The day your faith was shaken.

It was portence hot winds, the sirocco and blew  
stinging your face  
the dust, the clouds, and reason questioned
blanket laden, the grains that bite at sentiment
the swirl, was this the prophecy
oriental ocult fermentation
the causeway between life and death so narrow
and quicksands threatened the unwary
strong trust we placed in that oasis of faith
it's always, like the font, comfort with words to refresh
the plauge it came like a typhoon's screw
swept up, cast it's net  
bore away, stampeding galloping, like the dust cloud's hooves
to choke and to prostrate
and where was God when that big bad wolf  
came to my front door ?  
 
Did he bring a box full of PPE
 NO; just say a prayer  
that good will come out of tragedy  
 or halt the devil's  grief's conveyor

I had cried out for home    
In the midst of all out wreckage  
An onslaught of bad days    
Bad people    
Bad things to do    
To good people    
To feed a bad habit    
   
There lay my bad seed soul on the filthy carpet    
I had rolled on it    
I had taken a nap on it    
And the polyester fibers    
Had attached themselves to my brain    
The pseudo soft mesh of red dirty    
twisted into grey matter    
   
And I cried out for home    
God I believe    
And no words for him    
Aside from that thing    
In my tummy    
Wrenching that I needed him    
   
And to the alleys again    
Once more in the morning after    
I pulled myself up    
Sticky faced    
And mouth curved an OG grin    
With hip walk down lick street    
My lean serious    
My intent Ill    
The illest    
   
Then behind me sirens spin    
‘‘Twas the cop    
From the night before    
Or, the night of    
Whenever    
Or the day I    
And I probably did    
I don’t remember    
   
But he was sure of it    
And my wrists were soon tight with steel    
Key lock    
And pale faced feeling    
Drained to my knees the rest of me    
Slid into seat    
Customary head tuck    
And to county jail    
   
Booked in    
Fucked up    
Off grin    
I had been too tired    
To argue much that stripes and numbers were not my color    
   
I was going to stay a while    
A little vaca a go go    
Hell no you can’t leave    
But    
At last a place to really sleep    
And eat    
(Insert here any form of gelatinous ooze)    
   
And just to break the serious monotonous    
Time......    
....................(you cannot imagine what whir lies between those kind of) ........ticks....    
   
I found my hustle    
 
For a beautifully    
Artfully    
Passionately rendered Madonna and child I did for a stud broad    
She traded me three e gig filters    
(I shoved up my asshole)    
Aughhh...    
“nicotine baby, hadn’t seen you in a while.”    
   
And I considered this    
And I asked why    
She had fortuned my rectum with this wealth    
   
A big woman they called Squirrel    
Who had sported stripes on the daily    
And would be for 15 plus more years    
Said to me    
“Because I need to make these grey walls home.”    
She stuck up the Madonna    
With toothpaste and spit    
And sat down to pray    
   
And here’s the thing    
About God    
And    
About stud broads called Squirrel    
Both have quite the surprising answers    
To questions    
You ask    
Or prayers you did not know you’d cried out    
   
Prayers like    
I want to go home    
 
And big bad women    
With our lady of perpetual hope    
Lightening the dark of their eye    
Show you how to make it    
 

“History, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived,
  but if faced with courage need not be lived again.”  
                                 ― Maya Angelou  
 
 
I took a giant step backwards today  
into my past, I thought I had left it behind.  
I remembered the sting, the smart of rejection,  
of hatred, of shame;  
I heard it calling my name  
in my dead ascendants voice,  
calling from far away,  
calling me back to pain  
of dying in agony.  
The pain I hid from,  
never wanted to feel again,  
I was brought back to  
that place today.  
 
I wanted to scream out,  
but my words fell lame,  
my mouth fell open in vain.  
I couldn't believe I felt this way,  
so unmoved, so unable to react;  
I was immobilized in reliving this pain.  
It held me once again like before  
when I was weak, so did I  
become again.  
 
The whole world seemed there  
with me, in the past, in that place,  
stepping back in tandem so we all did,  
silently falling from God's grace.  
We, the survivors must tell the children,  
must shout, 'Don't go back there, to that place,  
it is grim and doesn't care, it will only  
forget you there to trap you  
in History's snare'.  
 
We cannot go back across  
a burning bridge without a care,  
'Look ahead', I say, 'Try to dare'.  
For the worst fate belies  
the ones left behind  
who cannot move ahead or rise  
to face our ascendants  
in our own eyes.  
 
      .....

It was with good intentions when a friend shared the truth
For my mind and marriage to walk in the light
But this "divine intervention" had the opposite effect on me
The seed of anger and self loathe grew slowly
Boiling in the depths

And during the confessions I felt my heart stop for a second
Then it started running faster than I had ran before
My soul went cold and my mind went numb
Putting the puzzle pieces together
Making sense and exploding in revelations

Perhaps it was because the immature me who was never ready
Found an excuse
I was done with the abuse
And I could use this opportunity to justify my means
I’d lost faith but I’d continue like a hypocrite

It was with a lie that I said that I forgave right then and there
When it came automatically from my lips
But my heart, betrayed and deceived
I thought I believed I had grown as person
But I hadn’t
My faith was shaken when after admissions
My devious old self returned and started plotting