You were never supposed
To let any of this happen.
Why did you allow that dog grief
To bound me down and
Stripe my body ragged?
Why did you give me these ghost days
That I wish had never happened?
All day a fear runs
Like a song through my head.
Is says: Faith is a fool’s game;
Faith is razor-bladed.
If you are my refuge,
Why do I go about mourning?
If you are my safety,
Why am I always in flight?
Now, unwind your welcome. Cast it out!
Send your word out like prowling cats that
Hunt the wide world home again.
Beacon me back to your high hill
And speak a name I nearly recognize.
It wasn’t away from my wreck
That I found you, but in the middle of it.
There you were, the one
I had longed for and laughed at.
I was hounded and hackled, and racked
But you were ready.
I laid as much life as I had left
On your altar and hoped the smoke
Would pass for prayer.
O my soul, why would you come this far
To fall now? Hold your hope aloft.
None of this is what it seems.
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