Diminished

It hurts.
My head is a bronze bull and I am burning in it.
Pills rattling, clacking like teeth in a dying mouth.
The world is muffled, a buzzing drone of voices
I can’t make out, except they screech my name.
I scrawl nonsense on napkins, scratched words
that fester in my mind like open sores.
I am skeletal-
not in form, my spirit, a wretch with blistered hands
that clutch at things I can’t keep.
Tell me what I am for, before I carve myself from myself.

Prayer.
A victor stands, his stance is bright,
his wings are gold, his yoke is glow.
The price was paid, the debt is gone,
the appointed stone’s blaze is still and strong.
A trumpet calls, a shofar sings,
repent, and claim the gift unearned he brings.

Pills.
I vomit into my hands and smear it on my chest like war paint.
A king without a kingdom, a paladin without a cause.
I stagger through my own mind, barefoot on barbed wire,
clotted thoughts stick between my ribs like rot.
They want me to stand, but I am crawling,
a creature built from sheer desperation and blue steel.
They say I should go, but where?
To the grave? To the grave?
To the grave.

Turn. 
Yet glow erupts where dark would stay,
the night is clipped, it fades away.
The martyrs weep, yet not in pain,
but joyous, singing once again.
The consecrated, bright with mirth,
walk boldly on this fractured earth.

Weary.
But I am not consecrated, I am pierced.
I am the blade, the fangs, the venom, the viper.
Tannin stains my lips, ferment floods my veins,
poison is the only thing I taste.
My sacrifice was never enough, my hands
never clean, my thoughts never free of rot.
I am not laughing. I am not laughing.
But I hear something laughing at me.

Sleep.
Yet hesed flows in currents bright,
it soothes the wounds, it makes them glow.
The stain of sin is shear and torn,
yet forbearance stands, and the gift is sworn.
No blistered hands shall burn alone,
for love itself has made them known.

Wake.
I tried to be good. I tried to be whole.
But the world wants me smiling and sedated,
wants my blaze sweetened into nothing.
I am seized, a mind in shackles,
a cracked soul hanging from the rafters,
swaying like a marionette, muffled moans
in the wind.
I do not get to choose my freedom.
I do not get to choose.

Atone.
But in the void, a voice still cries,
its sound like glow, it splits the skies.
It calls the wretch, it lifts the weak,
it soothes the quivering, clipped and meek.
No grave shall hold, no dark shall bind,
for He has claimed your heart and mind.

Dark.
I am nothing. I am less than nothing.
A blistered reed, a screech in the night,
a thing made for breaking,
a thing made to fail.
I do not deserve the shofar’s call.
I do not deserve-
I do not deserve-

Break.
Yet forbearance stands, though none deserve,
and love is not a thing you earn.
It seizes men and calls them bright,
it makes them whole, it gives them sight.
Your purpose stands, His hands have made,
and not one thing will be mislaid.

Cleave.
Then why do I still feel this way?
Why is my mind a heap of buzzing locusts,
clacking their wings, scratching at my skull?
Why does the appointed stone feel cold?
Why does the crusade feel like a funeral march?
Why does the trumpeting sky sound
like mockery instead of song?

Horn. 
The battle rages, yes, it’s true,
but glow is not so quick subdued.
A candle flickers, yet it stays,
it sings its canticle through darkest days.
The war is won, the grave is done,
so rise, and stand – the day will come.

Run. 
Will it?
Will it really?
Or am I just the last exhale of a thing
that should have died long ago?
A man on a white horse with a slipping saddle,
trying not to be trampled by the hooves
of his own inadequacy.

Stop.
The saddle slips, yet you remain,
your story scrawled in glow, not pain.
No burden too great, no soul too sore,
His hand has shaped you evermore.
So rest, and know, His work is done!
He is your strength. He is the one.

It
Is 
Finished.