He destroys something beautiful
Like us, he commits a grave sin
Like us, he has a demon within
His ugliness is indisputable
Who is this grave sinner?
This phantom of the night?
We see him, then take flight
Wherever we go, he lingers
I hand her a bouquet of flowers in the shadows: daisies, her favorite. A token of my love, a symbol of my guilt. For my sins, my mistake. It is a peace offering, made in the dying light of our backyard.
She accepts daisies
Takes them and leaves for good
Relationship done
I don’t know how this war started
but I know its ultimate end –
blood feud over pieces of land,
lustful for riches in the sand,
exploitation of earth,
mass machines churning
in desolate fields –
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The old man speaks of phantoms. He lay on his death-bed, and his face is ashen and sickly.
“Our home,” he says, “it’s haunted. Haunted by my sins. Haunted by my father’s sins, and his father’s sins.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Continue readingwhat does it mean to be brave
in today’s age?
maybe it’s simpler than we think
like the warrior societies of old
their ethos to put family first
die for a cause, face aristocrats
who sit on gold-plated thrones
who bemoan gutter-champions
& bare-knuckled brawlers
Continue readingi was careless with feelings
in my youth –
wolfing from bed to bed
only staying long enough to
get what i relished,
receding into ink-black nights
like a haunting, feeling guilty
but rationalizing
Continue readingWhat happened to the woman who
was nearly stoned to death?
Jesus said to not sin again,
but if she’s like me, she was
back in sweaty sheets later that day,
engaged in sinful acts – it’s a fact that
we’re far from saints + sainthood is
a hatred of humanity
but Jesus was half-God,
so it’s not so odd to believe
He died for me + whether I sin today
or tomorrow doesn’t matter much
because grace is free
(Photo by Laura Allen on Unsplash)
The faceless woman chases me through vacant city streets –
lights on in every home, but no one’s there,
just us, running in dreadful silence
my heart beats so fast it feels as if it’ll burst
from my sunken chest, plop on black concrete +
continue to beat to the rhythm of the pulsing ground,
as a brilliant moon looms above, hangs over us,
shines blinding light on my ghostly skin –
I’m living in sin + if the woman catches me,
I’ll surely suffocate + gurgle black blood
from a wicked mouth –
No! my mouth is gone, covered by slimy skin,
+ I’m gone, in her cold grasp at last,
the world collapses inside of me +
I wake as a newborn in some
distant jungle landscape.
(Photo by Gabriel on Unsplash)
I must get off this path of sin, and find my
inner-being in God, but I do not know how.
I pray, but I no longer feel the consolation
I once felt – that wholeness and joy, like I was
being held tightly in His arms.
Continue readingDuring the years I’ve been in recovery, I’ve learned alternative definitions to many common words. Take “pride” for example. In most cases, it’s deemed good to be proud of one’s self. In recovery and religious terms, though, pride is seen as one of the biggest sins or “character defects.”
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