Control Me? Control Me Not.

Control tastes like the finest wine... for awhile.
How I have loved drinking her and loved the wrong things.
Her pursuit is in what could be hers if she's manipulative... instead of certainty.
Discontent with what is
She slides around my heart like sea snakes
Making discernment so hard because it only expands with space.

She catches me with tightness when I close my eyes for the night
Whispering the greatest nothingness I've ever heard.
Shallow, infested waters full of lies of which I'm ready to purge.
Trying to tell me this life isn't the birthing pains of the next
Instead it is Spiritless, hatred and regret.

She tells me I'm suppose to scavenge the earth to find who I am not
Then binge on pointless thoughts that distort every prayer.
Concerned wisdom traded in for suffocating cares.

Chasing prideful false prophecies over the humility of reminiscing and knowing Christ.
Cowering defences come out to play at night..
With snakes.

Yea, I know.
It's fair enough, these years of tormenting have been a lot to take
But don't frustrate truth with what's easier to feel and say.
Like we'll search for healing tomorrow, confession always due another day away.

The storm is mighty and there's much it will shake
Sometimes sitting, waiting and hoping is the only way to see its fury break
The tormenting of control cannot grip me for long anymore
She violently looks for a host and I will not let her encase.

Though she may try to visit, she may never stay.
How can she with the presence of Messianic freedom?
A gift now deep inside me to be found everyday.

I no longer care for guilty arguments of how I shouldn't rest because the devil never sleeps
I was intended to find peace and believe in Higher Authority that protects and casts sea snakes back into the sea.
And I won't scavenge the earth for identity
But I'll eagerly feed off the crumbs of Heaven where I am.

Discernment will strengthen us to find there's nothing new under the sun
So cast your cares, this is a race that has already been run.

Claim what is yours and who you are for every sacrifice He has given.
Insist that snakes slither elsewhere, His protection is freeing even when strange sea creatures try to visit.

It's here we are truly free
Listening, waiting, sitting, speaking, responding, living patiently and with aging wisdom and sensitivity.

Climb

It amazes me when a breath catches me off guard and finds me like it was my first
I go on a lot of walks by myself trying to induce the same freedom
My little actions in the physical are like a step up a steep mountain.

I see the end and know it will be beautiful as the view becomes clearer
As my old ways stay at the floor I've stepped off
I know there will be times for longing at what once was
But the present road is where I'm at and will follow.

I know the climate will change and I'll have to adapt accordingly
I know that even on this narrow path I will walk with others
They too will walk with me.
The air is getting cleaner as I put one foot in front of the other
Even when lamenting makes it hard to breath.

But I stoop down to pick up budding flowers and can't avoid the promises of new life
I wear them like ribbons in my hair to remember which Kingdom I now belong
And the climb strengthens the lungs to sing even bolder songs.

When I'm weak I rest in surprising pastures
They coil around my frame to keep me put
To take in deeper lessons that grow like seeds reaching for maturity.

The day will come where I'll reach the top
I'll see the intricacies of Another's faithfulness
Though I only saw it in part through the walk

I will be in hysterics, weeping before the fullness of God
Knowing the extent of His mercy that I unknowingly caught

I will breathe Completeness, eternal love that I only grappled with a little in human relationships
I will fall on my face with the saints that tremble in amazement with the song of Holy.
A song I heard healing the broken-hearted as they started up the mount of Restoration.

I have simply found a hope for great promises
For myself and for a people looking for Someone to fully trust
I see so many at the foot of the mountain afraid to wander up.
Some with strange walls around them so they can't even see the steps ahead
Making the peak look impossible to reach.

But cry Hallelujah!! and cry nothing less!
There is no greater freedom!
"God be praised!"
We will all see eventually.
He walks with us the whole time so there's nothing much to be achieved
Other than listening for Him so that He might meet us where He pleases.

May His presence weigh on and restore our hearts.
Reminding us what the journey is for

Seeds

There have been times I've been made to feel like a baby while dressed like an adult
There have been times I've been made to feel like an adult while bundled in children's clothing

The combination of the two have left me at an early age longing beyond my years
To be what I'm becoming but certainly, not only

My desire is to accept Mercy's identity.. whatever that means
Because there are times though still brief, where I know Him better

All else has failed me
Even if they're nice deeds

My heart has great interest to hear His rebuilt body breathe
And how she will breathe!
Even if just a remnant

His Spirit cannot be denied where it needs
Chains were never weakened by just letting them be

The Word responds to the heart according to how it is kept
Some grounds still dry where repentance didn't sound like the season where it wept

Some are in a constant state of weeping
But in fear at how the thief might torment

Some grounds seek sensation
But their lack of longing for depth only leaves seeds in a brief sprint towards death

Harsh days are definitely acquired simply by receiving truth
But in time, the seed of that season will be sown into the new

Faith.

