed
Even if it's just for a second
(Light
Always travels faster
Than sound)

One day
I want to write you a telegram
With someone else's hand
To tell you
How much I miss you
And how my heart
Is not in my chest anymore
Really-
It's shattered across the sky
Just for you to see

One day
I want to write you a letter
To tell you
That you didn't know what love is
And neither did I

But
I still love you

I know a girl who would **** herself for a dare

I know a girl who has words tattooed on her body like a scroll;
a rite of passage

she found herself face to face with a sleek and solid gun

I know a girl who could make you eat your heart out
on a gold lined platter

I know a girl who laughs in the face of danger
and the fact that a jail sentence is supposed to scare her

a lot of the time she talks in third person
and she skips a few nights of sleep
because once she heard that sleep is for the weak

Sometimes my hands get really itchy
like my bones are trying to crawl their way out of
the skin that entraps them

I get really nervous when I can’t write
You speak in riddles and you're making me crazy

And last night I told you that if hell was real
According to Dante there are 7 levels
and I think I belong in all of them

And we talked about heaven
and you said that you think heaven could be here on earth

And I laughed and said maybe in bits and pieces
but I think my heaven is all chopped up

And then it was silent for a long time
and I realized that you were subtly saying
that it felt like it was heaven with me

Maybe I just shouldn’t speak but I want you to realize is
I am all dark and sin
I am rust on your shine

“Here, have a drink,” A man slurred.
A tall, red, plastic cup of heavy smelling alcohol hovered in front of me, like a moth around the flickering flame of a candle.
The cup laughed in my face and dared me to grab it; the peer pressure pouring off of the drunk’s lips was like a buzzing fly that wouldn’t leave me alone.
“No thanks,” I told him.
“C’mon, it’s just one drink.”
I sighed, because I’d been down this road before.
Because just one drink can’t hurt anything, right?
It’s just one.
One that allows a drunken ******* who otherwise has no control over women besides offering ‘just one drink.’
But the flashback that started playing inside my head was a movie screen that felt like a drive-in film where everyone was welcome to watch.
Except they couldn’t.
These drunken “friends” on the TV inside my head who I’d been with a few months ago had wandered off with their own boyfriends, leaving me
Stranded and vulnerable, like a car on the side of the highway without any flashing hazard lights warning other drivers that I was parked there.
They abandoned me.
And who knows how long I would have been stranded until a car decided to pull over and approach my vehicle, tow straps to carry me away.
But he didn’t save me from the other passing cars. Instead, he hauled me around a sharp curve of the long stretch of road,
Left me as a wide open target for his own truck to smash into me, leaving me broken and battered, with no witnesses to call the police, an ambulance or a fire truck.
I was left all alone, bleeding and scarred in the dark curve of the highway where this drunken driver escaped without a single bruise or tear on his body, unlike my own.
“It’s just one drink.” The intoxicated stranger pried at me again, feeling his question burn into me like a red light that just wouldn’t turn green.
“No,” I said and turned away from the drunk.
It was the first time I said no to the smell of dark liquor and whatever was hiding beneath and dissolved into the liquid that was harbored in the tall, red cup.
I said no to being victim again to a ******* drug.