In Bright Red

You must understand
I am not an artist
at least not in the
conventional sense or
as limited as my talent
gets.
The magic weaving of
a brush across an empty
canvas was never gripped
between my bony hands
and I could never
work well with
coordinating and
uncoordinating color
because of my
own sense
of blindness to the hues
that get planted
on yer pallet.
So, understand that I am
in awe of what people can do
with a simple stroke of a
brush to their chosen
medium.
My mind never really
worked that way.
Though I can see vivid
technicolor nightmares
that tear holes in the fabric
of my thoughts
I could never find the right
way to translate them to paper.
The old cliché is that a picture
is worth a thousand words.
I think I can honestly, and with humility
claim that I’ve gone far and beyond
that number and I don’t think
anyone really gets it.
You can’t get inside,
in between these temples
and see what neurons firing
violently can do.
The color red is most vivid
in my dreams.
A red so powerful and bright
you could say it was almost
ideal.
When it fell upon the shoulders
of a black dress it was
like a bomb exploding in my
retinas
even though I wasn’t
really seeing it.
And then again, the black
against the paleness of the walls
to where the skin of arms
almost fades into the skin of the wall.
And the color only becomes more striking
when surrounded by
gold, black and bronze clockwork
ticking away her steps as she
added the distance between us
and my hope was subtracted
from the moment but…
With such vivid colors,
my mind must have become preoccupied
because the thought never crossed my mind
whether the color would come back or not
and I woke before I could find out.
And when dream becomes reality
I realize it is time that I hold fast to
what I have and to the hope
that when colors are painted
on the inside of my brain
only to be let loose on the
white of a page in black characters
that while my nightmares may come true
the reality of the situation is,
I must maintain grip on hope
that my dreams may see the light
of the canvas yet.
In bright red.

A Post in the Moment

I hate to see you cry. Knowing you’re in pain is hard enough. But what makes it hard is I may never know why.

Hitting the Ground and Breaking Open Wide: An Unsent Message

I could write a million words about the way
I’m feeling but in the end it amounts to nothing.
And I’m okay with that.
I could crack my pen in half
and throw the ink down paper hallways
and it still wouldn’t matter.
My keyboard could be pounded
until the keys crack, break and cease to function
and the matter will have still remained the same.
This pain, this fire in my gut will not go away.
For the brief moment of eye contact
we communicated miles and your smile
broke a week’s worth of pain
and if only for a moment
the screaming in my head was silenced.
I’ve tried to compose myself
and tried to make my feelings well-dressed
but the tie is too tight
and it’s choking out the life
and the pressure underneath is building
and eventually I know that something is gonna break,
the floodgates would open.
Well, the water is rushing
roughshod through the valley of my mind,
filled with words, flushing out
curses and aspersions and wrecking everything,
letting it all come flying out.
So, let me lay it out for you, princess,
in the only fashion I know how
and you just see what sticks:
I know my heart breaks wide open
when I see you spilling fuel
to the fire in my gut that just won’t stop
and I’ve learned that there is no
managing this condition.
I don’t even try.
I know that when yer being yerself
I remember who you were and who yer becoming.
I know the most difficult part of this is
that we have made ourselves
silent to each other only passing small messages
that are there only so we can remember
each others presences
like we would ever forget everything between us.
There is a mountain of words there
that now divides us
as we continue on walking down that path
towards the light.
You’ve opted for that light and are seeking it
childlike instead of relying on rays
from this burnt out blacklight sunshine
and for that I could not be more thankful.
I am a poor substitute for anything in life for anyone
in most things.
I accept that as true and let Him who Is work through.
And I pray He does the same for you.
That I know more than anything else.
More than I know the feeling of tears
welling up as I type this,
as I realized this started as a simple message
about how, selfishly, I miss you
and how I fight with myself to accept
this is where you need to go
and that I must resign myself
to the one thing that has never been between us
since we met and that is
silence.

Blacksmith’s Psalm

Shoved into the fire
now let the hammer
strike.
Mold.
Shape.
Form.
Back in the fire,
become more familiar with
the hammer as it
strikes.
And strikes again,
the resonating cry from the steel
as it bends to the will
of its aggressor.
And even now,
I can feel your hands
turning me in the fire
only to bring me out
strengthening me to seek
and defend a kingdom
fit for a princess,
a pauper
a loser,
someone worthless like me
I am lost without your anvil and hammer
your testing fires
that help you
to define me for
later tests of strength
for times of war.
Maker, forge me well.
My shell is strong but I
break too easily under pressure.
The contents of myself are
cracking and bowing
at the weakest of blows
these days.
Into the fire goes the steel,
under the hammer
it sustains
blow
after
blow
after
blow.
From the hammer
you sustain me.

