i was born in the burn
1995 flame, a war within
ghosts pacing the halls before i ever knew
how to carry a name
or lie like a man
i learned young how to build a face
that people could love
so they would never look past it
that mask fit too well
i forgot what skin felt like
my fathers sins were seeds in my blood
planted in silence
harvested in screams behind walls
that cracked before i could fix them
i swore i wouldnt become him
i didnt
i became the fallout
theres a psalm in my right hand
a loaded habit in my left
and every prayer tastes like rust now
i say the right words sometimes
other times i just stare at the ceiling
and wait for the judgment
or the mercy
whichever lands first
i still see her, my friend
ten years gone and somehow
still closer than God some days
i carry her like a debt
that never stops charging interest
my faith is a battlefield
where angels bleed in silence
and demons grin in old familiar faces
mostly mine
twisted mines
i drop my values like broken weapons
pick them up again
pretend theyre clean
pretend im clean
but ive counted the weight of my deeds
on both sides of the scale
and even if it tips my way
i know thats not how grace works
thats just math
and math wont save me
ive stopped praying to be perfect
i just beg to be real
i still want to be holy
but God i dont know how
to stop being me long enough
to let You in
if theres mercy
if theres still blood on the altar for the hypocrite
if grace can bleed this deep
then let it bleed
ive traveled so far to be here again
maybe crawling back is the only kind of worship
ive ever truly known
I've forgotten how to be me.
And I've forgotten how not to be me.
The version of myself that walks and speaks and sins
it's not the man I want to be.
But the man I want to be feels lost in smoke,
somewhere between the psalms I used to pray
and the faces I've learned to wear.
So I ask myself:
If I exorcise who I've become,
who's left standing?
Maybe no one.
Maybe just a shell,
burnt on the outside,
still bleeding on the inside.