this mercy

i hate this spot, this pit stop. that i come round to it when the band aid gets ripped out. that it still tells me that i am not completely over it. that the many nights of supper and good company still hasn't completed the searing pain that comes from a moment's absence. that those 9 months of waiting out in a jail cell for the return of the king, still has its dancing shadows over me. that these are but shadows but these are still the realities that hit my shores like weapons of understated destruction. that, if it is jealousy or envy, i don't know how to cry about. its still hard to breathe and to get used to it. that my heart still has problems forgetting the pain of the cold walk in the dark, crossing busy angry streets, to go back to an abandoned hole that's mutated some form of insanity in me. the very things that i need is the furthest of reach. that i cannot see, even with all the faith i pray intimately at night, believing that God is big enough to let risks run its course, that i might find myself turning into a pillar of salt, grey from yesterday's baggage. that this abyss and deep groan has gone so far down into the rabbit hole that i lose sight and hope to believe it will ever be replaced with goodness. for even short messages, phone calls and sweetness of gestures have done nothing but momentarily delayed my anatomy from flaring up in a leprous rash. save me with the very things that i am afraid of, the very delay that has taken a long time to embrace, save me from my imaginations and tendencies. for this day, i am only holding on to the goodness i can see and touch, at my wits' end, to tide me over.

and then, dinner arrives, just in time, with a corridor conversation that set my feet onto another launching pad that smells of a familiar love and grace. may this not be just another distraction. may it take more than a song in my heart to save us all.