The Tide Began to Rise

I heard you speak today in a real conversation but it wasn’t with me.  It reminded me how much I missed you.  I was jealous of those people in the room with you.  My depression overwhelmed me.  This song sums it up well:

The Tide Began to Rise
by Demon Hunter

I don’t belong here
I never saw this on the path I walk
The blood-stained walls, the lines of chalk on the floor
Its getting so hard
I never saw the backlash, when the tide began to rise
I can’t remember
The way it was when everything felt right
My mouth held shut and eyes sealed tight with control

So I remember on the inside

I found a dark, infernal place, I don’t wanna face anymore
Somehow I won’t stop feeding the pain
My heart’s just the same as before

So now I’m stuck here
Between the guilty and the insincere
The words I’ve spoke have left me here all alone
I should have known this
I never saw the backlash, when the tide began to rise
I wish it all gone
I could’ve burned it when I had the choice
And now I’d die to kill this noise in my head

If this is all the love my spirit can give
Just take it back tonight
There is not a reason more to live

Ways

Prayers with open hands
reached to sky
welcoming showering stars
of blessed words and healing
fire purifying gold to
show my reflection,
Your reflection
from an image-bearer
I cannot breathe without you
but my soul aches for things
And worries about cracks in the glass
and when the whole thing will shatter
You are support
while I am failing
fantastically in everything.
And while nothing ever quite
goes my way I always
smack my forehead in
aggravation and remember
it’s not my way but yours.

Bearing the Silence Well

I have beared this silence
Across slumped shoulders
I hope you heard
The words I screamed
Into the silence next
To your ear
So only you could hear.
It’s been difficult to
Hold it all in
But in the process I’ve been
Letting a lot go.
I miss the days
Now gone, forgiven
With you.
I miss my friend
And that I must carry daily
It will be hard waiting
However long it takes
To tell you what’s happened
In the last couple of days.
The hurt and the healing,
The forward progress.
I’m reaching up
Instead of out and around,
Tearing out
Instead of storing up
I wish that you could see…

Perhaps it is time…

Perhaps it is time for me to put a real post that doesn’t consist of cryptic poetry about how depressed I’ve been lately. And I have been depressed. I’m going to be real about it for once in a venue I assume is fairly safe because only people who care about me enough to tell me I’m being stupid in a loving manner actually read this.

So, that season began back around November. It’s the season where the control of myself that I am almost consistently able to maintain over my emotional states goes completely out the window. No amount of medication or therapy has yet to bring about any sort of solution. I have prayed many times for it to stop and be taken away with no response. I think I can safely say I can relate to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7-8. Did you know that depression is very humbling? I didn’t really think about it until just now but it is. I have to reach past my pride to tell someone how I’m feeling which is not as easy as it sounds. Telling someone who does not understand what it feels like to the level at which I have experienced it is a lot like talking to a wall. Something I still struggle with, however, is “counting it all joy” or rejoicing. When all hope seems lost in most cases, God feels most silent.

I have been attempting to continue to read but I have found a greater ferocity in my hunger for the word. Even when I’m not reading it I am contemplating it and running it over in my head. Some of that has to do with a sermon I’ll have to prepare in the coming weeks but I have also just wanted to read, learn and understand. Jesus, as he should be, has been very central in this. I have the gospels but there is SO much out there on the criticism and the historicity of it all as well. I believe the gospels are true but to add historical context to a scholarly level is intriguing to me. And I don’t mean the Jesus Seminar because that is not scholarship but skepticism at its lowest. N.T. Wright, J.P. Moreland… these are the men from whom I have sought my information but I keep going back to the Gospels and it just lights a fire I’ve felt before but never understood. I think I do now but one who can never be certain of mood indications. It is similar to that in Lamentations 1:13:

“From on high he sent fire;
into my bones he made it descend;
he spread a net for my feet;
he turned me back;
he has left me stunned,
faint all the day long.

Or perhaps Jeremiah 20:9

If I say, “I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name,”
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire
shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.

