I am a lie
A self loving, self hating
Little bout of consciousness
Declaratively relating

I am a desert
Vastly constituted by shifting sands
Mighty and empty
Soulessly existing so grand

I am a desperate mime
Grasping for words to scream
No thoughts to think, no message to speak,
No visions to tell or dream

I am an ocean
Mistaken for depth and wealth
Inspiring to a colony of fools
While drowning at the bottom of myself

What is this treacherous treason?
My actions betray my selfish reason.

Topography

I am a nominal shade, fading like a cooling fire, dying even with the memory of itself. I am forgotten at the core, while weakly present at the surface. My body is fine, my words adequate, my work thorough. I am a void. I am wasted and cold. I walk. I work. I eat and sleep. I pay rent. I buy organic food and fairly traded Christmas gifts. I listen in church. I change the oil in my car regularly. I read books about the world. I watch foreign films. I house hunt. I interview well. I call my mom and tell my wife I love her. I listen to the melody of coffee-shop prophets. But their words only go in my ears. I think that I think.
What am I doing? I have turned this mountain into a flat map.

My God, then,
Why have I given up the fight?
Warring and whoring
As if salvation were a right!

My previous posting has elicited much more response than I expected. I have been asked by at least two people for explanations that I have not had time to give in person, so I would like to offer comments here. Forgive me if they do not fully answer any questions you may have. The poem is actually one that I myself despise at times, and I am not exactly sure why I chose to post it. I dislike it not because of its provocative imagery, but because it is a weak poem. Its imagery is mixed, its rhyme schemes are sporadic, and its intent is obviously less than clear. Moreover, the poem represents unresolved emotions and complex issues that still leave me unsure.

I wrote it at a time when I worked for the church and felt poorly equipped as a vassal for that institution. My representation of the church seemed hypocritical because the church was my shallow tool and method for faking faith. The God that I had so zealously sought had already proved much less tangible than I expected, and my energetic rally became undirected despair similar to that of a passionate young lover, rejected for someone else's romance.

My wounds ran so terribly deep that my only possible hope for coping was to hide my folly and the personal and heinous rejection I felt from everyone - myself most paramount. I played the same roles I always had; the student, the leader, the ready missionary. But play acting was cheap and I knew how surface deep my facade truly was. The book of James tells us that faith without works is dead. Imagine the complexity and torment of works without faith! It was more than I could bare.

As I have said before, I never really stopped believing in the existence of God. The question that has become the unresolved issue of my life is of the character of God and goodness. The poem acknowledges the God that I do not know and the sense of prostituting my soul to an institution that helped me pretend that God was who I wanted God to be, rather than the source of pain torment of my secret life. It also acknowledges the useless masquerade the church would become as people discovered that God was not to be found in a pulpit.

The line that reads: "I will live like there is a heaven, I will live like there is no hell, for damnation is upon me, but Grace is as well," is the meat of what I was trying to say. It expresses the terrible fear that heaven, and heavens expectations, are real. It also expresses the futility of living in a way that tries to avoid hell. For hell is real and we are all in its grasp and under its dominion. Living as if there is no hell means knowing there is nothing I can do about it. Damnation is constantly and justly upon us all. And if we are to have any hope of any other fate it is completely exterior of ourselves and our actions. Free Grace means that God saves by His own desire and ability, no matter how noble or mired we may seem to be. Grace comes by Gods whims. The poem is an acknowledgement that there is nothing, good or bad, that I can do to influence Gods application of Grace.

So, I'm the whore
You're the pimp
And who's our John?
All the buyers are gone
anyway

The pews are empty in the church
They can only take so much hurt
Before they leave
For any other thing
but lies

I will live like there is a heaven
I will live like there is no hell
For damnation is upon me
But grace is as well

God and I have an understanding
He won't ask me to do what I can't
I will ask only what He offers
And what he does not, I will accept

I want to live like there is a heaven
I want to live like there is no hell
I want to live like I were an angel
before the angels fell

"Don't say my name like that,"
Said the plebian to the slow and subtle thief.
I used to be your lover, now I am your child
And I fear there is no relief.

I imagined Dido and Anius,
I imagine you did too.
Neither of us are quit so strong,
Drinking this endless, nihilist brew.

I am deaf to frozen words
No matter how gently you speak.
You search in me for something to hate
But I am not that which you seek.

Fate is not truth;
A lie we too long believed.
We died to ourselves without putting on new selves
And we have nothing left to grieve.