In my soul there sits a cup of coffee, poured over ice, sweetly bitter and velvet on the tongue. It sometimes mistakes itself for a glass of wine, always red. Somewhere there is a book, of course. Bound with leather and the scent of nostalgia, filled with alluring secrets and far horizons,  it often thinks itself a beautiful woman. Cascading midnight hair carried by beautiful poise and prose, promises of far discoveries and secret gardens all eagerly pulling me into a reverie of introspection. Adventure, plunged in swash-buckle rises in every nook: the yearning hunger for, not the triumph of. Veiled forests of Sherwood compete with forgotten isles of Monte Cristo.

It lies in that beckoning horizon just over the next bend, one more shared sunset, one more rising storm, one more far-eyed sunrise away.

Hungry

It’s you and me. We have this wind right here and it’s blowing hard I can feel that heat that breath that long, long pause. Don’t see those clouds hazy white don’t see that moon hung so still. Wisps of black around my face, cold breeze brushing against your neck but that breath so warm hungry against my chest, that touch so light, shivering down your back. Sand is soft and waves are light and all you hear is this breath so loud. No holding back no stopping now this long, long moment a hundred cracks, ready to be broken, hushed and hoarse.

Providence

Grace separates my sentiments from the churches around me and I feel as if I must always betray one for the other, faith for community while knowing that at the same time that one is never complete without the other. There can't be a balance for this, but an ideal that should never settle, never compromise while at the same time so deeply seated in compassion an ounce of bitterness not be found.

Perhaps in that irony it is the quality of their grace that provokes and disgusts me, and the quality of mine that gives it such power over me. This is, and has always been my wall, Christ notwithstanding; to spurn a God who is accompanied by such condescending ignorance is derisively easy. To live and love a God surrounded by it is infinitely harder, but strangely enough...or perhaps not so strangely...my faith has only grown the more adamant for it.

Who are you that boasts of Godliness to weep and plead over my salvation, then wield such fear-steeped ignorance on a purpose you have never fathomed?

And who am I that claims and clings to tatters of a recycled faith to scoff at the fears and anger of a people that seek comfort more than truth, wallowing in my own condescension? I am no better and no worse, living in a balance when I should be striving for an ideal.