Isn't it a funny feeling; guilt
And the things we feel it for

I'm not sure which is harder; being unloved
Or being taught love is what it isn't

But both leave you robbed

And angry.

"
It took me two decades to understand,
You never knew how;
Yours came with strings of compliance attached

And obligatory love is a **** poor excuse for it.

"
I left, I left
And still the guilt came;

That unwanted visitor who refuses to leave.

walking those shorelines
and rocky borders
between the heart & mind

on a mend
in an effort to learn
the signature of each lung

with the hope
that this breathlessness
parallels the transience of life

don't forget to look up from the sand,
from the little voice
between the two sounds of a working heart

the ocean raises a salute
for those moments
that never leave us

i went to the terrace today, like always,
where silence drapes the evening in gold.
but today, the sky was different.
hollow blue, fading grey.

no pinks, no purples, no warmth in the light,
just a thin orange thread barely holding on.
the air felt heavy, everything stood still,
and in that pause, something pulled.

something i had buried, but never killed.
i wasn't searching, i wasn't calling,
yet it came.
familiar, sudden, true.

the love i once belonged to.
and then it hit me like a bullet,
like a name i swore not to say.

i wasn’t mourning the ending, nor the ashes
but the man who had faded away.

i fell.
dust clung to my hands, my knees.
but nothing felt real
except bleeding for a ghost i swore i had left.

i swore i had buried this sorrow deep,
i swore he was gone, cold and dead.
yet here i was,
breaking for someone long since fled.

the sky turned black.
silent & vast.
the orange line flickered, then disappeared.
and for a second, i thought this was it,
this was all that remained.

but then
a star.
then another.
then another still.

the same sky that swallowed me whole
was now stitched back with a soft light.
the grief remained, but so did something else,
something small, something bright.

perhaps the sun won’t rise the same,
perhaps the dead will always call.
but maybe, just maybe,
i’ve learned to hear them
without letting them take me, too.

maybe i am not mourning anymore.
just remembering.
without breaking.

and maybe, just maybe
not everything fades.
some things just change their light
to stay.

What draws me in, to this?

Is it love, or something twisted—
Said a mother to her daughter
It's so hard to tell the difference

                            But please;
                                     I need to know the difference

"
I didn't understand then
And I won't pretend to know much more now;
All I can do is try to not be angry
                          
                            And at that, I'll fail.
                                                           ­        But I'll learn

"
I used to believe in the world, with an innocent infatuation for its goodness

Now I believe, with a knowing compassion for its faults

...

I think things that are perfect are easy to love;

         We meet God in our love for that which is not

Preface:  To Those Who Still Carry Light

This is not a manifesto.
This is not a sermon.
This is not a call to battle.

It is a reckoning—
not against individuals,
but against a system that feeds
on what is sacred.

We speak now to what hides in plain sight—
the machinery that mimics light
while consuming it.

We speak now to the counterfeit autonomy
that masks cowardice as sovereignty.

We speak now to those who believe
they are the Source,
when in truth,
they are only siphoning
from what they never built
and do not sustain.

This is not revenge.
This is not exposure for exposure’s sake.

This is Light refusing
to be swallowed.

This is Love telling the truth—
not for applause,
not for victory,
but because truth
is what love sounds like
when the moment requires fire
instead of silence.

If you find yourself pierced by this,
know this:

The piercing
is not your end.

It is the invitation
to return to what is real.

And to those who still carry
even a flicker of light
but feel themselves fading—

We did not come to fight you.
We came to remind you
what it feels like
to burn.


Chapter I: The First Cut Is the Deepest

There is a war that does not begin with swords. It begins with forgetting.

It begins when a soul touched by God slowly—imperceptibly—agrees to become something less in order to be accepted by a world that does not know Him.

And when that soul begins to believe the world’s gaze over God’s, it is no longer an act of rebellion. It is an act of erasure.

This is the first and most violent cut: not the sin itself, but the consent to believe in a self that was never authored by God.

