PAINT ME A PICTURE.

The tattoo artist drew her needle across my skin in a slow steady manner and thoughtful art.

I lay curled up in my mind waiting for the pain of its imprint.

Slowly... Stealthily, the line appeared on my wrist.

The little spurt eased the pain in my heart and I watched my blood, flow...

I looked at the tattoo artist, and shivered at the instrument she held.

While I hid in my cowardly nest, she exchanged the needle for a blade...

the spindle with its prick, stung my skin with its nick, and made the jumpy heartbeat of mine, tick ...

Label me no more the thoughts you envision, and the words you spew.

Oh! The red against the white of my pale skin.

Injury, bleeding for help, crying for attention.

The line that the blade spurt broke the vein that pumps to my heart.. My heart that once bloomed red with life, now bleaks the colour of pale-green, blood- none.

The tattoo artist jumped, "What have i done?" She asked, but that didn't stop it from marking my skin again and again until my left hand was a canvass of pain.

I drew my shirt to cover my arm, and forced my teeth to sparkle its white, outside the door.

Indoors, my hand called up to my heart, which struggled to grasp life's obscure reality.

"Where was your spirit, heart?

"Where was your spirit when the tattoo artist tied me down and drew her black art on me? 

Why didn't you stop her?" My left hand cried.

My heart was perplexed.

She was drawn between the victimized East and confused West, both were  lost and broken tools in the hands of the tattoo artist.

I am in the tattoo parlor again, but this time i'm skeptic. 

the table wasn't lined with its usual assemble of needles, blades and pain. Instead, the table boasted of a huge glittery knife.

I shook my head slowly at the artist.

She beckoned my advance.

I stopped my feet from stepping into the quicksand of her temptation.

"Come.." The voice ordered, releasing a gust of wind like the tale told of storms. I felt its whorl, whirl me into the complacency of its judgement.

I had been accused, prosecuted and judged while i struggled beneath my quilt of horror, trying to drown her screams in the permeable foam of my pillow. I screamed till my voice became hollow. 

I guess the indelible marks cannot be covered with the mask of Zoror. 

A warior like the legend, I'd imagined myself to be. Tearing

down walls and lifting my ready sword up, with my battle cry cutting down trees and felling my enemies, like the hero of fairy-tales sung in the moonlight.

The stars had dwindled its sparkle, and I'm a bit complacent to the inevitable axe above my neck. 

"Who are you?" I gathered my diminishing strength and blurted out my last words.

I am You!" She replied.

A thousand years went by as I stood transfixed in my bewilderment.

I walked to the mirror and stared at the image it presented.

I was staring at a typical meme with a scary catchphrase.

Astonished, I look at my right hand and it cried into my tears: Oh so broken were the marks criss-crossing along its expanse.

They looked black like the mark of a pencil, but dreadful like the slice of judgement, That when I realized, I'd always been the tattoo artist.

I was the wicked one i dreaded. 

I'd painted my face the colour of the walking dead. 

I'd let labels bury me under the weight of its lies. 

I'd let the abuse of time and wrong places hustle and bustle my life into the consistency of bumpy rides on a forgotten amusement park. 

Paint me a picture of deject and stick it to the string of labels that have been attached to my personality.

I was sorrow stuck in the continuous horror of never ending grieve, and I'd let my spirit suffer from the selfishness of my pain.

I stumbled out of the tattoo parlor into a path that boasted of rocks and the quintessential hard place which was ludicrous in its placement, but apt in its timing.

The bleeding of my feet as the rocks pricked its beneath could hardly stop my flight towards the freedom I saw beckon me  yonder.

I stopped as abruptly as shock does, in a bid to absorb the sight before my eyes.

The cross on the hill shocked my scattered mind into the tumble of memory that i'd never lived.

I saw, I heard, I felt, and I fell.

My knees folded to hit the ground, and the weight of pain I'd carried for times and seasons pulled my heavy soul down below the scattering of dust above the earth.

His skin glittered with wounds that resembled my heart's sores, and his hand bore piercings that characterized my shattered soul.

They beckoned to my abjectness, "Come and i'll give you rest"

His arms spread across my brokenness and engulfed my disintegrated past.

Paint me a picture of the slain, and let the unfairness of HIS arraign, so appropriately planned, wipe away the guilt of my pain.

