Psalm 38
God, in your anger, don’t set me aside.
I suffered the length of your chastening.
Your arrows have fallen all around me.
Your hand pressed me into the ground.
You heaved my heart whole over.
I am all raw wounds.
My heart is scoured bright as brass—
Abraded, burnished, blazing hot
Under the blast of your wrath.
My peace is choked
Because I chewed black thoughts
Like cracked bones and made
A meal of my sin’s marrow.
My wrongs have doubled back on me
And I can’t bear them.
My rot flesh hangs in strips.
The fester stinks.
All day, I shuffle through drifts of sorrow.
My feet are bleeding in my shoes
As I walk the long lanes of grief.
My prayers fall in soft sift
That drops to muddy slosh behind me.
A fire has made a home in my flesh.
I keep patting my chest to put it out,
But the fever won’t quit.
My bones are brittle as coral.
My eyes shine like opals,
And I hold my limbs with care
As if they might snap off.
I’m bound and bowed and brought low.
My body bends to the ground
As if I am already grinning down
Into my grave.
None of this is secret.
It happens under the open face of heaven.
You see me, Lord.
You hear the long lament
Singing out of me all day
And through the black hours of night.
Those friends I loved stand away.
Even my brothers press their hands to their mouths
And shake their heads.
But those who want to hurt me draw near.
Their thoughts chasms,
But their words are all bright as knives
That leave fresh red ribbons
In my mind when I think of them.
I would fill my mouth with arguments
And my ears with my own defense,
But instead, I am dumb and stuttering and stunned.
Lord, you know how I would trade
My heart for any hope I could lay hands on
If it promised me a way out.
So set your silence on me.
Staunch me, stop me,
Hold me hard at bay.
Give me the stillness that isn’t peace,
But has the seeds of peace in it.
You are the last word I’m waiting for.
If you are not my defense, I have no defense.
I know your answers start
Before I know to ask.
I know they take a long time
And aren’t made of words, but of moments
Stacked one on another.
I am ready to fall.
My pain is set plainly before me.
I can hardly hide it,
Nor keep it a secret,
Nor find the smallest, furtive,
Fugitive minute to forget it.
I didn’t know this is what I bargained for
When I gathered my folly
To my chest in great-armed heaps.
Visit me even here, Lord.
I want to begin again.
Show me what is good
Even if it makes this all the worse.
Curb the joy of those
Who rejoice when I fall.
I will tell all my wrongs.
I will hold nothing back.
I will foreswear all the misbegotten loves
That have made a home in my heart.
Do not cast me off, but stay with me.
Even now, rush to help me.
Level out a rollicking, bracing, lavisher love.
My chevalier in stride, have your way!
Cast back black sorrow.
Know no bounds. Breach and breast
High over every hindrance.
Show me what it feels like
To be safe and saved.
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