to burn away my shame
i'd jump from the highest cliffs
leap from the highest towers
into a sky aflame and raging with sea-blue
redemption.
i would soar before my fall,
and fly
too close to the sun.
you would see my
silhouette.
the impression
of a girl that could be,
of a nimble if
a might have been
that navigates the sky
so easily;
she uses the changing clouds
the sagging cotton skies
as beacons marking the way,
using the course of the wind
to lead her home.
you would see the black of me
undisturbed by the light
the darkest parts of me
an underbelly aglow
unbroken by laughter,
and
with no such golden child to compare it to
that shadow of a me
would break your heart
with the purity of it's wrongness.
i would be an angry bruise
against and aging sun
high on the heady fumes
of a million extinguished dreams
drunk to the point of belligerence
from sipping at the steady fountain
of prayers,
constantly running between
the ancient rotting terra firma
and that place called the Promised land.
an endless stream of fermented hope
refined, strained, and steeping,
stewed to an alcoholic tar
aged by the distance
between every human heart and his Creator.
i promise this to you,
sometime between the last instant
of toe on ground stability
between the moment i leapt for my
penance
and the time when
bare foot bleeding
skin peeling
nerves screaming
from the burning off of my pain
and the dissolution of my self-pity;
between the time i take flight,
and that ever unsure landing,
whether a sad last thud,
or at a screeching run
with fists and hair flying,
heart humbled and backbone mended,
Whether into the ground or across it i land,
somewhere, between takeoff and letdown,
i will forgive,
i will have burned within myself,
incinerated in the fires of my sudden
short-lived bravery:
my past,
the memory, the marker of my life,
and will have dropped it's ashes
across the oceans.
and in the hands of another
whether fate
Gravity
or Something greater
will be the verdict,
the passing down of a sentence.
the great decider,
the judge of all things
will spew forth the terms of my indictment,
and i might only pray that it rain down on me
run over and through me,
touching every crack
and dry spot,
and stick fast to me
a baptism in punishing healing hoping stinging honey.
only He will tell,
the angry bellowing Future,
prodding me to take my turn,
He
will say
will weigh my penance
my leap
my tears and my singed face
against all i have done.
and whether i will land, or whether i will crash
I will be the bard that brings forth the tale,
and strumming, humming,
scarred and shivering
I will bear witness to all.
this is a lazy blog. :) an old poem i found, because it's the end of the semester and I'm roommate hunting, life reorganizing, brain straightening, and the world appears to be spinning very fast.