lack

the sun sets ever so quietly behind me over the mountains,
but it's dragging a rope with it that's attached to my heart. the farther it falls,
the tighter the rope gets. a chokehold on inner turmoil.
the gold races along their little feet in the grass as they wrestle and tumble. i swing my legs back and forth underneath me,
just watching them. and feeling things i don't even realize i'm feeling.
i'm running through the motions, but it feels like the me now watching through the eyes
of me seventeen. i love them all so much it hurts.
it was a murmur that people with the best virtues make them vulnerable,
yet here am i -
my arms clutched around my ribs, trying to hide the fact my heart is being pulled to pieces.
it hurts so much i might burst, but i cannot let them see.
i want them to know, but the weight of it is something i'm not willing to bear.
i don't want to be like this. i want to be bold and brave, willing to lend my hand to them
without them asking for it. willing to let myself be rejected.
there's something wired in me that retracts and silences.
something within me that makes me sob my eyes out all alone after they leave. because
there was a chance and i feigned blind until it was over.
that doesn't say much about the girl who claims to love (i do. i don't how to make it clear.)
how do i tell you it isn't as easy as you want it to be?
you'll tell me what to do. they will. but you just don't get it.
look through their eyes - a slithering tongue in my mouth, they fall back into a robotic uneasiness that shuts off any chance to make it hit them. they take the path of disconnect,
"it's not for me."
they're broken, don't you see? and i'm over here sniffling behind my hand because i don't know
how to tell them that their certain steps are actually feeble.
the dark greens toss with the small purple wildflowers, and i am handed a bouquet by the little girl
who had been set upon ripping all of them to pieces just minutes before.
just a fragmented art of alteration from rebuke.
in some ways, i am cut from the same cloth as them, stripped even to the bone.
even if it's just a hint of legalism, i take two steps back and almost turn on my heel.
it's not much like living if freedom isn't provided.
i know, i know! you say that's where liberty is most found, but i can't help but feel
claustrophobic in limitations placed.
extend graciousness to my hesitation, for i am not eager to step into the pool of monotonous
that lacks the abundance i know that there is behind sacred truth.
yet don't leave me where i sit! bring me to my weary knees that i may pour out my spikenard
upon the solid feet of Him who is so precious to me - (first yet i was regarded precious, blood spilled
on my behalf).
if it takes the sun with a lasso around my heart to make it spill,
let the noose tighten until every ventricle and atrium rupture into a holy mess.
when called to bleed, may i bleed. when called to weep, may i weep.
when called to die, may i die.
for i know the voice that calls me, and i know that there is plenty given to the one who gives plenty.
less of me, a shaky exhale. less of me.
and more of - who?
Him.

/x