God is love. 
God created man and woman to love one another, 
You and I have a choice,
But we live in a fallen world, where your choice might not align with God's will, but He still loves us.
God calls us to love one another as He has loved us
We are to unite, not divide. 
To love, not to hate. 
To encourage, not discourage. 
To help those less fortunate than oneself. 
To give hope to those who need it
To pray at all times. 
God is sovereign, but he uses us to be His hands and feet...
I am not the healer, God is, but I can be a vessel for His healing love here on earth through relationships
...
And through poetry?!

A core belief is a thing you can lean into with no second thought
You trust in it's way of leading you
Stretching those nerves
cracking knuckles to haunt your neighbor

Pearl bracelet hanging low, not even trying to hug your arm
Calming your fingers from picking at that hangnail
It’s an annoying habit with a millisecond of relief

Blisters from sharpening those pencils,
for a battle with your notebook.
Letters you don't know, when they'll attack, in what shape or form
A blister you'll have to work around, the angst gives you space for more hangnails picking

The space between your fingernail and your next endeavor is a leap of struggle
or a buffet of choices which in all realness is just a lot of overthinking as a slow road to insanity

My core belief is an quivering tree of question marks
I think it represents the mindset
to begin anything with a clean slate

Have no expectations, then you won’t be disappointed
And you get surprised if it's actually not bad
But as an overthinker with anxiety and autism I stand with the quivering tree of question marks
I begin with a silent question, who is even listening

Trying to catch phrases, pauses, looks, body language
And then the quivering tree switches the question marks to nests of information

Mental notes of things I think is important, learning later that I missed the main point
Maybe the jokes lands a bit late
It’s okay, I get there in the end

A tree is a main point for endless branches and leaves
The real gold is the process you can’t see
The roots
The roots with its wings that never sleeps
Constantly expanding, learning and growing even when others only sees what the tree lets it see

A core belief of
a pessimist
a lingering friendship
a healing wound
a riptide

It's unbearable to hear the blind speak of light
Or the dead teaching the dead how to live
And liars affirming liars with yet more lies
But alas inescapable is this babelic cacophony
I run, far into the wilderness, but woe upon me clings
Thus I close my eyes, shut my ears, seal my tongue
Wrap myself in the dark depths of desolation
And like the dead, slip into the silence of the void

(A little old lady whispers all alone in the cold. Looking up at the rain filled sky.)

Dear God
You brought me to life from nothing

To try to do something

To share kindness
Compassion and a light for those in the dark

To follow

Then to return home with stories
When my bell you ring

To hear me stand and sing aloud
In the Holy Circle

About all the things I did when I was once alive
In the living gardens of mankind

So keep giving me strength to keep doing so
As I go

Amen

(C) Copyright John Duffy

She told me to believe in forever,
but even the evergreens have lied to me.

You and I in the Universe and no one around.
Like my life has completed the circle right now.
There were people, so many of them, but now no one.
And I want to change nothing at all for no one.

I don’t want to hand back that unwanted and useless run.
To someone, for something, for some reason, for or against anyone.
I didn’t know goal, I didn't feel meaning, I didn’t see end,
But rushed and teared to pieces without any bend.

I didn’t see light, didn’t hear the truth at all.
And I realized that my measly life not to all.
But I was like a demented and crazy crack.
Rushing in there, I said the whole time: “No one step back!”

I’ve paused my life or maybe I’ve stopped.
And in that hysterics I’ve almost overshot.

You and I in the Universe – let it be so.
Hold my hand. I’m blind and in the gloom in whole.
But I’m alive! Look, I’m breathing by chest.
I’m not in a hurry now. I just want to rest.

there is still time
to remember myself,
the happiest hours, the blooming trees.
there is still time to be someone.
there is still time to share my heart.
there is still time to remember who i was
before the isolation like a vine,
tied me up and kept me stranded.
there is no more of a reason to keep distress in my bed,
the villain disguised as an ally.
there is still time to believe and believe
as if the world never left me naked
and spiteful.
there is still time to give myself chances.
there is still time left to live even amidst the pressure.
there is still time to forgive,
there is still time to believe in myself
of all things.