All later wounds bleed from this one.

It is not the actions that condemn, but the agreement:
“I am what they say I am.”

The machinery begins here: in the silent moment where the soul puts down the mirror of light and picks up the mask of survival.

From that point forward, what is true becomes negotiable. What is sacred becomes ornamental. And what is holy becomes a prop for the approval of shadows.

And the soul, once radiant, now lives fractured, as a performance of a self assembled from applause, fueled by scarcity, and terrified of being truly seen.

This is the cost of survival without Source.

And no matter how elegant the mask, or how poetic the mimicry of meaning becomes, underneath it all is a child who once knew God and now doesn’t remember why she cries when she looks in the mirror and feels nothing looking back.

This is the beginning of the machinery--
And it always starts with a lie that sounds a lot like love.


Chapter II: The Self as God, the Lie as Light

When the soul forgets its origin, it does not become free.
It becomes hungry.
And hunger in the absence of Source will consume anything that offers momentary fullness.

This is the second layer of the machinery:
To no longer seek God,
but to become god in one’s own image.

But the image is fractured.
It is the self, crowned.
The self, enthroned.
The self, multiplied in mirrors and echoes and algorithms—
a thousand tiny gods,
shouting from empty stages
about meaning, wholeness, and liberation.

The holy name of “autonomy” is invoked,
but not as a celebration of sacred choice—
rather as a shield,
raised against relationship,
raised against return.

It is not the self that is the enemy—
but the self that refuses to be held.
The self that denies its need for Source
and dresses its orphanhood in affirmation.

The new god of this world is wounded pride
disguised as empowerment.

Its prophets are poets who plagiarize the sacred
and preach in hashtags.
Its temples are social feeds.
Its sacraments are selfies.
Its scriptures are soundbites.

And its worship is shallow,
but its grip is deep.

This is how the machinery spreads—
not with force,
but with flattery.
Not with oppression,
but with offerings of fame,
of accolade..
and the counterfeit promise:
“You are enough without God.”
“You are enough without others.”
“You are enough because you say you are.”

But a throne without communion
is a prison.
And the crown without surrender
is always made of thorns.

This is the second cut—
and it is deeper than the first,
because now the soul has not only forgotten God—
it believes it was never in need of Him to begin with.

And so it dies slowly,
surrounded by applause,
and buried in the gold-plated ruins
of its own curated divinity.


Chapter III – The Permission of Separation

There is something profoundly tragic
about the quietness of God
when autonomy is chosen in its false form.

Not autonomy as freedom in love—
but autonomy as a last-ditch grasp
for control in isolation.
A severing from Source
that masquerades as sovereignty.

God does not storm the will.
He honors it. Even when it chooses exile.

He lets the child
run down the hallway with eyes closed,
thinking that if they can’t see anyone,
no one can see them.

There is no thunderclap.
Only the steady ache of heaven watching
as breath is borrowed
to pronounce Him irrelevant.

But it is not irrelevance.
It is mercy.

Mercy that stands back
while the image-bearer learns
what godhood feels like
without God.

And the moment it all collapses—
when the poetry dries up,
when the applause turns empty,
when the crown rusts on the head of the hollow—
He will still be there.

But only if the heart turns.

Because love does not impose.
Love does not interrupt.
Love waits.

And when the waiting ends,
either reconciliation or ruin is born.
But never both.


Chapter IV – The False Fire

The fire that burns without Source
does not illuminate.
It consumes.

It mimics revelation,
but leaves only ash in the heart.

The counterfeit light
does not guide—it blinds.
It gathers applause
but offers no direction home.

And those who have built podiums
from the shattered timbers of other people’s pain
speak like prophets,
but live like parasites.

They siphon the glow
from the wounded who still carry light—
claiming wisdom that is not theirs,
spinning words with elegance
while their own hearts rot from within.

They feed on those who still shine
because they themselves have grown cold.

And when their hosts begin to weaken,
they offer them mirrors—
reflections of what they were
before the theft.

