Love
A raging sea
Restless waves

Love
Of flailing arms
And wreckless words

Love
Broken glass shards
Sharp edges pressing in

Love
With its streaming tears
And giving away of limbs

Love
The everlasting arms
And welcoming embrace
The calloused hands
Of putting you back together
And prying you apart

Unbroken circles
Cycles of brokenness
You run round and round
Til your legs give out

O sweet surrender
The bitter taste of bile
Word ***** of repentance
Whispered in screams
And still, the loving embrace
Of the calloused hands
And wounded wrists

The broken heart
The long lost song of love
Tells its tale
In the mess of the wild
And the wandering meandering

Don't get lost
Make your way back to me

Patron saint of lost causes and tired smiles
Heart as tragic as the setting of the sun
The awning of the moon never comes
I keep waiting for someone to save me
But all I do is drown
I leave a trail of broken pieces of myself in every room I enter
At the end of the year I reckon there won't be any of me left
Yet I still keep giving myself away to people who don't reciprocate it
I keep handing out my heart to people with slippery hands who never seem to hold it right
When it falls they turn away without being contrite
You call yourself my friends but really you're just another group of people among those who have already left me

One day the tears that I've shed will be like the floodgates of heaven to wash away the heavy depression in the face of the youth with so many burdens and no arms to hold them. My scars will be prophetic praise to the One who gave me the opportunity to experience pain in order to translate the feelings of the broken who has no words, no home for their voices. I will carry their hearts just like the Father does. And even when I struggle against the weight, He will pull me back up with His nail-marked hands and no soul shall fall through the holes in the center of his palms. His love will be the anchor of every foul-mouthed sailor treading the seas of destruction. In cabins with their daughters and their mothers, their wives and concubines, hope will shine at the break of dawn through compasses that turn away from the south end of the spectrum; "your sins are as far from you as the east is from the west." No more tears will be shed for the lives who have chosen a life without a Saviour; "for anyone who is in Me is now a new creation." Victory is up for the taking for those who want it. The journey is long and hard as the road is treacherous, it stops for no one and no one dares to take a second look. Go forward, go north, find a man without a sword but a heart of gold. Follow Him; "take up your cross", stare straight ahead of you, keep your eyes on the goal. "Run your race and finish it with grace." Pull others along with you without breaking your gaze and show them the way, the truth and the light. Find trees for resting and fruits for sharing, for what is borne out of love is what keeps the world turning.

It seems as if the only purpose of life is to give its guests a hard time.
The inhabitants of this world regularly engage with their demons without having an escape.
They're trapped in an abusive relationship with their mistakes,
Seduced by their pains and manipulated by the familiarity it provides.
They start feeling like family, like home, like all you've ever known was that feeling at the deep end so time and time again you choose it.
Instead of looking for a way out, you lie on the mess you've made.
Why does our minds trick us so?
Never giving up the role of authority, disregarding the presence of the Trinity.
It gives orders like a general training its soldiers for a suicide mission. I'm on a suicide mission.
Made up of glass shards and all the other parts of me he broke on a single mission, hellbent on destroying my very being mission.
Sin is a lover as cunning and sly as a snake.
He says he sees your beauty despite all of your mistakes.
What a tragedy! he says....it's a good thing because it matches his profanity.
His nature of bending the rules as if it was made of elastic and not God's iron fist must have warned you to stay away from him.
But the bad ones always have the charm and they pull you closer and **** your soul until there's nothing left anymore.
But a righteous lamb was slain for the entertainment of the bloodthirsty hyenas screaming for something, someone to blame for their fake faith, second-rate theology.
Tetelestai; THIS IS IT
This is the time your world's supposed to turn around but why is mine turning anti-clockwise?
I've always been a follower of Christ yet I still feel the way I did when I was a child.
Is there a curse put upon poetry?
Do all writers write from their own empty souls begging for a story?
With hedonistic urges propelling our descent?

