Welcome Home

The curse of the Gardens’ labor pains manifest themselves
in the face of this creaky house
I’ve been building since the age of six-
hands unskilled in working with the weight of wooden glory;
this is where His labor has me,
hoping against hope
one day this place can sustain life
because right now, I’m not so sure…

Walking through the front door,
the air exhales the same stench of lusting
and taking,
the same heavy breathing,
that filled the Garden after the Fall.
The room is quiet with swallowed “no thank you’s”
and I can feel the treads in the carpet
of large footprints
in and out the front door
under my naked feet.
No one lives here because no one stays
this is just the place to come and play
since the first day when the devil said
“little girl, let’s play.”
Game on-
I won
an itch for sexual satisfaction
that became immune to my hands scratching
so I invited him in to help me reach it
and then a new him
and then a new him
and then a new him.
Humming a hymn lamenting the lost
of my skin
under the devil’s fingernails
scratching my back
that forever itched.

I walk on glass into a kitchen
scrubbed clean and empty,
a picture perfect catalog
haunted with moans of the dying.
There’s a table set seating my groaning hunger’s company:
headaches and fatigue;
for old time’s sake we get together to
throw good food away and
rearrange the remnants on my plate.
Ana, the starving baker, feeds those who come,
but lets her stomach feed on herself.
She hides her decomposing sanity well,
oh, I hid it well.
One and the same, Ana and I
and if we keep this up,
together we will die.

In my bedroom
at the end of the hall
the darkness sings to me
songs of the sirens
in Homer’s Odyssey
and I dance to them
right into the arms of my lover,
Depression.
He pulls me under the sheets only to suffocate me
stuffing my mouth with the rags
I use to wipe my self-induced scars with.
I know somewhere love is waiting for me to reach out
but in my madness,
I can’t see Him reaching out for me

—-

One day, a Carpenter walked by this
condemned house
of no use to Him and
saw a home to dwell in.
By grace this is a story of anomalies:
because He bought this desolate place anyway.
My God,
He bought me-
paying more than the price of His own life,
He paid with a promise to restore it.
and He works diligently with the same
blood, sweat, and tears, it took Him to walk up Calvary
the same hill this God forsake-me-not house rests on
hands skilled in working with the weight of wooden glory.
He built a foundation of faith and courage to believe that
for the rest of my life,
I can confidently sing
“take me home”
and be welcomed with open arms
through the door of hope.