my dad sat me down on the kitchen sink and told me life is but the dripping of a tap well I watched a drop fall and it compelled me to think oh the temporality of birth and collapse as a child the world seemed so slow, but wishing away my years didn’t help me to grow any faster have I wasted my youth? did the wonder in my eyes begin to dim when I learned the truth that the sun does not rise we just follow it around perpetually at the same distance gravity straps us to the ground and I know I was born here, but it doesn’t feel like home much less does this body feel like mine I’m sure I just borrowed it a shell for what’s inside I was made for eternity yet inhabit time and there is nothing new under the sun everything ends where it has always begun and though the light lays all thing bare and discovery sits retired in his favourite chair there’s something awfully beautiful about being found completely undone like a dying man talks about his children like Solomon in all his wisdom can slip his lament like a noose around my neck and then turn around and cut me loose with the most beautiful love song in all of history I should expect that I am writing ramblings about things I am yet to comprehend as if I was there in the beginning or like the way I pretend to know about the kingdom and all its ins & outs or why the flowers of the field are dressed without a doubt in such evanescent beauty yet eclipse every king and throne why are they so utterly meaningless? where is their everlasting home? well some say that diamonds are forever oh, but I would beg to differ because I knew a man who looked upon a lofty structure and said, ‘not but one stone will be left on top another’ not contingent on its radiance both the gem & slate are brothers and there is still nothing new under the sun no song writ that hasn’t already been sung and when it’s all said and done we’ll be holding our hands in unison hoping for a better tomorrow that might never come but what if it does? all those sleepless night will be made worthwhile in light of the son well I’ve had separation anxiety for the last two thousand and sixteen years and you said you’d be coming quickly, but it’s not to my timing that your schedule adheres so if you’ll make everything beautiful in it’s own time well then it’s about time that I stop wasting mine and get my priorities in line oh God divine! if you can hear just give me a sign speak to me plainly because I’m so tired of trying to figure this all out and a mirror dimly lit without a doubt obscures my vision from seeing face to face on this side of eternity give me grace because all flesh is grass, but you will remain Alpha, Omega forever the same

you seem to remember songs like you heard them before you were born like you memorised them in the womb before from its walls you were torn and you came out singing baby it’s no wonder why from that first withdraw and release there’s no point trying to deny that you’re a song bird, but you’re caged by a lack of interpretation everyone around you is an iron bar and your sound gets lost in translation but it’s more, more than simply not being understood it’s the fact that every time you open you mouth you’re faced with the terrifying possibility that somebody actually could and what then? what would you do with yourself? you never liked playing hide and seek, but however frightening it was for you to sit silently alone in the dark of a cardboard box we both know for you that the greatest fear was not in the hiding, but in the being found you’re a midnight sailboat, gallant yet wayward eluding the watchful eye of a lighthouse who’s sole purpose was to be your ever present coast guard, but instead of guidance you see a fiery cyclops and the more you duck and cover the closer your vessel comes to splinters as you remain quiet as a church mouse the paint gets thicker the less often you stir it and as fatigue sets into your forearms you being to wish the same thing you always do that if you hadn’t dragged that tin out from the dusty shelf in the back of your heart and cracked it open you wouldn’t be so disappointed with yourself but I just can’t take this anymore I can’t bear to watch you recoil or relapse one more time when I know your arthritic fingers were made to paint and to write and you lungs to sing and scream although right now they appear ready to collapse but I know you’re voice, you’re a sound, you’re a dance, you’re a rhythm and I’m sorry if anyone every told you otherwise, but it’s just not true and I’m willing to fight for you if you let me, if you let me you think that you’re scared well every monster with his claws in your back is terrified every time you open your mouth or pick up a pen they’re scared to death you’ll find out who you are and become it well he’s jealous you were given something that once belonged to him and he wants it back that old werwolf he’s got his fingers in your ears to keep you from hearing your Fathers voice saying, ‘everything I put inside of you is beautiful, now release who you are’ we’re all listening quietly like statues in the dead of night and as you purse your lips you let out something that makes a pin drop sound like a hurricane, but it’s enough because in that razor sharp moment of clarity you cut yourself and all the voices bleed out onto the floorboards until you’re left with not one, but two because you were never meant to sing alone a duet rises in your heart and your aortas hammer out a cadence to a fever pitch until your lungs are swelling with so much love that fear literally leaps out of your chest, but you grab it by the neck and shatter the window frames as you proclaim, ‘I know who I am’