This raises an interesting question that I’ll leave as just rhetorical.  Since God knows us before we were formed in the womb, does it stand to reason that all people or, perhaps, certain people would be given specific names to mirror their purpose?  I only ask because both verses are ascribed to Jeremiah the prophet and they resonate greatly with me.  Just food for thought.

I feel a great sense of purpose being at this school.  My classes are keeping me on my toes, my reading is keeping me engaged intellectually so that I am not getting bored.  I am taking my required course in homiletics right now and I am so excited to start but with no explanation.  By that I mean no basically logical reason other than my belief in Jesus and belief in the word.  And yet I am also troubled by a class that I am taking as an intensive course called Personal Evangelism.  The assignments are all pretty simple for me except the final assignment:

Post-class assignment (Final Project). Each student will be expected to share a Gospel presentation and their faith story with someone who is living their life apart from Christ.  Students will write a three to five page documentation/critique of that conversation.

I’m praying that the methodology in this course explains this better because, I’m sorry, but I’m not the type to just cram the Gospel down someone’s throat.  I’m hoping this isn’t the case, otherwise the professor and I will have to have a discussion.  But we haven’t gone that far.  If you’ll notice, I’m really big on planning ahead.  I’ve been getting homework done early for that very purpose.  I cannot fall behind, I cannot miss sleep and I cannot come as close to failing my classes as I did last semester.  It doesn’t look like it is pointing that way yet but I still worry.  It’s the whole uncontrollable anxiety thing, comes with being crazy.

I worry about her a lot. I can’t help it.  Together or no, I’m not going to talk about that, but I do worry about her and I worry about her worrying about me.  I worry that she won’t talk to me because she is predisposed to staying away from people with my condition having experienced it in her past.  I want her so badly to understand that I am not that way and even if she feels she has to stay with me because that’s what she is being called to do then so be it.  I won’t like it and I’ll worry all the same.  I just wish there was more communication and less of her avoiding problems if we have them like I’m going to treat her like crap and belittle her for what is causing her problems.  I just don’t know, I really don’t know and I pray and I pray and it is one of those things that maybe I have been given the solution but really don’t like it so I’m ignoring it because I also associate it with the mess of problems I have emotionally and psychologically.  GAHHHHH!

If all we have is God then we ought to be more than content.  But, if that’s the case, then why does it hurt like it does?  If we are relational creatures than we should solely rely on God but seek relationships with believers around us.  Shouldn’t we?  Are we not meant to love one another?  It hurts to feel alone.  Most people would seek comfort in those they love and trust.  It does not serve you well to be silent on matters that hurt you.  Unless you’re me and you can only relate it to some sort of imbalance in your brain, you have a cause for sorrow and I think you must give it to God but, in most cases, shouldn’t we be willing to share our sorrows?

I am grieved right now.  Worry has taken my mind away from things.  I shouldn’t be anxious but I am.  I can’t help it.  God be with you and me.  And to all who were kind enough to read this.  May the Father of all things lay his blessings on you.

This servant hurts.

I’ll feel better in the morning

I couldn’t tell you how it started I
couldn’t tell you how it began
but it seems to me this track is
replaying, repeating inside this
trapped brain that screams for relief.

I want to run.
Unhindered and unchained,
let me see the inside of the outside
with these wild eyes
stinging with tears
as I scream
I scream until my lungs bleed
and continue to be until I feel
I no longer need ‘em.

I can’t
breathe.
My eyes won’t
focus
my legs won’t mend or bend
to lift me up and away from
myself.
I don’t expect you to understand
This is a context, a country a continent
you have never seen.

If no man is an island
then the water around me
isn’t really there
but I think this man
is an I-land
an eye-land
Where only I see what’s
happening
and only through
dark lenses because
sunlight is a hazard
I am not here for your sympathy
or empathy
I just want you to
understand.
Maybe I want
to understand
the rhythm these ghosts
in my head dance to
because there is no
rhyme or reason to their
appearance.
They will haunt me always
and I must at least
understand this.

Right now, all I see is
everyone else
and then me.
I am a dark beacon
among the broken legions
I am invisible and silent
like the winds off the tides
that I’ve never felt.

I try not to mourn for myself,
My chin does not know the direction
down.
But the supports that prevent collapse
bend sometimes.
Held strong with the thought
things will be better in the morning…
I promise.

Quick update

Got my syllabi
Lots of reading this semester.
A number of papers to write.
I must revive myself to this pace.
Just letting you know
it hasn’t killed me yet.