I wonder that Moses could counsel You
Could argue with You and You would listen
I know no other God that would allow
For argument and pleading
For His subjects to speak and be heard
Do You know my prayers, O Lord?
Even to me they’re muddled and confused
Do You know what Your daughter needs?

Lord I am afraid to be Your servant
Because the masters You gave by birth-rite
Like to pull out the costumes and play
But to answer my confusion, they explain everything,
Their words and actions by saying, “WE ARE GOD.”
You said, “I AM WHO I AM.”
They are not who they are.

Send some rain?  Would You send some rain?
‘Cause the earth is dry and needs to drink again –
And Your daughter cries out for Your direction,
Discretion, and mercy.  There is no light
To lead me out of the dark
I have lost my way and am afraid
To search lest the way home …
Lead to them.

My sanity is not what it used to be, Lord.
Gentle kindness shushes me into quiet
But cannot soothe away the cracks in my brain.
She fears for her sanity but I wonder at mine
Contemplate how much sick I won’t be able to drain
From my cranium even when my body is aged
And legality bids me crawl out of this house to bitter freedom.

I am so tired, Lord.
I forget it sometimes when I don’t slow down
And then it soaks back in and I stare and stare
And contemplate how much I don’t have
And how little I have left for them to take.
I don’t know what will make me break:
No music?  No school?  No friends?  No escape to Your safe places?
But I remind myself here and now that I have always been melodramatic –
Haven’t I, Lord?  I tell myself that to puzzle it out and stall
The choking panic and confused tears that drill into me
And scratch their way bleeding up through my throat – I am TRAPPED –
But I’ve always been so silly
And they would add ungrateful and a liar
No one has the answers I cannot find the answers
Honor and obey, You said, but what if they’re wrong?
Am I right?  Am I right?!
I cannot speak cannot stand – I will melt into compliance and silence
And remind myself that I am wrong, a bad daughter
That I am above myself and that’s it’s just all in my head –
But the cycle will continue.

Lord, I’m so tired –
Of hopelessness and not planning for a future because
I don’t think I have one
I’m tired –
Of self-inducing apathy as a cure to panic like it were a drug
To slip into my veins till my heart’s pumped it through my dulling senses
Help me, please
I haven’t felt You in so long …

There is a fever burning in my brain.
My thoughts awhirl, they fly too fast for me;
Ill-kept madness that I cannot contain,
Locked in mine skull, I keep hearing its pleas.
I can’t sit still, see my mind’s yet in flight,
Scorning earthly tethers it will be free.
In moody hatred and with petty spite,
It will the world condemn with fire and glee.
No regrets – Bring them, I will fight them all.
I don’t have an explanation for this,
My hate, once free, rises like bitter gall.
Laughter cries in the crannies of this bliss.
          For morning’s tender kiss my madness begs
          With sleep to scrape aside the addled dregs.

I’m not a fan of stupidity
or guessing
too
fast
and thinking that you know
what you want
how you feel
where this will go and how
it’ll last
but you make me want to smile
you make me want to get better
you give me dreams
things to hope for and want
i’d given up on wants, you know
but i’ve painted the canvas of my future
you know, the one i gave up on?
and i don’t know about the rest
but i slipped you into it
because i can’t imagine it without you
and because i know you’ll be there for it

It’s taken a thousand miles
And a hundred high walls
To find the strength in me to say,
“Not today, not today.”

Would that I, could that I
Simply stop judging myself
For the altitude of my flight,
Be fine in just being “alright.”

These fingers take risks
For conquering’s sake;
This mind wants for nothing less
Than always being the best.

But maybe it’s okay
To slow to a walk!
To take a few hundred moments
And enjoy a small talk.

To stop griping and pining and beating myself down --
To breathe and relax and let GO of that crown!

I’ll have nothing to show
If I burn myself out,
And nothing to grow
If I lose it on this route.

It’s taken a thousand miles
And a hundred high walls
To find the strength in me to say,
“Not today, not today.”

It’s late at night, and I should be doing
Something else – look and see, dawn creeps closer.
Oh, but who knows what the morning will bring?
I pray only that we do not bicker.
This isn’t the first night I’ve needed sleep,
Nor the last evening I’ve spent worrying.
My uncertainty sure knows how to creep.
Retrospect takes my memories to wring,
And I cannot stop – please, please stop – thinking.
When I speak I wish I could be silent;
Confined in my head, I want to take wing.
Yet I know I deserve it – I warrant.
       Sleep calls me to her and tells me to shush –
       My apologies, for I cannot hush.