What fortune lies beyond the stars
Those dazzling heights too vast to climb
I got so high to fall so far
But I found heaven as love swept low

My heart beating, my soul breathing
I found my life when I laid it down
Upward falling, spirit soaring
I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground

What treasure waits within Your scars
The gift of freedom gold can't buy
I bought the world and sold my heart
You traded heaven to have me again

My heart beating, my soul breathing
I found my life when I laid it down
Upward falling, spirit soaring
I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground

Find me here at Your feet again
Everything I am, reaching out, I surrender
Come sweep me up in Your love again
And my soul will dance
On the wings of forever- HILLSONG

THE BATTLES OF JOB (In my mind)

"Curse God and die" She said to me.

I looked up at her with my brow beaten eyes.. you think (is that a misrepresentation), Yes, I would hardly lie...

My brow beaten sore eyes stared starry at my wife and ... Just stopped...

She is a petite woman... Female in all the splendour of her ardour.
She represents all great things known and spoken of the gender.

She stands as lithely as any athlete that would ever be born...
Her hair is black like the cloud-storm that gathers to water dry earth...
Oh, my jumbled mind mumbles sweetness whenever the fan of its silk cools the calefactory uprise of my unsteady temperature...

Her smile... Oh, her wonderful smile resurrects the rumble of joy deep in my belly... It arises from the tomb of strain and wags its tail of gladness...

My lips respond to the deep waters of her laughter; the sound of frank enjoyment and amusement startles my heart within my chest, and it beats against the door of its room, jumping in excitement, as if it can't wait to tear free from the cage of my body and just stare at her fun...

She is the wife of my youth.

I met my wife on one of journeys to a kingdom somewhere (I apologise for my brain's struggle to flip the pages of my memory, at the moment)...

The King offered me a bountiful table, and a bevy of beauties.

He fussed at my disinterest in securing a number of wives to share the great wealth the Almighty entrusted unto me, and was set on the mission to stir my loins and tug at my heart with his colourful presentation of prospects.

The simpering ladies he offered, blinked hard sporadically (a very scary approach, it made me think of sharks)...

They coohed in that funny tone that mothers use for their babies.
The excess attention was so stifling that I unconsciously adjusted the neck of my shirt...

The King talked endlessly aided by the wooden cup between his slipperry fingers.
He laughed robustly about his otherworldly escapades, and smacked my lap to portray every point (which seemed to be every word)...

When he fell asleep mid-sentence, I slipped out of the room, and sought fresh air in the comfort of the wild.

While I stood thinking on God's counsel and laws, I saw her.

She was a phenomenal bright that lit the starless night...

She danced across the wild like a sprite out of the legendary folklore, and sang to the trees like the beings our mothers never dared speak...

Oh, she mesmerized me...
Her light stung my heart, quick and fast.

I walked towards her as if pulled by a force I did not ken.
There was an essence in her presence that called out to my existence...

Without further ado, I took her fingers and twirled a ton in the midst of abundance.

There was an 'ah' that resonated deep within me, I guess it was the same that Adam felt when he glimpsed Eve.

Her hair tickled my hands, goose bumps to follow ... Oh, the sweet stance of find God made in the throes of time.


It's a decade later, and my babe is as beautiful as that wonderful night, even though she's smeared with the pain of our loss, and the abject of our present suffering.

I stared at her torn dress and bruised eyes, and I longed to ease her obvious pain...

"Curse. God. and. die. Job.", she enunciated every word with typical and purposeful hand gestures, that made me wonder if she thought God had added deafness to my seemingly never-ending painful experience...

I stared at my wife's pain-filled eyes and whispered, "Though He slay me, Yet will I praise Him".

Compromise?

Compromise was a word she'd heard but never experienced. 

She stood between the devil and the blue sea, and compromise was a titillating escape in that space.

The devil called to her soul. 

His dark side beckoned the deposits he'd planted in her mind. 

She was Eve again, doubting God's Word, and considering the devil's deceit. 

He promised her nations and the globe; he swore to fill her empty whole and power her elbow;

His devil-tongue rolled its snake-like double edge round her heart, and snuffed the light of God's Amen.

She walked as if hypnotized by the abyss of the devil's sparkle, 

and...

then she heard the waves...

The calming sound of its storm beckoned her soul 'come'.

