Member Poem

The door is locked and I hold the key but it will not fit, the window seems far and my bones splinter as I try to open it, I put on my church shoes but they aren’t as shined as the Gates of Heaven, I can not enter The Doors unless they shine like the sun, I can not turn to face God, yes His light will shine but it will burn through me, He will see through the performance that has been my life, he will know what crawls under my skin and see that the water I drink is not holy, that I sip from the cup of doubt, the taste of restraint stains my lips and cripples everything I do, He will be the only person I will ever shiver under the gaze of, because I love Him but that can not be enough, I hold this love in my heart but when I utter it, it will not be enough at the gate, And I may get past it, but when I am in the Promised Land will I know what to do? Or will I see the light and run the other way?

The looming finality of everything I ever wanted perplexes me, it brings fear to my doorstep, it locks my window of escape, it leaves me here to the predicament I drag myself back to, the degree of my want is too much—it’s too little, I can’t put a number on it and it drives me crazy, so when I shoot the arrow it veers from the light and right back to me, I miscalculate, so the shot I make to Heaven misses and I am turned away before the face of the Highest, my ticket is blank, the lead of my signature on my permission slip got blemished by my perspiration, I watched the new apostles board the train to Heaven with shoes glistening like the glorious halo of an angel, and they blinded me so I turned away, and by the time I turned back the train was gone, and I was alone in that room, and the distant whistle of the train sounds like the sigh of God in the echo of my memory.