Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
My tears mirror the rain.
One by one,
they leave me.
Again.
And I grieve.
I grieve.

There is only One.
Who understands.
My pain.
Who understands.
The searing loss.

One by one.
They left Him.
All His followers.
Gone.
In His hour of deepest need.
They did leave.
Even His closest friend.
Peter.
Denied Him.
And Judas...
Betrayed Him.
He was...
Abandoned.
Forsaken of men.
A Man of Sorrows.
Acquainted with grief.
Who bore my griefs.
Who carried my sorrows.

One by one.
They left.
And then...
Inner conflict.
The Cross.
His will.
His fear.
His anguish.
His...
humanity.
And His tears fell.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
Not like rain.
But like great drops of Blood.
Upon the ground.
"Let this cup pass from Me!"
And then...
"Not My will, but Yours be done."

He endured.
The deepest torment of soul.
The greatest grief of all.
One which I will never have
to bear.
When...
His Father turned His face away.
"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
For that tortuous moment.
When the sins of all
weighed heavy upon Him.
My Saviour was utterly alone.
Completely forsaken.
For me.
For love.
Of me.
So I would never be.
Utterly alone.
Completely forsaken.

Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
My tears mirror the rain.
As one by one.
They leave.
And I am left.
Alone.
With Him.
With the Man of Sorrows.
My Saviour and King.
Who alone can understand.
My pain.
And then...
Beneath the shadow of His wings.
He heals my wounds.
Until I am whole.
Again.

Cold metal presses against the thin mattress.
There is no pea but he can still feel the springs
It is hard, sharp, jarring, and deeply cutting
He is no princesses and this is no fairytale.

The beast is indifferent, made of concrete.
Barbwire fences mark the difference from
Freedom’s street and the state penitentiary
and he cannot leave this abusive relationship.

They let him go and life was like a candy-coated cabin.
He got himself a job, but kept a lot of bad habits
hopping fences, then breaking into cars,
dating a troubled teenager, and an angry older women.

Head down body laid to rest he did his best
to fall into the deepest sleep in the porcelain tub,
drunkenly stupid, but somebody pulled him out.
He tried to burn himself the same **** night.

An angry apple red thread with a poisonous pointed head
awaits his next big break in mistake
but the price he paid, the things that changed
all came because he smoked some little thing.

It doesn’t take much, in fact any little thing
could take a halfway decent human being
and turn him into to a ward of the State
can take a loving human being and make him hate.

Not all stories end happily ever after.
Not all prisons are left even after
the prisoner is freed, his body may be released.
but the man still flinches,
hardened and tenderized by what he has seen
and what he had to do to make it through
that dark fairytale hell.