Lord, relent. I regret
My summer palaces; the violence
I mistook for virtue; the days
I was always elsewhere; the years
I flung down the fidelities
I should have followed home.
If your love is as true as you say,
Forget the rest.
My failures are always with me.
They are more than I can stand.
I buried them in the garden,
But they only bloomed black roses
That everyone could see.
Grief pools wherever I sit.
It has been years since
I saw a mirror I recognized.
But you, God, are blameless.
You are never wrong. You never miss.
Your justice hits home.
I can’t stand it.
I go wrong seven times a day.
I don’t want to live on the lam,
But fugitive days unroll
Under my feet nonetheless.
If you are hiding some remedy,
Share it out. If you know the truth,
And have any patience left,
Show me what it looks like
When love takes flesh
And tarries with us.
Wash me and I
Will be whiter than snow.
I’ll be free. I’ll sing. I’ll bring
All the bones you’ve broken
Back to you to set in place, in peace.
Overthrow my dense, knotted
Conundrum of folly.
Collect each empty renunciation
And count it good.
Don’t leave me to the years I lost.
Hold me by the hand
And walk me somewhere else.
Then, my old loves will return,
Like birds to eat from my hands:
My gentleness, my quiet, the stillness
I spent so long running from.
Then, you’ll dance me down to bones
And raise me back again.
I won’t have to beat my failures,
Only see them for what they are.
Repentance will run like quicksilver
Over everything I touch.
I tried to bargain with you
But what you wanted was a broken heart,
So I laid my whole self on the altar
Like it was my bed,
And didn’t think of rising
With my lies intact.
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