You'll be tested if you have it.

Grace.

You'll see its substance like growth in desolate paddocks.

Life ceases in purpose when the Word isn't heard,
read,
spoken,
leapt at,
sat with
and allowed to transform.

Words are powerful things when you pledge allegiance with them
Grounds are only affected when roots take to them

Isn't your heart gasping for air with how it reminds you it's beating?
Aren't you disinterested with everything except for how the Lord is breathing?

How He is breathing on us.
Even now, where we are reckless sleeping.

How a Weary Child Clings

My heart is like a wildflower
None more wild than me
Taking up her roots
In all attempts to be free

I never did understand
The rested looking flowers
So defined and peaceful
Without excess debris

This wildflower has been planted
In more than just different pastures
But across the lands with moats in between
A declaration spoken of by them with intrigue or envy
Grown where I have by desire... or forcibly

I know that You are faithful
And in pursuit of being pleased
Your grounds are marked Holy
Where you welcome in even the wild things
My heart is here made giddy
Like how a weary child clings

The weather has proven drastic
Even a tad extreme
But I grow in hope of a future
Planted by the sheltered streams

Plans made for our tomorrows
How else could we dare
But surrender the anxiety of aging
And accept that You are Just and Fair

Good Lord, when I shall wither
In Your appointed time
I shall become part of Your unfading garden
Fully received on the other side

So this wildflower waits...
With eager patience to see
All come restored
And listens to the strange seasons passing
From this life into so much more.

Power in Confession

You know when you reach those points in life where nothing in the good world interests you anymore?
You know how you use to get so excited about everything and spread yourself real thin?
And then someone labels what you're currently going through as... Depression?


I guess I did credit yesterday too much with the thoughts made at present
Like bitter tasting moments were all there is and I won't live long enough to regret it!

I heard long ago that heaven graced the simple songs chanted by the old and down casted and humility cloaked them with wisdom and contentment...

But...

I'm all about being 'right' AND 'justified'!
And I don't mean by the faith that restores me but the pride that distorts me!
It's like.. I'm looking out a window that is never clean.
And beyond that?
Is fog which makes all things.. unseen.

We're all just learning to mumble and speak and dare tailor responses fit for a King
And find empty mouths full of songs to sing!

Confession.

What if your mind has been tired a LONG time
And your heart searches for poetry but is never satisfied?

Because you felt for the whole world.. but never saved it.

Then spiralled into a year where you stopped and face it.
Figured out where your trust was and why you misplaced it,
Disgraced it and sat with the absence of it
In the presence of darkness.


But the power of Christ stayed with me even in this thoughtless capacity
Where every limb was exhausted from the beatings it'd taken

Look at what He awakened!
And the things He brings life from!

Little people with minor movements but sounding on loud drums that amplify the testimony of things to come!

Numb and used bodies finding feeling and healing!

And quiet voices learning to sing like a Gospel choir
Taking the good news to those who acquire
A better taste for the delicacies that surround them!

Aiding closeness with the Lord who hastily draws near to those who draw near to Him!

To our amazement, He will show us even more and far greater than we chose to see without His Holy Spirit.

He is like a fierce Wind.
That channels towards our dependencies from the deepest parts of Himself.

He takes depression and holds it,
Exposes it and meets us there
Amidst the most silencing despair,
Expressing His concern and promises.


There will be a day with no more pain.
There will be a day we hear the vastness in His name.
I live in the day where the faithless find faith.
There will be a day our tone-deaf spirits will sing angelic praise.

And maybe the days we're looking for are closer than we think!
Maybe they're the very at hand?
We're all here for the blink of an eye,
Mere vapours IN the passing Wind.

Taking in moments of forgiveness,
love
and freedom that could never be second-hand.

Yea, maybe we're on a journey
But we're on it together.

Just learning to HEAR the speech and responses of a King as He makes known to us
And restores all things.



Tell me nothing in the good world interests you anymore.

I could no longer tell you the same.

Mr. Sen

I watched him like a poster and studied his detail...

His rags were the kind that had never spent time with riches
His colour was... homeless.

The kind where his cracked skin baked browner than a brownie
And his naturally black hair was somewhat that of a blondie

His eyes gazed at everything as his dazed state enslaved him
His possessions sized up to a mat and some sniffing glue
What a temple.

