I don’t know much about fairness but I’m familiar with justice
and how my tongue twists it into a shape the looks an awful lot like vengeance
I just grit my teeth and pray that grace transcends this hard as iron ire filled temperament
I pray that God plays the anvil that stretches my will into a plowshare instead of the sharpened tip where my temper sits
But regardless of sincerity I always spit out that bridle and bit
Even though the pull from an unseen Masters reigns is to save my steps from the pit
I cloaked myself in fury and shod my steps with purpose
Apathy was my blindfold written inside was the word “worthless”
Thoughts of injustice kept me up at night
But not near as much as my self-righteous soul would like
It’s been 5 years spent picking the lint out of my pockets
Counting monetary gain as loss
It’s been a tacticle struggle to stop from feeling the cost
Of becoming a rolling stone without moss
A slow dance with integrity
A game of crossed fingers theology
Became a tightrope walk of art
and self-serving apologies

Seven is the number of completion
I prayed that seven wouldn’t complete its task in me
Seven sat silently in the corners of my remorse
Discourse brought no course of action for divorce
From Cardinal sins that blinded cardinal directions
given by the ghost that lives in me
My hands knew nothing of what my eyes did
And my feet kept secrets from my mind
So each of my limbs held errors
Which led me to err on the side of caution
But I’m

No longer letting my condition dictate my position
No longer singing and “I was wrong” swan song
Psalmic inspiration without self-minded trepidation
Has helped me to define freedom

I know now that grace is a steam engine
and compassion is a well that won’t go dry
Just like love is a flame that can’t go out
So when God stokes the fire in my chest my limbs act as pistons
I have no choice but to let the steam that rises escape from my mouth
Which makes my body a fractured locomotive beating a rhythm of submission
I’m all forward motion, free fall, and breaking boughs
Hoping to stick my landing somewhere between eternity and kept vows
Which has stopped me from killing myself for over 5 years now
This is for
the ones that have to bench press their blankets every morning to get out of bed
Because the world seems too heavy even from a bedroom window
It’s for the ones who wear X’s on their hands as a reminder of their parent’s mistakes
I pray I can be the salt that mixes with the blood-stained soil and not the added pain in someones gaping reminder
Before I’m plunged back into the ocean I was meant for all along
To become just another note in an entire symphony
Because a note alone just conveys a tone
And most everyone I know is not in harmony
I try to be a man, I plant my feet, I stand like a native son,
I’m trying to make my childish nature forgotten and foregone
I’m no longer content with playing with sticks in the front lawn
(in the light the dark has no place to hide)