I want my love to be a warm blanket on a cold day
A gentle candle in the dark
A mug of cocoa with marshmallows floating in it
But instead it was a straitjacket that bound you
A stick of dynamite that blew off our fingers
A draught of poison that numbed our senses

We were gripping the knife's blade, and the tighter I held,
The deeper it cut.

Many times, when the pain of my heart would overflow
Someone would press a gun into my hand
And shove it against my temple.
I struggled with it and wrestled with it,
tearing the cold barrel
Away from my skin.

But instead the specter turned its scythe
Upon my grandmother
It would not cut her, only struck her blood
That she would bleed under her skin
And she bruised as if beaten

I wept by her bedside and grasped her hands
Soft like paper
And prayed that she might live to see me love and laugh again
And she rose from her sick bed
With her mind ever sharp, and her heart ever soft

Then the specter came for me
On leathery wings
With talons of protein
Injecting its DNA into me
To crown me its agent of pestilence
But I had enough of death and death-threats

I swore that I would live
I swore that I would beat it
I ripped the crown off my head
And beat it into the dust.

Amid the ruins scorched by flame
Masked with recycled breath
I had only myself to blame
For this landscape of death

In a hollow, once called our home
A portrait charred in twain
Beheld amid descending gloam
A face once loved in vain

The void in which my figure stood
Was cinders, soot, and ash
But on the other half I could
Make out her smile's bright flash

I choked, not for the poisoned air
But for a shudd'ring cry
Forever dear, and always fair
She's gone and passed me by

Out fell a note tucked in the frame
Pale moonlight on the black
Up rose within my bile and shame
My heart and hands went slack

She wrote of guilt, remorse, and pain
Of passions pushed too far
Of venom, fog, and clouded brain
Pandora's box ajar

She prayed that I'd forgive someday
The snake-eye dice we cast
The innocence that went astray
The scorching nuclear blast

A tear escaped from my right eye
And jumped to kiss the page
My futile cries across the sky
Could not her guilt assuage

Her blame I've taken, come what may
Forgiven to the last
For me the day, though yesterday
I reckoned aeons passed

For in the end, Megiddo's wrath
The bloodbath and assault
Were all but fruits born of my path
The whole of it my fault

Among the ruins, nothing grows
Beneath this tainted sky
Only the howling wind still blows
And life itself is dry

My judgment is sure well-deserved
As penance for my guilt
But I still pray her joy preserved
Her happiness rebuilt

For though the curses, plagues, and death
Escaped the box's scope
I will declare to my last breath
Pandora's box holds Hope.

All to often
We think we are the heroes of our stories

I thought I was Joseph fleeing Potiphar's wife
But I was actually Judah with Tamar

I thought I was David slaying Goliath
But I was actually David with Bathsheba

I thought I was John or Peter or even Jesus
But I'm actually Judas
Nervously clutching that bag of silver
Before I throw it  the Temple

I raised up a mountain fortress
But its foundation was faulty
It crumbled and great was its ruin

I drank up the ocean
But it was bitter
And it choked me and burst me apart

I flew across the horizon
Away from You
Away from all suns
And I was lost in the void.

Find me
On the barren crag of my own making
Find me
Beyond The walls of fear I built
Find me
At the end of the wastelands of loss
Earth parched and suffocated by the tears of bitterness

May roots of life break through the salt crust
May the dead-gray sky break open
And kiss me with the rain
Of faithfulness and Love
Of truth that never fails
Of the Everlasting Arms
Of the One who Lifts My Head

Ancient of Days, vast beyond knowledge
Whose fingers split the light from darkness
Cleave electrons from their atoms
And knit my flesh and bone and sinew
Whisper Your purpose
Whisper Your love
Find me
Redeem me

We were born at the same time but in different worlds.
We walked in the same world but at different times.

I was supposed to write
So many more poems about you
But all I have left
Is the fading scent
You left on my jacket