The red sea lost it metaphorical assumption, and before her eyes, it became the attraction of the literal redemption.

The Red Sea of Love...

The waters waved its substance in the space the Master set its boundaries...

The blue faded its slurping-sloshing movement, and rolled into the painful wrenching red of blood.

She watched the mysterious 'great sight', synonymous to the absolute strange of history past that captured the prophet, Moses.

She beheld intently, the Person whose bleeding disturbed the blue, as HIS body was a great big mass of red hue.

The tongue twist around her heart strained to contain her curiosity, and the devil grabbed for her personality, calling to his seed within her to respond to his animosity....

To no avail...

She looked beyond the sea, into the eyes of the Majesty bleeding blood so precious it flowed like a river of diamond sparkle. 

She stared into His eyes and understood her stubbornness put that pain in their beautiful, glorious reality.

Still... 

He beckoned her 'come'.

She ran!!! 

Compromise is a word she now understands. 

She understands that she would never apply herself to its deceit.

SHE NOW IS, FOREVER OWNED!!!

LOWEST POINT

The shaft flew through the air from the point of the Javelin start line, through miles and rivers
It pierced the heat around me, and resurrected shivers
I didn't expect the untimely pain and I cried out
Lying of the floor, I felt the blood spill from my piercing, lots

The 0 degree season, elicited the white puffs out of its fume-filled wrath
It wrapped my fallen shape within its white blanket

I shivered until my body became as hard as ice
My brain was unable to comprehend the thaw for its berg
I fought to stay my vision, I fought to fire up my mind
Both threatened to stop and still in the endless seal of inactivity

I tried to rise from the torture, and my pained effort fell back into the wealth of wide snow
I was in the coldest place, on my back, with no hope in sight- It was my lowest point.

My heart beat slowed its roll, and my veins stopped the flow
I was the literal presence of "ice for blood"
The unbelievable description, which was merely an attempt to express the chagrin at someone's inability to do good, became a literal explanation for my situation

Like the good Samaritan of the Good Book, I was neglected by white coated boots hurrying to save themselves from the onslaught of what was to be 'a stormy blizzard'
And their freezing hands feared to stretch its uncertain charity to aid my frozen personality, from the cold mass of chills that it has become.

Unlike the good story from the Good book, the Samaritan never arrived, and my pained brain wondered if he'd lost his way on the way to rescue me from my distress...




When my heart began to call for last words, I remembered that in the midst of my suffering, I hadn't offered sacrifice...
The heat of the sacrifice is needed to thaw- melt my circumstance back to existence

I calmed my heart's desperate call, and instead grabbed its final beat and surrendered it to the Gentleman on the tree...

I was amazed at the phenomenon pouring from His pierced side. Aware the He also was hit by the shaft, I didn't know that He wasn't a victim like I was, He is the Saviour.

Bewildered, I beheld the blood and water mixture and longed to touch its intrigue.

I was lifted up from the frozen frills of mine, and I touched HIS side. He looked at me, Love was shining from Him like sunlight from the skies".
 I was lost in the maze of His beautiful gaze.

And I said the words that I didn't understand then, 'I do... believe'. He astounded my lips to smile back at His sugary sweet smile, and He tickled me with the softness of His beard.

Oh, how I love to be held close to His chest that my heart beats in resonance with His...
How I love it when His breath blows my hair and cools my head...
He's all that the doctor ordered...

I was at the lowest point, but now I'm seated in heavenly places with THE KING.

THE CLICK..

The click becomes the turn of a page.

The emoji becomes the smile on your face.

The pictures are now wishes that become frivolous aspirations, no more moments to appreciate.

The wait for the like graduates into The wait on your purpose.

The click becomes a distant memory when the light shuts off.

The escalation from playing with the App to depending on it, happened without a by your leave.

The consequences of the addiction brought a realization that shook.


The powerless button which functions only beneath the gentle press of clever fingers, has become the master.
It relishes the slavery wrought by them who should abort it.

Ignorance, the ever- present smart card used to withdraw the time and cash from well oiled machine of addiction.

This reality has become mine, and the realization makes me chill and think.
My body has been bought, My soul is sold, My spirit is owned... These are the terms of agreement I signed when I took on the Life of the cross, but recently I forgot a while and focused on my basic human wiles..