Sunlight pours in through the cracks of boarded up windows illuminating my apparent lack of vision I’m looking at the world through a key hole and these days I draw my own narrow minded conclusions about what I see and what I don’t, but perspective is limited looking backwards through a telescope and I fill in the blanks with presumption, but that’s a multitude of unknowns left to personal interpretation and I’m a clumsy architect reconstructing the creator in the image of the creation so I can poetically catalogue my limited experience and evoke an emotional response the you hear it organised beyond recognition I could pass you in the street without a glance in your direction because I’ve become so accustomed with acknowledging only what fits within the four walls of my invention and if these boundaries could speak they’d say, ‘we’re exhausted from containing such profound immensity’, but I reinforce them daily and hammer a few more nails into the window frames for good measure because most days you’re a talisman in my pocket and I reach for you only when I want something or it’s convenient, but neither produces anything but complacent regard for our relationship if that’s what you can call it it’s all tailor made relativity it’s the longing for spiritual experience without the weight of accountability and it’s relatively rampant in my perception of a divinity that fits in the palm of my hand without opposition but a mountain is still a mountain irrespective of whether or not I choose to ascend it like a word is still a word and it carries a meaning not dependant on my level of comprehension or believing when did my world become so small? my universe is collapsing at the hand of an amateur these mysteries are alluding to the inescapable you’re not who I thought you were and the subsequent possibility that I’ve had it all wrong is equally as unnerving as the prospect of beginning again deconstructing my lifelong limitations on everything I’m unable to control because I’ve become so comfortable it’s disturbing and I recognise my proclivity for apathy resurfacing the instant my horizon expands unexpectedly and necessitates a response of sincerity sincerely I signed of every letter of our correspondence, but I was only as genuine as the security afforded by the distance they travelled it wasn’t as far as I thought you were conceptual at best now we’re staying face to face and this changes everything! you personify the discovery of all that I been missing not an abstract collaboration of fragmented parts, but holy and tangible with hands and a beating heart abounding in empathy yet entirely unlike me you’re the feeling of coming home to a place I’ve never been the reflection of my daughter in the eyes of her father the image of the invisible residing within another now that I know I can’t go back I’m in too deep for the ignorance required to stay here forward motion compelled by the revelation that you’re not who I thought you were what a relief that I was mistaken I’ve never been so proud to disappoint myself but I admit that I grow complacent in my frailty familiar patterns vie for attention in my mind and then the questions come that have already been answered, but I ask them just the same, like ‘did you see me when I was breaking, and do you hear me when I am speaking?’ I know you see me when I am bleeding and I trust you hear me when I am speaking

unfathomable sea, could you please pull us together would you kindly direct your currents and tides and draw each of us to each others sides haven’t you heard of forever our love is transient at best because it’s on the precarious cliffs of pride and fear that we attempt to build our nests ineffable unity, you’re a foreign concept to the land-locked state of empire and unrecognisable has become the sight of the shorelines beckoning desire we don’t know how to swim we’ve forgotten the stokes that could help keep us afloat maybe it’s because we’re too busy holding on to all we own cutting the circulation to our limbs surrender to me surrender to the sea we’re all just leaking vessels tossed to and fro on every wave as we’re cast as lots so let our fingers intertwine as the water wraps your arms around mine and we’ll be free to fall down into the depths of grace the deeper I go the greater the chasm of unknowing becomes, but it’s a liberating darkness to my intellect that my soul it welcomes as sunshine floods my heart and face could you please pull us together we can brave the storms and whether or not you hold my hand I’ll still grasp you tightly in my prayers lets put our faith in the ocean lets put our hope in forever and hold fast to the mast of our love as it keeps aloft the blustering sails of our family they’re tattered and torn, but sewn together ever so tightly forget your past and set your eyes above surrender to me surrender not to the seeing and believing faithless mindset that says if it’s not visible then it’s fake or at least a well kept secret well this ship’s moving forward and as surely as breath fills the canvas and our family’s propelled onward it’s the wind I cannot see so watch all our seeking vessels tossed to and fro on every wave as we’re cast as lots and let our fingers intertwine as the water wraps your arms around mine and we’ll be free but you never told me about the feather you collected it from me on the beach that blissful day when I gave up my rights to fly away even when it gets messy and I have to sleep out on the deck so our brothers can have a place to say your hands are as tough as leather weathered by the sea and they held my escape loosely yet carefully to your chest tender and soft, but still held but I couldn’t tear away if I tried and by the time I realised that by choosing my friends lives over mine the more alive the more I died I’d still had my wings this entire time so come lets build our nest in the cliffs still unsafe, but oh so good drawing us together like the many sticks and twine and pain and ecstasy and hopefully the sea takes us all though we are drops oh so small but I know there’s rest on the oceans bed so lets cling to this anchor of abandoned trust and ride this one way elevator to the bottom and I swear there’ll be a place to lay down you weary head surrender to me say your goodbyes to the surface we won’t be coming up for air for a while you see I’ve found a home in the sea and sinking’s the only thing on my mind these days I’ve even fashioned a millstone for a necklace you see we’re all just leaking vessels tossed to and fro on every wave as we’re cast as lots so let our fingers intertwine as the water wraps your arms around mine and we’ll be fine

