Pro Nobis Peccatoribus (2008)

Ten thousand pin-pricks pierce my skin
Push past my protection
As her casual farewell bleeds me to life

Slowly I rise
Too quickly
Time is terse and fleet
Parting passes
I stand solitary
Savoring the agony of when and how
So preferable to if

Will not, wish not
Waste not, want not
We knot ourselves up
In proverbs and parables
As we rush in
Where angels fear to dread
Treacherously transgressing
All we swore to hold sacred
Bathed in our own destiny
Replaying dirty history
Ever less innocent for naïvely
Not knowing how it ends

Still unrepentant
For the error of my youth
I battle now a fire long grown cold
Burning out of control but still
Too weak to take hold
And destroy with bold decision
A coldness now grown fiery

Brazen and audacious
I drop to my knees
And mutter prayers of paradox
Impiously impenitent
And petition
The merciful God of fools and sinners:

May untenable last
Unlikely remain
Insane make sense
Impossible affirm
Never again return
And forever fail

Amen