Move against my enemies
To clear my name
I am exiled
In unearned shame
I am treated as one despised
In return for my love
Unheard and unanswered
But You are not aloof, removed above;
You draw near to the brokenhearted
Which is all I can be
Until You prove the unproven:
Vindicate me.

Fix Your love on me
Else I perish
Be again the One
To hold and cherish
When all the world
Has stripped me
From their presence:
Vindicate me.

I have been dealt with
Unjustly by the untrue
But I never belonged to them,
I belong to You
Move in might as in days past
In the fury of Your great jealousy
To right the wrongs, at last
Vindicate me.

I’ve never been valuable
To anyone but You
Pull me close.
If my days are through
Support me with Your arm
Like people do
With the elderly

And help me stand to meet You.

I feel black death
Crouching in my lungs
And I keep feeding it

These lungs used to sing
Now all that travels this tongue
Is a wheeze as a dirge.

There are so many reasons to live
But there’s always one
More reason for one more meal.

Take me by the shoulders
Like You took Lot
And guide me to life.

I cannot sustain
The blows that I got,
Landing on a soft soul.

Revive me again
Before I rot
In the stench of death.

I see what I am
And what I am not
And could never have been.

I don’t know how I ended here
In Canton, Missouri.

We had a dog in my youth
With a sleek, shiny coat
A puppy that frolicked and yipped,
Tumbled and bounced, who would dote
On any tender hand, as he grew
He would leap and float
At the slightest command.

The years made his hair coarse
Flecked with white like snow
His hip would click and limp
When he trotted to and fro
If he fetched, when he returned
He would lie down by my toes
And rest his head on my feet.

One day I sought him in the yard,
By the porch, and around the gate
I called his name across the field
And I would wait, I would wait.
They told me old dogs can tell
They can feel the approach of fate
And wander to find some lonely place to meet him.

And I have now wandered here
To Canton.

Heavenly Father,

I have spent my life
Building a home
Welcoming in all
Who were abandoned, alone
Those in need of a meal
And a sheltering tone
Where my children could rest
Free from want and groan

I’ve spent my life building a home
Now I have none.

The emptiness in which
I sorrowfully reside
Is rootless and fruitless
And has no substance to hide
The overturned contents
Of a life cast aside

In my homelessness I abide
Until You turn the tide of grief.

There’s no way through the grief
But to walk his gauntlet bare
Blow by blow, the purple mementos
Write the story of our affair:
The blushing bride that I have been:
The love we once shared.

There’s no way past the grief
But to lie down under his fist
To take the rage he offers
In the fury of his tryst
To nod and accept his truths
Under his smothering shroud of mist

And hope that time will heal the wounds
His knuckles here have kissed.

I wander to the river’s edge
While the current is cold as graves,
Where the wind pulls loose my hair,
There I invoke his name in staves,
I wait for him to float to me
Upon the choppy waves

I search the tidal skyline
For his toes upon the sea
For his ghostly apparition
To emerge heroically
But be he ghost or demon
The soul I adored so utterly

Will never return to me.

I loved him
With all in me that was great
And capable of love
Will sorrow dissipate?
My soldier-in-arms extinguished
By an icy wind of fate.
I search in vain.
My grief will not abate.
My Love was a lie hidden inside
My enemy’s hate.

I never got to say goodbye.
He who heard my everything in depth
My closest confidant, intimate ally,
Dissolved in breath
There is no one when I cry
To pull me to his chest.
And the world moves on, and so must I,
From the desperate bereavement of death.