No one to hold, leave home I had been told
A parent teen who lives in Bordesley Green
It was so cold only sixteen years old
No nicotine, no partner to be seen.
And Social Service, made me quiet nervous
They served me gruel for lunch with arsenic punch
An arrogant crevice with no justice
They sit with evil stench in selfish trench.
Purse in pocket at the supermarket
With a prayer to above in search of love
Find a packet of hope for my basket
My faith soon leaves of dreams, a soul lost dove.
I am not free to be what I may be
Community, prejudged, excluded me.
I know you think, it was all a waste
years together now erased
signing your name on a dotted line
ends it all, but you recall, a different time
healing eludes your heart right now
wounds that are fresh from shattered vows
each day packing hopeless hurt
each night leaving you inert
inward screams, outward cries
you can't say you didn't try
box it up, bury it under your bed
say a prayer for what lays dead
Since God, ushered you into our lives that day,
Your hair has become dappled with wisps of gray.
Other superficial changes have now taken place,
But a youthful spirit still covers a comely face.
The thing seen most changed lies within your chest,
In your heart now, is Jesus, making you the best.
We spent many hours in concern through the years,
Oft times these thoughts were awash with tears.
Holding you up in prayer is all that we knew to do,
And we like to think, that we crossed your mind too.
You've been a sweetheart to us, both gentle and kind,
For a better friend, we'd be hard pressed to find.
Written for Shirrlene
My Hot and Diluted Tears
My Hot and Diluted Tears,
Willingly Opened to Your Ridicule.
Knowing No Apocalypse to My Fears,
Accepting of Your Fierce and Fickle Rule.
My Prayer to Cleave Unto Your Shifting Soul,
Knowing I Have Waxened, and Make-shift Wings.
Flying Cousined to Your Searing, Hot Sun,
Falling To My Death, No Heed to the Toll.
My Hot and Diluted Tears,
Praying For A Certain Death's Interface.
To Sacrifice the Balance of My Years,
A Cemented Rest My Only Embrace.
Sometimes alone I cry for you
Who upon the waves was thrown
Without a vest to come ashore
Without a passage home
And O my love what could I do
For when we started I promised
Then, that I would swim with you
But you took my eyes
And broke my hands,
So though you threshed and called
I could not tell where
The water grew so quiet there
My only gift I gave
A prayer that if you did not tire soon
You would find a harbor in the moon
And nights when upon my sandy mind
You lay, a patient in a swoon
I would look up and see you there
The one who stole my only tear.