A Death Not Suffered For As Long As I Have Lived
A death I have carried since youth—
not the grave’s hush,
but the slow unfastening
of all that was false in me.
Each dawn, a small surrender:
the tongue bridled,
the anger banked,
the shadowed thought laid bare
before the Father of Lights.
I have walked with this inward dying
as one walks beside a stern companion,
learning its counsel—
that faith without its burial
is faith without breath.
For the world woos with crowns
that fade like grass in scorching wind,
but the soul grows only
where it lets go.
So I have lived with death
as with a discipline—
its quiet blade
paring away the double mind,
till what remains can stand upright
and call itself whole.
If this, then, was my long death,
blessed be the One
who taught me to lose myself,
that I might finally live.
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