Confessions

The compensations I make:
Reaction, emotion, expression-
To maintain my balance
Lean farther in either direction

Than I am comfortable or accustomed.

Help me find True Center;
Give me a Northern Star.
Or help me see if You already have
And I am blind to where they are.

I am forgetting what solid earth feels like.

I am struggling to bridge
The chasm between their small graces
And the self-involved apathy and cruelty
That, with indifference, left me faceless

Alone in a cold grave.

I am struggling to see our intimate prior life
As a predator feeding at will
On the ignorant lamb
And does that mean I am still

The ignorant meal?

Can I heal and forgive and love
In a way that isn’t driven
By sheer choice and discipline-
Can I still be forgiven?

Since my infancy, sharpened fangs
Fall in line to feast
A constant succession, is the procession
Because the awful beast

Hates me, or the Divine it sees
Has etched me in His hand?

Am I worth more than the blows that land?

Will I ever trust again?
Will there ever be someone worthy?
Will I ever truly care for another again?
Is brutality the perpetual cost of mercy?

Are there human connections that don’t incise?

I have been murdered in plain sight,
And reciprocity cannot make it right

But I want to strangle time nonetheless.
All these things I confess.