I feel like I’m in the wrong stride
And it hurts Your precious being.
Forgive me my ungrateful pride
I have eyes; I fail in seeing
I’m caught in the riptide now

I can’t see a shoreline worth the swim
And I’m tired of beating the waves.

I thought they had respect for You,
And it would be safety for me.

They did not.

I’m not asking for razed earth.

I came to this place with six kids,
Two feet, and a bindle.
I’m leaving with the same
My hope has dwindled,
And my faith in men.
I hope my faith in You hasn’t balked.
Travel with me down the next new roads,
Like the ones We’ve already walked.
I suppose I’m one who needs distance
I need to leave to let go,
To forget what I cannot bear,
To erase what breaks me to know.
I’m really just leaving to put distance
Between me and the company
I don’t understand why I care
They immediately started forgetting me

Stripped from walls and hearts.
The least I can do
Is follow suit.

It’ll be better when I’m all gone.

Do with them whatever You please,
But remember, to me, they were graceless.
You remember the coldness of their souls,
And I’ll forget their names and faces.

You tested them
In the pride of their days
Not with strength, but weakness,
And they were wicked in their ways.

I came to them in meekness
In humility, in need:
A widow in my distress
With orphans to feed

I needed, like Ruth,
To glean in safety
But they were cruel.
They have afflicted me.

I was an alien, a sojourner,
A foreigner in a foreign land,
They defrauded me,
They crippled my stand.

You take up my case.
I wash my hands and depart-
They are not my people-
I leave their cold, arrogant hearts

In Your Just Hands.

You promise justice to widows, orphans, the sojourner, and the poor.

I ask You for it.

*Addendum

I have asked for justice
Instead of vindication
Because I only changed it
In the first by way of prevarication
Justice is merely
An eye for an eye,
But they have both
And at the time, I
Only had one
When they put it out.
If they lose an eye
They go about
Barely impeded,
But my world is forever
Alone in the dark
Gripping what’s severed
Unless You take into account
Power, and the responsibility of sight,
Measuring my experience
By the widow’s mite

Justice by percentage
Instead of volume.

And to remind You again,
I already have a petition in
For vindication.

Forgive me for my faithlessness.
I have trouble seeing
While grieving the changes
But I know in my being

You keep Your promises.

No one can thwart Your design.
What You have said, You will do.
You have loved me exceedingly well;
Love me through.

Before this began,
While I was still asleep,
You took me through the book of Jude-
Your promise to Call, to Love, to Keep.

Fix Your love on me
Beyond what I understand
In Your unchangeable nature
Like only You can

And if there’s a miracle,
Give me faith to believe its possible
Because, with You,

All things are possible.

P.S.

I found a breadcrumb forgotten.
Even then, I must have sensed in part,
And I asked You for this surgery
So in the agony of the unguarded,
I aak You again:

Finish what You’ve started.

I trust You.

Identity

I’ve come as far as I can.
My feet won’t carry me another step
I don’t know where I am anymore
The trail has no familiar blazes left

Please protect us.
I’m sorry for who I’ve always been
Please don’t let me shatter.
I’m sorry for who I still am.

I don’t know what’s next, but
I can’t get from here to there fast enough
Please help me tend my children
They are all I have left of love.

I’m sorry for all my words.
I’m sorry for talking like I knew
Anything at all. I’m sorry for all
I said and didn’t do.

Please find more Mercy for me.
I’m sorry I need so much.

I’m filling my duffel bag,
And I’m not sure it matters
What I put in it anymore.
Everything is in tatters.

It isn’t their fault, the town.
I know I’ve complained angrily,
I just started off on the wrong foot,
And never got my balance under me.

This place felt like open surgery,
Like a medic’s field dressing,
But having it happen here
Was its own blessing.

I wonder what I’ll look like,
What kind of cartoon I’ll be
In years to come, to anyone
Who might remember me.

Consistency
Is consistent rejection
I don’t think I can maintain
On my current projection.

The everyday becomes monotonous.
Did the prodigal cut and run
From his family
Or the constant hum

I can’t be more than
What I’m not.
I’ve been blessed to get
As much as I got.

My memory isn’t great.
I’m not even sure
What I was fighting so hard
To secure

A house in a field?
A husband? A friend?
The love I could feel
Absent on the other end.

It’ll be or it won’t.
It works or it don’t.

At least this move
Is about closing the past,
Not opening something new
That could never last.

It hasn’t yet come to rest,
But the die is cast.

I’m a child
Waking up from a nightmare
In the middle of a thunderstorm

I huddle around my littles
And cry out to You

Because I know You are bigger
Than every fear
And I believe

You are Love
And I am Yours

I’ve been so arrogant
My entire life.

How could I not see
All my petitions
Were just grownup versions
Of my nervous condition
Always pleading
Not to burn my dolls
Or throw my kittens
Down the well.

I am pummeled,
Buffeted, I wince
At the wind
I flinch in defense
But I no longer
Run away
Because everywhere
Is every day.

I have nothing to pay
The Ferryman.
I have nothing of value
To trade again
For any safe passage
If such passage exists;
The earth may only spin
By the strike of foot and fist.

God,

Whether here or there
May my brood and I know
What it is to be cared for
To be safe and loved
Where there is strength
That doesn’t feint
To keep you maintained

Is there still time to heal?
Could it heal to abide
Inside some kind
Of gentle protection?

Everyone is waiting
To strike, to bite,
Those who aren’t have
Turned shoulders cold

I am a tragic sight
An old, rejected wife
Put out into the frigid night
With coyotes and frostbite
To the tune of indifference.

Did I always have it coming?
Did I deserve to be humbled?

Love me anyway
Because You Are
The God of the Impossible.

I’m sorry for the nothing
I have left to offer.
I’m sorry I wasn’t worth more,
And couldn’t increase my value.

I’m all broken up
Fractured where I have lost,
Cracked, threatening collapse,
By rejection, betrayal, the cost
Of losing my place as a mom,
As a matriarch, a valued wife
At the height of my gift
I was ejected from my life
And I live on the peripheral
Of the organism I grew
As a disparaged servant
And I’ve cried out to You

For remonstrance and restitution.

But then today, I heard the men
Solid and efficient
They’re more productive
Because they’re in better condition.
I can’t keep up, and if I can’t
Replace them then I can’t complain
It doesn’t matter what I’ve lost;
It matters what the kids may gain.
You don’t just see what’s been
You see generations to come
What is of the utmost importance
Is giving them the best chance to run

The race You set out before them.

I can’t provide for them
As well as the men,
And as long as I’m providing
I can’t cradle them again.
I’m spent, and I might not
Have much left to give
I think I’ve been wrong to teach
Them to live how I live
Tender is defenseless
In a world with no defenders
If they are better off without me
I surrender

I withdraw the case I filed.
Let them all tarry on,

But don’t let go of a single child.
Thank You for loving them.

I shouldn’t have rested;
I should have gone home and held my son.
The weight of all I cannot do,
Of all I leave undone
Crushes me to ground.

The threats surround me
On all sides, all the time,
The consuming cruelty
Pursues a thousand crimes
I cannot prevent.

Please Father,
Change my circumstance.

Put me in the hands
Of tenderness, for once.