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.

It's wonderful.
You finally respond.
You smile and things are normal again.
I don't have to wait anymore.
You don't hate me.
I exist.
You do too.

And then I wake up.

He laid in the sun
    like he ruled the earth,
    he held onto the
wine bottle
     with a hand heavily scared
      with the marks
of suffering.

    He toasted the
sea and the surf,
    cursed the
gulls and the gnats.

     Then brought the bottle
to his dried and
cracked
lips and drank
as if the
    last grape
     of the world had
let its blood
     into his bottle.

     He laughed at
a memory
     then yelled at
the sun and
       everyone around
him was a peasant.

    His lips bled red
as he gulped mouth
fulls of wine.
The memory of
her along this very beach
caused his inner
rage to drum forth.

     He gripped handfuls
of sand as he silently
Dammed the serpents
all to Hell.

  He mumbled drunken
thanks to
    Minerva, Osiris, Hera
     and Anu.

      The shadowed world
looked down upon him
     and the feral cats adored him.
     He lived like true royalty,
drunk and alone.

Care free and forgotten
he had become once
he had awoke to it all.
Ridiculed and labeled CRAZY
for his ability to see
it all for what it really
was,for what it really
still is.

She left this page
on a Saturday as he
slept on a chair
beside her hospital bed.
He buried her
on a Tuesday,
then set about to
drinking.

He broke free
of it all,
detached himself
from this farce
and
set about to wonder.
Now free of the
pollution they call society,
he waited only
on the next life,
on that next page.

Where she had promised him
they'd meet again...

There's an echo that can be heard,
When the sun's blue sky is rising,
It most definitely sounds like a bird,
But what else you can hear is surprising.
Ears.

I hear a hum from a girl of long past,
Her perky lips saying there's flowers,
The air around her is sweet, her heart fast,
She admires the plants, they look like towers.
Child.

I hear a lover's tears as she hears her life end,
I can hear her texts back and fourth through the web,
She reads "No more, none of this, you aren't my girlfriend,"
So sad. Too bad. That's life. The flow and ebb.
Bliss.

I can hear a stomach growl and another missed a meal,
She never eats. When she does, it's reversed.
This secret of hers is dark and scattered, she may never heal,
I hear her fake the sounds of eating, I hear fake her thirst.
Hide.

I hear another poem written,
About someone who cuts,
She thinks it will help her fit in,
But she's only losing trust.
Red.

I hear a father sobbing upstairs,
His daughter has run away.
He knew she was having affairs,
He knew it would come to this day.
Behind.

I hear regrets being made,
I hear the lies they whisper,
I hear both of them say
Our love will never wither.
Liars.

I hear