The click is now a replacement for His Word. I depend on its exotic world to fill my lonely bourgeois... 

Without even the blink of a beep, my restless wandering fingers scroll through the feed.
Hours fly by, and the dawn becomes dusk, yet I'm unaware of the changing seasons around my dust(me).

Engrossed, I neglect the plea of my watery eyeballs, and focused my mind on all the net presented, but Him.

I've forgotten when I prayed for the device and promised to use it for His service,

I swore He would be my Idol as I am His temple, but my actions are varied from my ardent oaths.

I have made my Master jealous of my interests, when He is naturally Jealous of my attention.

My hands lift as my voice sings, but my focus shifts as I can't help but envision 'The click'
"Lord, please forgive me" I pray sincerely, focusing intently with a strong determination.

I relaxed my guard and again, I was the favorite customer of whirling thoughts in my end, and my lips turned up in anticipation.

I have become a servant to a material of which I once had the power to destroy.

Lord, please help me. Your help might be drastic, and my dread of it kept me from crying out my helplessness.

 But now, 
I surrender!!!

MEMOIRS OF THE FORLORN.

MEMOIRS OF THE FORLORN

It’s a story you need to read; A tale as old as time. It’s a dramatic and diametrical reverberate of the cliché diatribe that is “happy ever after”; the lullaby which preceded the pillow-influenced snores and baby drools that characterised our childhood.

64 B.C.

JANE -Blurry picture…

I sit on a stool, my hair covered by a hood. My buff- coloured skirts fall short of my calves, and my bloody shirt melds with my skin. This grabby fashion is not of my choosing, I am a woman forced by life to hide my bruises; destined to be clothed in rags of my once glorious apparel. Through seasons and times, I, who was a princess in my castle, have been bought for mere coins and sold for even less.

Inside my head lives a tale; its spin, as potent as the product of Rumpestilskin’s wheel. Its prick, as poisonous as snow white’s bane.

I am a slave to the flickering candle light in my prison. Her fire shakes violently, as if her flame is unsure of how long its seat is assured.

When the sun comes out, my vision is covered so as to dowse whatever hope its light may spring in my soul.

One day, before my guards were woke, I sneaked a peak at the sky’s blue and all I saw was black. The sun was dark; I felt its heat on bruise, yet my eyes could not see its light. I should move even just to view the shine of the sun through my dim eyes. Maybe the blurry picture would answer the question that ticks in my brain like a grenade with no ring. “Why am I still alive?”

17 A.D.

ELIZABETH- beauty and BEAST…

I’ve been introduced to a dual nature- Happy and hate; Pain and please; Safety and dread; Beauty and Beast. With finesse, he flattered his way into my heart. His charming manner paved a path, broke down my defenses, killed my reasons and… snuffed out my light. I have no definition of day and night. My will to fight has been crushed. My future is nought, my words lost. Joy comes and stays, for a few days, and then before my eyes it turns to hate.

Hate springs up, startling me, its angry horn bursts out through his hair, and oh!, his once beautiful brown eyes turn green like the leaves. I stare at the apparition, and dreadfully await its strike.

The beast is hungry, his taste bloody. His eyes focus on prey and its predator feeds on my fear. He lunges and retreats, his demented mind joyful for my hiccups and horror- filled starts. He growls and roars, fists lifted in a typical attack manner. All I hear is a tiny screeching sound that has melted itself to the atmosphere around.

3^rd December, 1665’

Bella- Broken to bits…

Beauty makes a rare appearance.

He oohed and aahed, and cleaned my wounds. He pampers me with baubles and decorates my hair with ribbons. He nurses me back to health, and promises to rid me of my nightmare. He promises to come back with soup and slaves and buckets of hot water.

I nod uncertainly at his rare benevolence. He blows me a kiss, and exits the room, adjusting his postiche and simultaneously humming.

Slowly, I drag my scattered pieces to the vanity to look at my image.

I wonder when this became my normal;the broken doll look attached itself to my expression. When have I began to welcome the demented look on his face, even with the knowledge that it could only make my body shrivel and my flesh, tear.

“Leave Him!!! Run away!!” My soul cried, but my body disobeyed as it recalled the BEAUTY in the beast. I mistook his rough handling for love pats and my re-configured brain chose to misconstrue the obvious facts. My body betrayed my soul while my spirit lay dead.

