Prison Walls Changing

Author’s Note: This is republished and revised with my permission from my original blog at https://kittiephoenixromans08.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/prison-walls-changing/.

I stare at my hands–empty, dry, calloused.
I look into my heart–empty, broken, icy.

Decades ago there was a soul I thought the world of.
I grabbed that soul
And let go of all others.

One soul for dozens…

The trade was no good.
The resulting brokenness can’t be undone.
Season after season,
The same heart-wrenching guilt
Strangles me but begs for voice of release.

Forgiveness was granted,
But reconciliation and restoration never materialized.
They hang in the vapors
Distant and uncrystallized
Like unfulfilled longing and dreams never pursued.

I want what I used to have
And can never have again.
I want to press on and begin anew
But cannot let go of the empty past.

I don’t walk on water,
So I can’t fix what I’ve broken.

The sorrow hangs about my neck
Like the mariner’s albatross,
Strangling my hope for the future.

Release me, oh God, release me.
Set my world right in Your eyes.
Restore the damage my swarm of locusts devoured to create.

I have no right to know how my lost souls are,
But they’re Yours and You know.

Oh, if never looking into their eyes in this life
Could guarantee the joy of seeing their eyes in the next.

My loss is more than I dreamed possible;
My pain is greater than childbirth.

But life goes on.

I must live.
I must love.
I must choose.
I must feel.