Excuse me….I believe that you and I have a bit of a problem.
If you could cast off your Pharisaical mask for just a moment, maybe you would understand what I have been trying to say.
You are in denial of a few things, so let me shed a little light on the situation.

You craved my kindness, my clever words, you ask for more and yet you eventually returned them with a sardonic slap. Why?
(let me translate, that is a rhetorical question, please do not bother answering)

Are you so cynical of grace, kindness that you give in to your fear and strike to hurt?
Hurt doesn’t just come with vicious words or blows, but can come in the form of silence.
Come closer, let me whisper a secret…you cannot hurt me.
( mercifully, I say that  and yet with a modest amount of sneering venom)

Because guess what?
I have looked evil in the eye and had it’s tragic form cover me.
Once upon a time I tasted betrayal drenched in words of love and even worse….I have lost blood and forced to maintain humility.

After all I have been through, not even you can cause my heart to erupt with fiery anger.
When I feel the heaviness within, my tears will douse the flames and wait for beauty to come back.
Fire will remind me of passion while the ash will cover and guard my heart.

I do have scars upon this self, my soul, that will never make it’s way to paper and yet still –
still
I can reach inside, pursue something hovering close to the surface of what makes me….me.
There is still a deep well of grace, mercy, and love that never seems to empty and I know you sense it.

You chose to reject it and instead become a quiet, elusive thorn that knew where to strike me where it would hurt most-
my intellect, my poetry, my tenderness.
Now you are wrapped up in self-idolatry…….really you are a fool.

and
if you ever manage to look beyond yourself, honestly –
I hope you can look into a mirror and see someone worthy of friendship, worthy of love.
Maybe one day your broken heart will still beat and discover my well has not run dry….even for you.

my utterance fades
words pluck silence
on my heartstrings tomb