my youth was cast away like a broken ash tray over used and underpaid where disillusioned men extinguish the hopes of those more optimistic than them and there’s a bloodline of generational sin in need of a transfusion, but where to begin? we transpose our pessimism into rhetoric and we call it wisdom and we think we’re safe as the houses that we’ve built around our hearts our heads keep looking for an alternative to the monotony to which we’ve bound ourselves haphazardly in matrimony we need new verbs to displace the language that we’ve learned, but my tongue can’t seem to formulate a response that doesn’t somehow relate to hope deferred or the wilderness of covenant forgot can I remember what I’ve lost? we hung our harps upon the poplars and wept beside the river bank in all my technicolour dreams I can’t unseen the things I’ve seen amidst captivity our native songs seem foreign thanks remind us refugees of our redemptive melody and a fog descends on the valley of possibility and I’m left peering into mystery once again oh what I wouldn’t give for a little clarity, but foreign currency can’t possibly afford such luxuries, but still I hear my name on the wind I taste the salt in the air somewhere beyond the unknown deep in the marrow of my bones lies an inheritance I cannot explain a birthright within my veins but I’m like a sea captain trying to recollect a horizon from his youth, but the water and sky blur indistinguishably at the point of convergence and truth be told I’ve been adrift on open ocean for so long I might not recognise the land from which I came we hung our harps upon the poplars and wept beside the river bank in all my technicolour dreams I can’t unseen the things I’ve seen amidst captivity our native songs seem foreign thanks remind us refugees of our redemptive melody we laid our voices in the dust our tongues of fire swallowed up for all the maps that I have seen I can’t get back to where I’ve been amidst uncertainty we’re colonised by fear of the unknown grant us the courage and faith to find our way back home and the branches of this family tree are severed dismembered limbs stacked on the backs of each other we’re awkwardly fumbling with unfamiliar hands devoid of the strength required to put us back together we were once known as lovers ablaze with potential now we’re smouldering ash have mercy on this restless soul delivery me from the obscurity of exile and make me whole when I close my eyes I dream of mountains that I’ve never climbed, but they’re strangely nostalgic and I think I understand why because they were made to be moved like hope was made to be fulfilled like impossible got stripped from my vocabulary at will and I think it’s high time we embraced the risk of believing because surviving is not the same as living

I’ve been hammering nails into this coffin the same way I’ve been hammering these doubts into my head hoping each one would be the last so I can start living at last, but it’s hard to live when you keep looking over your shoulder trying to outrun your past ‘what’s done is done’, I tell myself my splintered hands agree, but each time I try to bury it the inconsistencies are all too clear between action and conviction between laying my cards on the table and the longing to keep them hidden it’s a gamble that’s for sure no-one said that it would be easy, but I think I’ve grossly underestimated the challenge of vulnerability I want to bare my chest and let you in, but my ribs are working against me like boney fingers restricting my capacity to beat down these walls I’ve build so well you see I’m an expert at liberty until it costs me something ‘take heart’, I hear your words through the discord of unbelief, but I keep wresting with ghosts that I thought were dead dear saviour, pilot me! ‘fear not, I have overcome’, your promise still ringing in my ears, but does it still hold true, I’ve got to know is your faithfulness still independent of my own? because I could use some reassurance now that my regrets are stirring underground I’ve been digging up graves in my sleep the same way I’ve been digging up old versions of myself that I swore I’d laid to rest and although I detest their resurgence it comes as no surprise aren’t we all creatures of habit? I subconsciously reanimate every fault that you’ve forgiven each time I turn away from trusting that it is finished I want ambiguity, but I’m given absolution what’s done is done despite my incessant questioning the goodness of God has become my expertise like I’ve obtained omnipotence, but in reality humility eludes the defensive, but the broken and contrite will not be left empty but I can’t deny that the gravity of unrestrained disclosure terrifies me completely and when I imagine that tree, bloodstained I can’t help but think it was meant for me but the ink has dried, the concrete’s been set, the debt fulfilled the new dawn has broken and the word has been spoken the court adjourned, the war has been won and the new creation born into victorious freedom and you said, ‘take heart’, I hear your words through the distance I’ve self imposed, but I keep looking for an escape that I don’t need make steadfast these wonderings! ‘fear not, I have overcome’, your promise I cannot forget and all my excuses dissolve in the flood of acceptance I could never expect I see your body rent in two still I can’t give an honest answer to a simple ‘how are you?’ the blood flows, I hold my breath teach me transparency while I still have time left