I think the thing with bad habits is you never really outgrow them. You can put markers on the wall to see how much you've grown but each time you look you'll only be disappointed to see you're still short of what you need. And art. Oh, can art make you lose your mind. You go into a space most people are afraid to be in for not many like facing their fears, much less their sins. But this craft of mine makes me go back to them again and again no matter how many times I've said they've been replaced by Love so real it's insane. So, I guess, not much has changed since the last time I've been in this bed. This chamber of sins and regret clinging to me like clothes on a hot summer's day. I try thinking of an escape but the only way through is facing them again and giving myself grace to make mistakes and I don't think I can do that. Not if I can't fully erase my past. I won't waste my time risking my life. You see, I'm so sick of the grime I'm living in! But there you stand as a beacon of hope and Light at the end of the tunnel. Amity doesn't seem so far away when your voice reminds me of who I am: Beloved daughter of the king. O save me, save me, save me! It seems like all I'm ever good at is shooting at my own body. "Rode hard and put away wet" is what they said and that is exactly what I feel. Poetry has probably dramatized this but who cares? As long as you get something out, right? For your craft! you'd do anything to save it! I run around the whole court and come back without the ball. And if words are really my only reprieve then fine, so be it! I won't try to change these crooked lines I was born in. Crooked bones and misplaced fire missiles firing at me, pointing a finger at me, THAT'S ME!! The one who's nodding her head at everything you've just said; "that's reality," she said. I can't change who I am so I guess I'll just have to make the most of it.

Little girl with the hair as gold as the sun tied in ribbons in tight little ringlets, never lose the youth you wear on your face. Keep reaching your hands out to the sky hoping that a hand would come by and sweep you up into a lullaby. Never lose the smile you give out to strangers who doesn't deserve it; one day someone will tell you that it's not safe and the happiness you once gave will be diminished and put away into a box where it will not intimidate those who are swimming in their own sadness. Never lose the giggles you pour out to the tress in the garden where you let loose and dance and twirl and sing on top of your lungs. Never lose the passion you have for flowers and butterflies and everything nice; one day someone will teach you that it's not wise pouring out so much of your heart to those who will not reciprocate it.
Never lose the gleam in your eyes at the beauty of the night sky with the twinkling stars. Never grow up. Growing up means shedding the amazement at everything you see. The world starts fading in shades of grey and blue and everyone falls into a pattern of conformity, walking on straight lines of never ending working, wondering if this is all the world will end up to be. Don't follow the steps of your ancestors, falling on their graves with regret on their shoulders. Make a life of your own where your heart is in step with your brain; don't let others tell you otherwise. They're wrong, these two always got along. There's so much to see, more to discover, less to ignore and less to exclude. Capture everything in your memory, everything has a place in history. Those monsters on the TV that you see don't really exist, they're all make believe. You can make them your friends and learn all of their secrets until you've exhausted the evil inside of them. Never forget, sweet little girl, you are more than you seem to be.

She lived in a prison trapped by her own demons
Far away on a land in the vacant city of Past
(This must be a new renaissance)
With its thousand over capacity of memories populating the country
They hiss and snarl and growl and tear at her clothes
Trying to get her to utter something
An apology or a plea, a command or a query
Say a prayer! Say a prayer! little girl in the prairie
Yet she will not break her silence
A stone wall set high above the cement floors of the four walls that were caging her in
She would not give up the strength she found
In the sliver of light that sneakily crept under the tight fit of her window sill
Every afternoon at 3pm when the sun was at its highest
So were her fears and doubts at their lowest
She had the name of Paula given by her ancestors
Who collected flowers of which pollens were distributed by bees
To their own specific ministries that thrived off of generosity and pure need to give
Yet at night the monsters came back to prey on her decaying bones that
Gave a home to the fatigued
Sensitive to every piece of sound she could collect in her ears
Looking around constantly wondering who’s there hiding behind every whisper of the wind
Psychotic laughter ate at her resolve, feeding from the tears they didn’t know will someday
**** them; she killed them with every desperate cry to her King
They knew not of a Prince of peace with glory and power and grandeur and majesty
Her hands grew weake but His remaidn strong throughout the years
They pushed back the walls that were falling
Based on the wrong foundations they couldn’t hold on to the weight on their shoulders
Pressing at every corner, every shoulder blade was a blade on its own, turning on itself
Like a jealous lover, they all fell away pointing their fingers indignantly
With an air of impudence with which they could not see or hear or think or imagine
Surely, they must have known of a God who could do wonders like use a stone as a destructive weapon against a Philistine?
All that was left of the cell where she was so untimely detained was smoke and ashes
Scent of old and Past – a receding memory from a warrior’s victory
It no longer held captive the prisoner it once held
So closely
So dearly
In its arms
Safe and sound she goes back to her Father's arms
Trapped in the embrace where freedom lived
And salvation, and grace, and mercy