In my own rights am a sinner
With no words to explain why
You look at me with such eyes
That speak ill more than they see flowers

I maybe of  less value but my hearts'
Battles have surpased my own excitement

Lay not your faults against me but
Rather see me in   all   my drenches
And let me into your warmth.

You celebrated me
when I was a flower,
but you denied my roots.
When autumn came,
you did not know
what to do about me.
You could only understand
the surface, not the
barnacled fabric in the soil.
Like an empty glass of water,
you drained your feelings
and
let
your
eyes
close.
What  you do not see
is the mud I am.
You want glitter and shine.
You want transparency.
You will not
acknowledge
the
depth
I
can
offer.
You hollered in glee
when I was shallow.
But you were
confused
with
how
to
treat me
when I was depth.

We are all like that.
Truth is bothersome.
It lacks plastic.
We are afraid.
Always afraid.

Pick up the umbrella
and cover the head.
Protect the surface
from the drops of reality.

apologies are nothing
but lifeless letters until you breathe meaning
into the spaces between each and every word

I bore with thee long weary days and nights,
  Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;
I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,
  For three and thirty years.

Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?
  I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;
I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:
  Give thou Me love for love.

For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,
  For thee I trembled in the nightly frost:
Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:
  Why wilt thou still be lost?

I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced:
  Men only marked upon My shoulders borne
The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced,
  Or wagged their heads in scorn.

Thee did nails grave upon My hands, thy name
  Did thorns for frontlets stamp between Mine eyes:
I, Holy One, put on thy guilt and shame;
  I, God, Priest, Sacrifice.

A thief upon My right hand and My left;
  Six hours alone, athirst, in misery:
At length in death one smote My heart and cleft
  A hiding-place for thee.

Nailed to the racking cross, than bed of down
  More dear, whereon to stretch Myself and sleep:
So did I win a kingdom,--share My crown;
  A harvest,--come and reap.