we’re all looking for magic bullets to problems as old as time whether it’s a presidential candidate or the latest pharmaceutical line we want the once and done solution typical infomercial education, but what more could be expected from a generation raised by the television work smart not hard my son we’ve been telling our kids the same for years, but a piece of paper can’t teach you the indispensable value of blood, sweat and tears ‘no guts, no glory’ as my old man used to always say the slogan emblazoned on his favourite sweater as he rode his bicycle to work in the rain and yeah I still look up to him though I’ve got my own kid these days because I’ve been realising that love isn’t a fleeting passion, but a choice you make everyday and it’s beautiful and alive and exploding with wonder, but it’s still a choice a conscious act of will not the knee jerk reactions of desire but we’re all looking for shortcuts to improve our quality of living minimal effort for maximum reward, but the end result is disconcerting because when you’re handed the finished product you can’t appreciate its worth and often learning something the hard way is the only way that respect is earned but when the world is at your fingertips love is reduced to digital invention we order sex like fast food taking pleasure rather than giving affection personalised self gratification objectifying sacred innocence, but when the screen goes blank and the bed is empty you’re left addicted and impotent we can’t microwave a remedy for the disenchantment that’s in our hearts it may have the appearance of being satisfying, but inside it’s frozen solid with the hollow watermark of greed impatient consumeristic lust indulging temporary fulfilment our ancestors would be disgusted and believe me I know the easy way out looks pretty damn good sometimes, but it’s never worth it there’s nothing glamorous about the narrow road no outward attraction to allure the traveller you can’t sugar-coat long suffering it’s a humble path for sacrificial lovers what else could motive such an expression of countercultural resistance but for the joy of laying down your life and in the surrender somehow finding it oh adulterous convenience! I’ve slipped between your sheets too many times to recall, but just because you’re accessible doesn’t make you seductions any less detrimental I’m running back to my first love counterfeits will no longer suffice I regard every alternative as worthless for the sake of communion no matter the price I rather endure a thousand years of back-breaking labour by your side than abide in affluence under the illusion that I’m not absent from your presence because your nearness is my good for what does a man profit if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul, but as for me I choose intimacy over security your nearness is my good

prairie dust in my lungs another unmarked highway straight as the skyline black hills like ink I spilled writing this all down in my mind another mountain range now resides I lost sight of the woods another memory venerated in the sun that beats down on my back borne against the wind I am the dust of earth and I exhale the man I wish I’d been and the distance between where I am and want to be seems to lengthen every time I think that I’ve finally arrived recurrent white lines stitch the road together for miles on end as if in an attempt to achieve some level of unity despite its opposing directions some compromise but we adhere religiously to our respective sides and bound by the laws of this world we pass each other by so close yet so far we exist in perpetual parallels well maybe I’m looking for a head on collision because right now my destination eludes direction and every hitchhiker begs my attention with a cardboard sign they’re ever so compelling take us here, take us anywhere we’ve been on the highway so long even the recollection of solidarity is gone, but I keep pressing on and pressing on and pressing on I’ve got to find my mountains and beyond that the sea but no boat waits for me in which to traverse ardently across the ocean and fall off the edge of the map of my dissatisfaction these hands will build anything they set their mind to and the woods will provide all I need for a vessel to escape the journey and grasp finality finally I can see the forest for the trees and you’d think that I’d be pleased, but no matter how much timber I fell I can’t carry but one trunk down the mountainside alone and it’s just as well I didn’t pick up any hitchhikers on the highway because then I might actually have to share the load and by the way I’ve never been that great at trusting people, but I’m breaking that today so brother, sister if you’re within earshot put aside your indifference and I’ll spit my guts you see I’ve come to believe that we need each other now more than ever we need vulnerability in the face of dissemination we need a resurrection in the lost art of conversation and if we’re speaking candidly then this is for the record we are a children of privilege squandering our blessing honestly we’ve all been through the wars this is for those brave enough to share their story for those trying to let go or hold fast in the storm and the rest of us caught in the tension this is for the sorrow I can’t stitch back together and this is for the kind of pain that lasts forever this is for the reasons I cannot reconcile and this is for redemption the night I lost my child there’s an Anchor inside my heart it holds true every beat is for you son and at the bottom of the sea neath every high and lofty gail I know you’re waiting for me on every dusty road from desert to shoreline hope keeps me grounded though I’m not quite sure why in my frailty I fulfil my design complete dependency on a fathers love for his child we were all lost and broken till we found your loving arms