I watched him like a poster and he phased me

My identity crisis was that I saw Christ in him
And I wanted to bleed alongside His crusting crimson.

He stood up, once I had that thought.

To the poster on the street light
A little beauty store bought.

She had Photoshop features that had only captured her face
He seemed to be checking in on her in his intoxicated pace

But wait.
Nah, there was more to this man than his hazy eyes.
He rested his hand on her face as if it were the saddest of goodbyes.

I mean this guy was heartfelt... about whatever it was he was feeling.
I wonder if he'd ever had a real love
Or if glue helped him hush the past that'd be screaming.

No matter.

His affection was deep even to a recipient that wasn't really receiving
I saw his frustrated desire to love... releasing

The raw emotion of a homeless man spoke to the rawness of me
About something that needs housing.

If I have or give much without love - I am nothing.
If we watch from afar sheltered by our substances or circumstances

Then the grounds of love are never travelled.

I watched him like a poster.
A poster!

Oldies

I use to think Jesus was for the oldies
Like, a visitor they'd speak of but would never stay
Like, God that walked the lonely road long ago but... at present was on holiday
Like, He was all about eternal preservation... but was unconcerned with the fading


He was full of rules preached by those that called them "good news"
Rules I watched frustrate those I loved
It was a hard government to choose
And run

Clumsy hands trying to grasp their second chance
Certifying themselves with levels like Learners to Advanced
And I tip-toed around their dance but didn't really care for the steps they were taking
I just kept watching how the world was breaking

A bystander in a world full of goodbyes.

Remaining purposeless while I waiting to die
Excusing my ways like, "Oh that? That's ok. And that.. well that's alright!"
Mine were the feet that walked unidentified

Until the night my life was threatened
By the enemy's weapon...

I didn't know hands could be invisible.

I didn't even know I wasn't invincible.

But they found me in my state of peaceful sleep
Took indifferent skies and made them weep

The world closed in all around me because...
They found me
They found me!
And I just let them be!
Because I didn't even know I could be free!

They took me to dreams I'd never seen and never wanted to see again
Until I said a name that birthed.

Forth.

Heaven.

That name I'd grown up around.
Always just outta reach.
Just outta town.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus!
And I was released
Like a whole city of thoughts fell apart around me

Jesus.

A name I had to take into consideration because.
Because:
"Come thou fount of every blessing...
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the Mount!
I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love."

Because.
Because I saw what they had seen!
There were dreamed of Jesus to be dreamt
And my song became Hallelujah like:
"Hallelujah!
I'm caving in!
Hallelujah!
I'm in Love again!"

And now?

Now His story walks with mine
As we walk together unto the ends of time

I mean His breath has filled my lungs!
So now I know Jesus didn't just come for the oldies.
He came for the young.

Tomorrow

Everyday is a new song we're destined to sing
Jam-packed with imagery, identity and meaning
It takes us places that have never been seen - bequeathed for the fools of the land
Righteous moments in between the fleeting
The song follows into our deepest dreaming


I look for You and Your host of signs
You're the reason I sit with these petty rhymes
Either offering violent words collide or the sacred sounds You combine

The most joyful soul still hopes beyond tomorrow
It sees a river shine in all the bright, hopeful eyes that join it
It hears voices aligned with the freedom in forgiveness
I know the Man of Sorrows will greet with understanding
Like the collapse drawn from final breath, we will fall at His feet in thankfulness.
Alongside all the other foreigners of earth, we will feel the completion of journeying with new birth.

But don't give me a song that can only be sung when days end
Don't give me distant ideas to hold to and pretend with
Draw me near despite my considered concerns
See the tongue the song of Holy took and made burn... from the purest of streams

How can I articulate my longing for You? The more I know You the more I need You and the more I need You the more willingness there is to lose to gain everything

I am nothing before them
Before You I am something
Hear the loudest plea of a child, to be seen!
Hear history scream its desire for Your Name
I know my children will lament and celebrate with the same

But as we awake and hear Your kindness beckon, "friend!" our spirits take in what ears couldn't comprehend
Our song fulfilled in the mercy of Yours.
Jesus, Your lyrics make stiff walls fall to all floors.
Weeping faces full of smiles.
A daily song bids opened hands
Every open hand reminds even the joyous of songs to come.

Easy

It's easier to deal with the facts instead of the emotion.
Harder to believe in a lifelong construction than an immediate devotion.
It would be lovely to just let God move our limbs by supernatural energy
But...if we had choice in it all we'd probably be in bed all day not exercising God-given ability.
Easy.
Damn, I wish life were so easy.

