I am alone

I ache to find
some solace in you, Lord.

I rest my weary, cut up hands
softly across my knee
as silence stretches me from my insides
and I struggle to hear sounds of you
struggling to get to me.

but instead
the echo of 4 agonizing words (there is no heartbeat)
keeps singing me to sleep.

I try to form some kind of sentence
that might explain the hell i’m in
how the fires that once cooled my doubt
have prematurely burned themselves out

and I am simply, alone.

it seems if I stare too long at these stained glass windows
you become even less and less real to me,
and the others kneeling around me
with such certainty and purpose
make me cringe with embarrassment
and disdain.

but I know these pews have also seen
thousands of disgruntled worshippers —
the stench of their skepticism and resentment
knowingly pats me on the back

oh no, I am not alone

as I allow a random montage of the world’s misgivings
to haunt and plague me

violins playing beside heroin addicts
waves crashing around stillborn babies
crosses dipped in unmopped blood
a headless Job, a sun-kissed Satan
an unmatched God
throwing up his own damn hands in desperation

and my own sorry self
trying to swat the flies away.

I shake my head
and press my hands together
(some tiny piece of hope
persists)

I reach out to light a candle
I reach out to touch you in the darkness
I look down to find the candle lit
I look around

and am alone.