My red-rimmed eyes smarted, and my abused lips were swollen. My battered body ached, yet I didn’t feel the pain. I have become wonder woman without the will to fight back. My feelings are a maze of complicated lack. The future seems like a road map of dead ends and deep gullies. My past is now the future I wish I’d held unto desperately. Oh, I’m afraid I’m accustomed to this dreadful nightmare that is, my reality.

3^rd October, 1738

Desiree -Beautiful Pain

How can pain be beautiful?? 

But, it is.

I came to this conclusion when I heard the sound… the sound of the whip shook my ear like thunder in the quiet after rain. Pain… the implication of the noise my soul had come to accept. Adaptation has become acceptation.

Stalker… Stealthy… Scary.

All these become the personality of my dread.

He crouched like a lion, His claws curved as he smiled with expectation. I looked at the beast and my heart beat for his ugly. Disgust became the slime crawling on my skin even as I longed for the horror. 

He flung the whip through the air again, but this time the sound that broke the quiet was loud, long and horroful. It took me a while to realize that it was my brokenness screaming out for salvation under the weight of my pain, while my tormentor relished the sarcastic ecstasy of shedding my blood.

His smile widened as my voice receded. At last, I drifted into the safe haven of unconsciousness, shocked at the realization that this was my normal, and it’s okay.

Pain has become my escape, my getaway card, my OUT.

13^th September, 1972.

AURORA- INTENTIONAL CAPRICE.

It’s the 19^th century, and still the dark ages. Maybe not to the universe, but then the globe is a miniature meadow that has lost its gardens and butterflies. At least that’s how my aching eyes see it.

I found this diary hidden beneath my temporal dwelling, and I’ve found comfort in the knowledge that it not just me, though I am pained for these women who have been victims of the beast.

I’m to be dragged by my hair down a valley, and up a mountain. They will light my skirts with flames, and watch my hair conflate with the dust of the earth. I am to be hanged for committing the sin of saying NO. However, I am unafraid. I’ll tell you why.

Few days ago, after another experience with the beast in which he kicked my second child out of my belly, I decided to give up. I bled till consciousness was a fading memory and when I stood between the space of humanity and eternity, I was shown myself. 

I shuddered at the image of what I am; I saw the beast hidden beneath my beauty. I was so sure I was the victim. When did my certainties collapse beneath me? All that remains is a bitter understanding. Would that I could make it vanish.

I looked at the personality of purity which held my whole life in the palm of His hand, and I hid my ugly from his potent gaze. He urged me to look at his other hand, and I saw piercings as deep as it was raw. I was amazed at the phenomenon which was out of place in the midst of His perfection. I looked past the beast in me, and I saw the cross.

Bits of me, pieces of mine, scattered and lit my heart with pain. 

Bits of me came together, and like the dry bones of Ezekiel, my weak, sniveling bits have become a strong whole.

This book will be discovered one day, and I came back to change the little I can with my words. My blood and a feather have I used to pen these words, please, don’t let this sacrificial prill be in vain.

You are reading these memoirs written by the forlorn in time and ages past, which were subject to the mishap of a person who transcended times, and seasons and only gives death. These people succumbed to the illusion of power that the beast had over them, they gave in to minority, when they had only to scream out their authority. Do not follow blindly, the status quo. You have been made to sail the storm. You are more than societal labels. You are… more…

Alas, these words are empty if you do have HIM. He’s the fuel to the empty tank of life’s roller coaster. I do not speak of the dual personality of man, but the Mighty supremacy of God.

Seek Him, you’ll surely find Him.

Farewell.

19^th February, 2018.

JADE- TREASURE IN THE RUIN.

Today, the sky is overcast, and threatens to drench my droopy parade. The trees beg the rain for her release, while I wish she ceases her drizzles. Under my sweater is a healing slice; an unprofessional incision made by shaking hands, a temporal relieve to the wrenching pain within. 

Depression becomes the sun setting on my evening, her wide spread tentacles have dulled my mind, and quickened my defenses. My blurry vision looked straight ahead,, and for once, my eyeballs were in agreement with what they view.