But it seems to me once I've survived one issue I'm found by another. Not founded by but.. Found.

I ache within all metaphors, strangers, friends, peers, family, lovers.
See, I'm less interested in what we want... than who we're going to be.
More profoundly, how that decision in you affects the confidence in me.

Easy. People are never easy.
Yet they grow in me a need for them.
Like my tongue needs to taste something sour.
Like my eyes need to see the colours in theirs that also weep.
Like I need to see the sunrise in different countries skies.
Like my routine needs to be met by your surprise.

And that's what you are to me. Surprise!

Dreams and promises grounded in people that are... not easy.
I can live in the world of my own expectations but I don't know if I should try to sway you...
I wouldn't wanna persuade the innate change that takes over you, jades you, shades you, names you. That's your process.

Easy would be like... You are just like me. You just get me. I just get you. But shoot I'm so lifeless without you.
You stimulate life in me by simply not being easy.
So... To all of you.
Thank you.
It's harder to believe in you cuz we're all a lifelong construction. You are the beacons of beauty and deep holders of destruction.

But I see something like you... In me.
Not everything like but, you know. Something.
I'll hang my closed mind on a sorta clothes line that can be tumbled by the wind so that I can understand that we all... wear them. A material manufactured by Closed Minds.

For every face on you is a human body.
I am sistered to you.
We are a force of camaraderie.
Believing in much more than that but maybe some of us just aren't ready to believe in much more an that's ok.

Sidestepping our events, gatherings and rituals.
I need you to know that we generally like you for NOT being easy.

Sometimes I can't even listen to our music because it's easier to deal with our facts instead of emotion.
I grow up weary from all our stories that sing, "betrayal." And then sometimes, "devotion."

How the hell am I suppose to keep up with that?
I do understand the logic of a recluse seeking comfort from her cats.
Dude, I'm not far from her.

But your reality teaches me and puts my loneliness to rest. So I guess... I'm still on the train of thought where I thank you.

Thank you for the times where you've tackled me with love and made sure I was embraced even when I only sized up to paper thin.
Thank you for your arguments and for occasionally letting my uninformed side win.

Thanks for feeding my fears and making me less fearful.
Thanks for all the years where you have been dedicated to being my people.

Thank you for giving up on me and for silencing your voice in my life... for asserting your thoughts were I thought they'd never belong, like the sharpest of knives!

For letting me know how I've been so right and yet equally wrong.
Thank you for calling others out of lies, for acceptance ...and for seeing treasures in people where they might be buried very... deep down inside.

Thank you for your part in rehabilitation. From one-on-ones to transforming entire communities spreading gifts of reconciliation.

Thanks for your doubts that cause others to question their foundations that might have not been all that foundational... after all.

Thank you for leaving me alone and for lending your heart to mine in my most absent hours
Thank you for how you act like a desert to my soul and the most tropical of showers.

I'm content to share a world with our vast dynamics that act like a promise to live through.
Thank you for the fullness of all that a relationship offers in you.
These twinkling, blurred and abstract city lights look like refreshments today.
So I thank God finally where He should've always been first.

Words & Sounds

A commitment:

To coloured picture sounds that spread my soul over the spaces of
life.


Spaces. Abstract and straight-forward places that a similar kind of mass fills.

Ideas. That tip-toe around systems for efficient personal growth.

People measured by the COMPETITION of what they do know and forgetting about the art of what they don't.

Touch me, O world!
And destroy the predisposed COMPOSITION of what's playing inside me. Cuz the notes!

How the notes sound within when I fill the spaces that satisfy them!

Unwind me!
Because sometimes life feels like those dark cartoons that chase the ones running away politely.

My loved ones and I see the desperation for more than thoughtless wires!

With wires, coloured picture sounds start to choke. They choke. You choke. We choke. I choke!

Those spaces become cupboards that are never filled
Those words don't stop flowing but they occupy landfills and scrap-yards that weigh on my consciousness until matters get worse than just choking.

Friends and family start to look like inanimate objects, not people I'd fend for and protect.
So I stop pick pocketing identity from all these distractions
and hear a language I haven't heard in awhile say to my canvas,
"You forgot yourself, something precious. Remember in this moment reserved for how you wept bitterly in light of this."

Revisit.
Revisit the substantial images that you learned to speak
Remember how words brought forth strength on the days when people were nothing but weak

Learn from the stories that many villages have taught you to see with.

Oh... That's right. To see!

