Hushed Between Heaven and You

Faith at war with despair,

So held and hushed,

Constrained in disrepair,

I rake my fingers through grayed mantle,

Age hanging heavy like a bound prayer.

What sadness has broken,

Before dawn’s early light,

Words, both weapon and shield, spoken,

Defense, attack, lying away in whittled night,

We divide, split hairs, and offer platitudes as tokens.

My creased eyes, damp with withheld tears,

Open for the first time,

Clarity of place glimpsed, after too long years,

The youth we were lost, and to death consigned,

Reality and her bitter truth, revealing realized fears.

We are lost,

Crashed hull upon shore’s crags,

Tossed and turned by tide’s relentless cost,

Tribute given in years loved and spurned loves snags

Sold a soul for pound and pleasure at most.

I am at a complete loss,

No direction given or sought,

Still must I count the added tolled costs

Leveraged and weighed on scales for all but naught,

As winters chill freezes the remains in eternal frost.

Still some prayers are answered in tears,

Others in silence given not shared,

And still more I’ve found in realized fears,

Overcoming and overcome by souls bared,

And yet, all with meaning and purpose through years.

Now I am gray,

Fine lines creasing angled corners,

Depression a friend not gone away,

Just hushed to hide around future’s formers,

Lessons learned, glory given and shameful stays