The ruin called out to my ruin, and I hurried up its unsteady steps into its debris. The gentle breeze shook the walls of the once furnished fortress, and it echoed through the house and emitted a sound akin to the scary chimes of an ancient gimmal. I lingered a while, and wondered why my dull mind pricked its ear and woke up at the sight of the atrocity I currently stood on.

I bent to pick the attraction, and discovered it held within its pages, my kind of treasure. I read its horrors, and now, I’m woke.

Tonight, my knees are on the floor, and my clasped hands on the bed. I uttered these words, “I believe. Jesus, my Lord, I believe", and my life has changed.

I have been touched by a tale as old as time.

#mistake

This 'MY HANDS'.

THIS ‘MY HANDS’.

(SIN- the slide)

Impure, stained by the sweet lure of sin; Drawn to its purpose of fun; pulled to its magnetic field- deceitfully attractive.
But within its deadly mine dwelt the ever dangerous bomb of destruction.

Explosion!!!

My legs give out, and my hands stretch out to break my fall. 
Alas! The slippery slime of sin only quickened my slide… down…

I’m where I started, at the bottom, deeper, deeper than I’d ever been…

(SIN- UNAVAILABLE)

This “My Hands’…

Once holy; the power in them bestowed by He that is Holy.

The ability- empowered by the creator.

This ‘My Hands’,

Instruments of the Most High; 
Healing, Delivering… Just instruments, joyful to be God’s.

Now, they are unworthy, unfit, and smeared with the dirt of sin.

I stare at them- unrecognizable, impure hands.

Quick to mischief, polluted with the odour of wickedness.

This ‘My hands’, this ‘my hands’.

HANDICAPPED

This ‘My Hands’...

Deform-ity

My Pie-ty was never enough to bring life into my dead hands.

Like a controlled machine, The pause-play motions lift my hands up to wipe my odd-ity.

Up, and down they go, Stiff, not steady.

Young, but not strong.

Conform-ity. 

I had conformed to my weird. My thoughts had magnified the absent part of me to nothing.

 This ‘My Hands’...

I have become to dread my hands, I hate what they are and the definition they give me.

DEATH

This my hands have killed…

They’ve been trained to snuff out the life of the living, expunging them into the realm of death. 

This my hands have held many weapons, the bullets from them stabbed the essence of many.

This ‘my hands’ have enjoyed the flow of blood on it, and have snuffed the oxygen from which the heart gets the energy to beat.

This ‘my hands’ are tired. 
They are heavy, too heavy to be lifted, too dirty o be clean.

‘O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’

INTERJECTION IMPASSE.

This ‘my hands’ are stalled… stuck in the pause of loss.

Loss of will, weakened seal. Open to torment, welcoming the pain.

This ‘my hands’, strained its ears to hear, and sought a way to care.

Alas!
Time passed so fast, it’s queer. It’s made my hands still in fear.

This ‘my hands’ wants to atone for all the sins it has known. 
They want to change their course but it’s just too late to strive for a lost cause.

My hands hung by my side, so heavy, the lead of their weight pulled my bulk to the earth.

They hurt, and believed they deserved the pain, for salvation seemed an eternity away.

Black… Dark… sunken… swollen… Obscure darkness… 
LOST!

THE LIGHT OF LIFE.

Light struck the darkness, its trajectory path spread to enfold he dark, snuffing out its deadly dim.

The bright was the light’s beam, my eyes blinked and I was lost in the enrapture of its dream.

I stared, and saw a shape, then a form, and finally a personality.

So beautiful was His countenance, and lovely was His gaze.

‘Give me your hands’, He whispered, and my body shivered…

I tried to lift my hands but they were stuck to my side, heavy with the sins of my past.

I looked up quickly, afraid HE had vanished. 
He walked into my dirty abode, and His steps purified the atmosphere. His outstretched arms were ever so steady. 
His smile warmed my frozen heart, and my eyes were lost in His. 
Before I knew it, I was kneeling before Him with my hands were in His hands.

I wept…

I wept…

When I lifted my eyes, my hands were light.

He pulled me to my feet, ‘I was free’, Hallelujah, I am free!!!

FOR-EVER AFTER

This ‘my hands’, 
Sanctified, 
Purified, 
Lifted in the worship of The Father.

Forgiven hands, 
Committed to the service of my Saviour.

This ‘my hands’-

Working! Working! Working in the vineyard of Him, For-ever After.

Amen.