I guess that's the only reason why I ever really did like poetry.
It gave me more to see than intimate sorrows robbed of dignity

But God gives us stories... so that He can do all sorts of guiding
And we just bounce blessings in disguise to those living in the survival of their stories, not yet able to be writing.

"Come find me!" I said to the Reason why.
Who then took my little left hand, canvased it with coloured picture plans and humbled me.

You've heard it been said that someone came alive after having been pronounced dead.
The same can be said about my heavy heart and hardened head.

I'm graced. Graced with the life-long struggle of: I was blind but now see. I was mute but now speak.

I was blinded but now see, mute but now sing! Back and forth between blind but now see.

And such is our experience as we live to loosen writing those coloured picture sounds we confide in.
That we're guided in.
That we die and come alive in..

Hunger

Everyone hungers.
But I know now it's for more than this empty purse could give.
Everything use to be so urgent!
Like MY LIFE was the detergent that would scrub wrong things right!
But I'm finding that change asks for a lot more than just me.
Though I've learned I'm not fully confident in anyone, save my Saviour 1 in 3.
Everybody's hungry.


Can't you see our hunger?
I know trials simply test the value of the life in which we believe
But don't we see the weary eyes that greet us with smiles as they wholeheartedly grieve?

I've learnt that the symbols of peace are hospitality to the houses that thorns prick at from beneath, fiercely and wildly.
I know. I know that character is built even if it eventuates from the resourcefulness of tears.

But hunger just reminds me of how much I'm waiting.
We weren't damned from the day we were born but we get older along with our perspectives, ever fading.

I have to know there's a Day out there where I will see like child again...
Released from all the hunger.

I admit, I can be a cranky old soul.
Because waiting can sound like mouths birthed for truth exploding into emptiness.
It can feel like a sickness that deepens as we avoid and dismiss each other.
It can look like dividing my allegiances with people because I can't understand why they'd hold my hand through the foulness of me.
It can seem like free people mourning about their loss of sight when THEY chose not to see.

Joy comes in the morning.
And I have felt sooooo guilty when it doesn't.
I'm pretty good at faking excitement. Watch! "Joy comes in the morning!"...
Tomorrow's another day but joy might be months in the making.
It might not be tomorrow but maybe joy comes through the M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G!
The stance of waiting, though with lessons in appointed time, is cousin to Do-Nothing. I can tell you she is sour like a lime.

And ours would be a pointless life if we didn't press for more.
Now I said press. Not stress.
Stressing is usually the prize of comparing and surprise! I am NOT you:)
But I do know change starts with an interaction between all sorts of twos.
Our hunger makes US reliant.
Our waiting gives US time.
Our togetherness is one of my greatest hopes because joy will be written on our foreign lines.

Everyone hungers.
But I know now it's for more than this empty purse could give.

Belief

There's so much more than vanities to listen to.
A whole world of unseen to remember, tend to and live through.
There is hope on a high hill calling promises out of the valleys.
So many ways of life to engage with yet hope only responds to me on one.
So many hearts can tell what's to come yet only few will acknowledge it.
There's so much about God that's believable but only few trust in the fit where this sits.
We wear heavy burdens like fashion but His yoke is light... Here He enlightens mysteries.
There's so much compromise and such unwillingness to be set apart and different when it's here we're free.
So much passion weakened by performance, such loneliness when we were made to appreciate the strength of Body.
Such distance and war between those destined to be networkers and peacemakers.
Ours is a message of deliverance but I only see a portion of us accepting the delivery.
To see this is true.. all you need do is look at me!
I wear Christ on my heart but so much of Him I'd like to think of as a sticker that can be taken off with remnants of who I was made to be.
I believe in the miracles I read about and see but so much about His Spirit I'm afraid to fall on my face and be humbled by as it starts to be seen.
His goodness watered down by oceans but I promise when I'm older I'll turn off the hose of distance and make more of an effort to change... these things take time?
These "things" consist of excuses and fear that would have me believe... my culture is a right of passage that is right for me to receive.
Age included. How many young adults do you see taking themselves too seriously? These years are suppose to be about fun and...easy?
If Christ fits in the routine and façade then welcome is He!
If He wooed us to more than comforts you could find us under the signs that read, "Nah. Not me."
If He blesses us with healing you could find us hanging on to the entertainment that He calls sulking... We just call it identity.
I wonder about the lives we'd live if we trusted in the promises He calls out of valleys on to high hills.
I wonder how else the valleys would change if beacons lived as they were sent to.
His yoke is light... Because mysteries are enlightened.