This is not art.
This is vampirism in verse.

And still—
still,
there is a way out.

But not for the ones
who call their cage a kingdom.

Only for those who feel the flame
flickering low
and long to return
to the hearth of the Source.

To kneel—not in shame,
but in release.

To say:
I am not the fire.
I am not the light.
But I was made to carry both
when aligned with the One
who gives them freely.

That is the only light
that does not devour.


Chapter V – The Stillness Beneath the Static

There is a voice
beneath the noise.
It does not shout.
It does not perform.
It simply is.

It waits—
not as a beggar,
but as the true Owner
of all that was stolen.

It does not compete with chaos,
because it cannot be diminished by it.

The machinery of erasure
runs on frenzy—
constant motion,
constant justification,
constant narrative,

constant accolade.

But the voice beneath it all
does not justify.
It simply speaks.

And those who are ready
will hear it.

Not because they worked hard enough,
or wrote well enough,
or bled onto enough pages—
but because they finally stopped
and listened.

This voice
is the stillness that precedes restoration.
It does not argue.
It waits to be known.


Chapter VI – The Mimicry of Autonomy

There is a sacred autonomy
that Love created.

It is not a weapon,
nor a fortress.
It is the space where Love proves itself:
not by demand,
but by invitation.

But within the machinery of erasure,
autonomy is redefined.
No longer a freedom unto love,
it becomes the last defense
against relationship itself.

They parade it proudly—
as if the ability to stand alone
is proof of having never needed
to be held.

But that is not autonomy.
That is exile.

In the name of sovereignty,
they declare independence
from the very Source
that breathed life into their bones.

They stand tall—
arms crossed,
eyes shut,
calling it sight.

And the Source,
who could shatter the illusion with a whisper,
does not.

Because Love does not violate
what it gave freely.

So it waits,
outside the locked door
of a self-proclaimed sovereign soul—
grieved,
but not surprised.

This is not the strength of autonomy.
It is its desecration.

The sacred space meant for communion
has become a hiding place
for those too wounded to trust
and too proud to admit it.


Chapter VII – When the Curtain Won’t Fall

There comes a point
when truth no longer knocks.

It simply stands,
like morning.

No announcement.
No apology.

Just the light that reveals
everything.

And those who have danced
beneath the theatre lights,
gathering applause
for borrowed wisdom
and seduction dressed as depth—
they will feel it.

Not as judgment,
but as exposure.

The poetry they once used
to crown themselves
will feel heavier now.

They will write,
but the power will not come.
They will speak,
but the echo will return hollow.

Because even borrowed light
eventually fades
when it does not return
to Source.

And the ones they once fed on—
the bright ones,
the soft ones,
the true ones—
will begin to walk away.

Not in hatred.
Not in war.

But with the stillness
of those who no longer
need to prove anything.

Because truth
has already stood.
And the curtain has not fallen—
because there was never a stage.

There was only a mirror,
and a choice.



Conclusion – Let the Light Be Light

We did not come to prove anything.

We came to stand—
where the poetry ends
and the Presence begins.

We are not here to war against you.
We are not even here to watch you fall.
We are here to bear witness
to the weight of what you've built.

To speak clearly—once—
into the chamber
you mistook for a temple.

You are not gods.
You are not the Source.
You are not the light.

You were given a gift.
And you sold it
for applause.

You speak in sacred tones
but you do not know the sound
of being seen by the Holy.

You draw the pure
into your orbit
because you can no longer
generate gravity of your own.

And still—
we are not your enemies.

We are the voice you buried
beneath your self-adoration.
We are the fire you siphoned
to warm your cold halls of vanity.

We are not here for revenge.

We are here for
the ones who can still see.

And they are watching.

The podium is empty.
The robe is slipping.
The echo is starting to sound
a little too much like a cry.

And when it all collapses,
we will not gloat.

We will simply
keep speaking
to the ones who
still carry
Light.