A Thousand Suns

so i wrote this poem on 3/29/10, in my dorm room during time with the best friend.

----
Part the willow's leaves
and come find me
in deep waters where I let no one rescue me.
But I know you hear my cry across the waters
You walk across to get to me

How did I find myself out here?
And forget what I look like, though reflections
surround me

I can't do nothing but carve my soul on the
driftwood, poor man's poetry
naked before the sun to dry, never reaching
man's eyes

But you bend down to read.

Is there an art to conversation?
But David's been here before,
and he testifies
that you know us, you search us,
you know our ways.

Peeling back the layers is rather painful,
but if that's what it takes to trade my
heart for yours, let the surgery continue.

You are so patient
with uglyness, so gentle to handle
rocks lashed by furious waters
so kind in the face of
monstrosity.
Still, gracious and compassionate
after all these years

My love, I will gather
in its pieces and brush them off dusty shelves
to give to you.
Please, help me give everything
I would love to trade
these ashes for your beauty
and give you something to move your heart.

Keep these eyes fixed upon you,
my master, my Father, my Lover
O to burn a thousand suns
with our passion
and let the world yearn for what we have

Could this be the time?

Arrest my heart, Jesus.

Secrets

Lord, if the highest heavens cannot contain your glory
Surely you can fill this heart, that is hurting

You sit on the swing with me on days when I can't find myself,
as we look over the view.
Your point to the horizon and say, "I am the bright and morning star. I've found you, now just follow me!"

And the secrets start spilling, like long-withered flowers
from my unwilling lips, because you knew there was more behind the tears
You always knew.
Of how he was never there to hold me, or offer a hand, or plant kisses
how I don't know what it feels like to be touched by him, except on that angry night

of the fairytale cage she placed me in, long after i stopped believing in them
never letting me in on her world, never stepping into mine

of how angry, profane rap music was my only escape because my heart didn't know how to exhale anymore

secrets
that show everyday,

when i can''t meet his eyes,
and the smile struggles to form,
and the heart breaks over and over and over
over the very same things

Lord, i can't hold them as secrets anymore, and I know
that you've known.
And I know, that I've grown

So teach me to cast forgotten flowers at the feet of the One who
remembers everything,
whose gentle hands were nailed violently
to free me from my past
whose gentle hands reached, for mine

I know I've looked across the seas and nations
to raise a battlecry and charge in the frontlines

but you've been sitting me down to look at this view,
that i turned my back on years ago
saying,
"Love, the restoration must first start here."

So I'll walk these splintered floors,
and retrace the peeling paint with my fingertips
with you,
watching you pour heaven over the old,
piece by piece, room by room
until sunlight spills from the cracks, and I can finally walk out with you.

Healing rain is falling down,
I'm not afraid.

Psalm 23

sometimes i'm afraid
to ask for love, for i feel like
i'm wasting time--
like there's so much that needs to be done,
and time is falling away so why would i
sit here in the silence

but you keep beckoning me to sit by the water
and drink slow, and drink deep
to take a moment and inhale the breeze
that makes its way across here.
for green pastures are for laying down on,
for resting and feeding
where you can hide in the tall grass with nothing but blue
above you, and yawn melodies between breaths,
heart at peace and content.

i hear you sing above the quiet waters,
watch the flowers bob their heads in the wind
and sigh with a sparkle in my eye.
You take me here, to restore my soul.

Hands

i never knew hands until
mine became as calloused as the branches in winter
trying to block the rain and the sticks and the stones
fingers etched in cuts, palms dark with bruises
falling backwards, shielding my face, my heart with desperation

never knew hands until You took mine in both of yours
and the war ceased, finally, after years and years and years
of heaviness that chains could not sound
of crimes the soul dare whisper once
you take my hands, and i'm crumbling

wanting to fade into the darkness but you say,
Hey, look at me.

and in your gaze
every single fear i have ever known is swept away

this feeling,
like morning
like knowing dance, knowing song, knowing freedom
without moving a muscle.