wash away all my stains no matter the intention with which they were made all my self perfections look up from the gutter at that which they could not attain stars are high in the night sky far am I from being justified in my dreams I see the dawn in my side I feel the flesh in torn in my pride I’m suffering for what’s already done why do I search for the living among the dead? I know that tomb is empty, but I keep going back as if to offer some assistance to the blood that was shed, but the simple gospel could do without being hijacked by religious ambition; my attempts to complicate a beautiful exchange into an encyclopedia of do’s and don’ts to which I’ll never measure up, but I got everything I don’t deserve all at once it has nothing to do with me, but I confuse my identity and somehow think that I’ve qualified to be loved or called your son, but a birthright is earned no more than it’s won I find my breath within your lungs I lose my crippling fear in your arms I exist only because of you I am that I am merely a shadow projected by the truth incorruptible, unobtainable, but somehow you make room for me at your table your mercies renewed at the breaking of day no matter how frequently I try to remove the clay from the hands of the potter I make a mess of myself without fail you think I would’ve learnt my lesson by now, but still you patiently beckon me to come away with you and I relinquish my self-sufficiency and let your voice define me shortest day in the year the rotation of the earth is made perfectly clear seasons shift, wax and wane in the midst of change you’re the constant that remains the same sun hangs low in the noon sky though it’s cold I know you’re made of fire on my neck the hair is raised on my mind are always warmer days in the light of your smile I come undone

I used to lie awake at night praying for a car to drive by in order to break the silence swallowing my bedroom whole and convince me that the rapture hadn’t come and I’d been left behind because surely if someone was out driving this late at night then there must be at least one more sunrise left in this world before the trumpet sounds and signals the commencement of its demise but that passing vehicle offered only momentary consolidation as I anxiously pulled my covers up over my eyes and although that was sixteen years ago I still catch myself looking up to the sky and trying to imagine what it will be like to see it rolled up as a scroll the horizon folded in on itself the light of the noon day sun eclipsed by a radiance too majestic to behold and I think in our own way we’re all either afraid of being abandoned and alone like the kid whose parent forgot to pick them up from school or being confronted and exposed so unequivocally that we’ve nowhere left to run and hide from our transgressions suddenly visible but if there’s no orphans or criminals in your kingdom then why does neglect or punishment feel like an ever impending reality for so many? does it break you heart to look upon that which you fashioned with your two hands reject your advances out of disappointment or fear of reprimand? but the glass is cracked in this kaleidoscope with which I perceive my surroundings my fractured experience projected onto the canvas I paint you in to distorted representation superimposed by the wounds that haven’t quite healed, but I brush it off like it’s no big deal because we’re lonely, but we don’t want to be needy and we’re desperate to feel the embrace of love unconditional despite our flaws, but we don’t want to be judged so standing precariously with toes curled over the edge of the diving board we’re captivated by the deep, but too apprehensive to take the plunge teetering between consciousness and sleep is this what it means to be lukewarm to know the words, but refuse to speak? I don’t want to be a stranger at your gate the confession of my lips a million miles away from the interactions of my hands I want to be found faithful on our wedding day because everyone from conspiracy theorists to the calendars of ancient civilisations to street corner preachers are placing bets on the hour at which the apocalypse will come well I see it around every corner anyway so what’s the difference who’s right or wrong? because whenever I pass by a church yard and the clock strikes its eleventh hour sending ravens scattering from the bell tower I think I see the slightest rumbling at the feet of tombstones and press my ear to the ground in anticipation for the groaning of creation decaying bones aching to be liberated from their prison “It won’t be long now” I whisper into the dirt to whoever’s listening because one way or another we’re all coming up out of the grave an the admission of every tongue and humble posture will be the same but I want to recognise the voice that’s beckoning from chariots of fire because I’ve cultivated a fellowship behind closed doors of burning desire a love that cannot be quenched, but there are days when I feel like a solitary match trying to stay lit in the midst of a hurricane my resolve put to the test because I know that your eyes are searching to and fro across this earth for lanterns blazing brightly at twilight with enough fuel to last till morning welcoming their long awaited thief in the night I don’t want to be a stranger at your gate the confession of my lips a million miles away from the interactions of my hands I want to be found faithful on our wedding day I don’t want to be caught asleep in the garden abdicating my mission of simple obedience hastening the day of your return I want to mourn for the bridegroom with my life I want to be found faithful on our wedding day I want to mourn for the bridegroom with my life