Fear in a Prayer's Home

Photograph from ShutterStock

In this city

where dark clouds have found a home,

I wake earlier than the dawn,

with all the countries inside me angry.

The poetry I write is of desecration

and bitterness fills the veins of my words -

nothing holds my heart but

the road signs which lead to

culverts full of discarded nights.

.

Discontent comes off the prayers

laid out on altars in ancient temples,

and the irony of love being in absentia

is not lost on those who know bitter.

It's unironically cold today

and there are statues of gods lying

with their heads smashed, on edges of roads,

like sad dreams thrown out of speeding cars.

.

If this is where we all end finally,

then I am merely the flotsam

the sun leaves behind

after every high noon.

.

So much of this prayer

is nothing but a tired recycling,

though deep inside I know

every thought I think is only my fear

talking like thunder;

look closely, and I'm really

scorched earth masquerading

as rebellion.

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Photograph from ShutterStock

We are so quick to judge violence as communal, religion as bigoted, and protest as biased.

But do we realize this same person we threw our abuses or opinions at is also a person who trudges back to a home, tired, bloodied, pilloried. That he opens a door to a darkened house and searches for that one person who doesn't judge him, someone who knows deep inside that he is merely afraid, whose directionless life is given purpose by someone who saw - the tiny afraid boy inside that hard exterior, and sought to give purpose.

That this man does pray, does believe in the power of a prayer. And when he runs down the street with fire in his hand and screaming God's name, he is merely invoking the name to protect himself from himself.

The road to perdition is strewn with broken hearts, dreams, intentions. And a tired man finally appeals to a  god made of stone, when all his entreaties fall on the ears of men who had hearts of stone.

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Hear the poem:

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