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My gods are small.
They exist in the space between the lips
Of two souls.
They nourish off the smiles,
Smiling thoughts,
Smiling though times are sandpaper.
My gods are sadness as beauty.
My gods do not ask,
Do not speak.
Do not merely excist as gods
Rather morals,
Rather miracles.
Rather potential that nests between the eyelashes of a child.
Rather existing as we do.
My gods are not really gods,
But lakes that hide behind your lids
When you cannot stand to look to the sea.
My gods are small.
My gods
Are never quite large enough
For another's world.
But always small enough to be seen when other gods are not.
A crimson lighthouse in  a raving storm,
Braving the liquid progeny of dark Form,
Showed no trembling boats on the horizon.
© Lazhar Bouazzi
if I will learn best to heed Your presence through the pain,
then keep me in this hell

God, I swear, I don’t care

I need You like crazy and I know that too well,
but some parts of my heart are dead—
no, I think most of them

I’ve brutally damaged the rest
through this pain that I’ve found
in the emptiness of my chest
and I don’t know what to do now;
I am drowning and I need You so bad,
but something in me still keeps fighting You away,
pushing Your hand.

And Your whisper keeps being diminished
by this shouting voice in my head
saying I don’t need You.
But God, I do.

And it hurts
because I’m listening to the screaming voice in my head
saying over and over again that I’m just fine here on my own,
giving the devil my soul
while I dance on the thin line
between cold and warm.

Father, I’m sorry.
Mostly for all the times that I weren’t,
and because I know exactly what I do.

I can see the image of the hammer in my hands again
with Your blood gushing through Your cracked skin
as You hang upon that cross,
the place where You died for my sin.
My shame is thick and maybe so is my pride
because I’m turning away,
turning away from the light of Your bright eyes
and I’m sick of this.

When will the cycle ever end?

God, I love You but the pain in my chest—

And then, just as fog lifts ever so slightly
over a city to reveal the sun again,
You remove the fear I installed inside of my heart.
The voices that speak lies over me are dead.

I awake to the sound of Your voice
and You’re singing over me after all I’ve done.

(After all I’ve done, God, how You still love me after all I’ve done)

You said You saw me there as You hung upon the cross—
limp and ****** and carrying a darkness thicker
than the worst pain we all have ever tasted in this world.

You said You saw me at my worst—
You said You saw me cursing Your Name while I slept on dirt.

You saw me at my worst.

And what’s most amazing is
You saw the blasphemous lies I’ve believed,
I’ve breathed,
I’ve eaten up,
and lived,
and You still died for me on that cross.

Grace.

You saw me at my worst.

And I know I ***** up and fall down
and sometimes I want to stay on this ground
but You tell me You’re here
and that it was still Your joy to die for me
so I could live in Your glory
and it is Your joy to forgive me.

You saw my filthy soul and You still desired to die for me.

How sick,
how twisted,
how disgusting this world has made me feel;

I’ve cheated myself with these fleeting pleasures of sin,
but now You’re here.
You are here and I am made for You,
to live in Your love,
to dance to the sound of Your song,
to dwell in Your presence forever.

You accept me,
You don’t cast me out.
You forgive—leading me to the road of repentance.
I thought it would be dark and heavy
but with my soul paid in full
it isn’t hard to say no to this world.

The enemy has tried to steal my soul,
but the Light of Christ is leading me
to the truth that I’ve come to know.
And I’m knowing it again,
over and over and over again—

Let me, then, leave my heart in Your hands,
and let it stay there.
And if keeping me in this hell will draw me closer to You,
then I will take it and gladly so,
for I’ve tasted the emptiness of this world and Your discipline may hurt—

But God, everything else is worse.

Break me, I beg You, break me until I am whole.
Breathe...
I walk into your room,
And turn away from the caution sign that greets me.
The room is cold and smells of disinfectant.
I creep up beside you so as not to have you wake.
I avoid the lines that provide you life.
How small and helpless you seem.
Just a fragment of your former self.
A stranger...

I hear someone enter the room and I turn my head towards them.
The judgement and embarrassment are evident on their face.
I feel pity from those who watch his torment.
Eye contact is avoided.
They recoil from his touch and reach for the gloves,
That place a barrier between them.
I turn back towards my father.
So many memories...
Both good and bad.
I focus on the memories filled with joy.
The ones I wish to remember you by.
I keep the pain buried deep below the surface of my heart.

The silence is unbearable.
I reach for your hand and you turn your head towards me.
Your smile is quiet and no longer reaches your eyes.
There is no need to speak.
I feel the anger bubbling up inside me.
At the thought of the pain you must endure.
So many others out there in the world
But you were chosen to bear the stigma.
How did he contract it?
Is he gay or an addict?
I tried to ignore their ignorance,
But I just want to hurt them,
And have them share our pain.

I remember the day they told us,
"Sir you have AIDS".
I froze and looked up at you.
You told me it would be okay.
A lie to protect me from what the future would bring.
The end is near.
I love you Dee with all my heart,
And I will share your memories.
I give you one last kiss before you close your eyes,
You will now be free of the pain in this world,
Let your soul finally find peace.
I say goodbye for the last time,
And watch your breath fade away.
My father passed away from AIDS a number of years ago now. His memory remains in my heart.
Static* says the phone and you say nothing,
while you wait for them to say something,
but there is dead air between you.
The silence is deafening but not enough to muffle cries as you remember what you two were.
Deep inside you mourn the person you used to be,
now shadowed by whats overcome you.
And when they look at you it hurts,
because they see an apparition of where you came from,
burning inside yearning and pleading to get out through tear stained eyes.
"I love you..
Static
I remember you
There is an a long awaited silence as the wind turns the pages and the rustle of the leaves in the sound of the lost. I'm running all day so this bench under the tree strengthens me as I lay. Scoliosis is corrected, my back problems are to those who turned away from me- no chiropractor in need.
Just this tree, which was once much smaller than me came from a seed. Now it is sheltering me. I'm carving into the bench.
It reads, “help me for I'm a broken branch trying to be a tree I am miserably just me”
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