Faith (2005)

Faith
(For those who tell me to keep writing)

Last night I cried tears of sorrow for tomorrows
That some of my brothers, sisters, mothers, lovers and others
Will never see
A constant wound is taking in the whole of me
Shrouded in something too intangible to name
But to real not to
And I find myself asking why the ways of the world
Don’t move as they ought to

We sell each other down the river
For a 30 sheckles and a red bandana
And quiet room discussions are shadowy
places where the tongue becomes a bullet to poison the mind
That seeps into the spine of time
And stays there, lodged in our collective soul
Threatening to paralyze all that absolves
Of us our darkside
Here, everyman is out for himself grabbing for what little integrity he can find
And selling it
We drink the blood of others to make ourselves whole
And call it the way things are done

Last night I cried tears for all the years
I’ve pushed
and pulled
and grunted
and labored
to no avail.
Battled against a pervasive evil I cannot see, because it was always
so much bigger than me
But can still hear it lurking in the quiet rusty moments just before dawn
Last night I self medicated on serendipity, vacillated between hope
And futility
Struggled against the enemy inside of me
And came out clean

And I realized
that in the ultimate scheme of things
This is not just conspiracy theory
But conspiracy of the soul
Where the power of truth is thwartred by an evil
So deep that it covers the pain of
Our own indifference
And separation of the spirit from the source

Just as bodies are always in constant motion
I am in this constant struggle
Of struggling
That is bigger than the smiles of those who
Skim my skin and use it as a coat to cover that rainy day parade
And those who turn my curves into horse’s heels
I am a shining brown stallion, beautiful, but not behaved
Rewarded only when I am tamed and prim
Steady and dependable, perfect
but not quite human
And ultimately disposable

I am uncomfortable at parties
Where I’m invited to drink wine with wanderlusts
On
Great Gatsbyish gallant porches
When I am one of the few allowed to enter from the front door.
Respected, but not really.

Not really.

And that realization sets heavily with me
With the coarseness of a thick glass hitting a table

I pick in the
And those who look like me but just hate me because
I am a mirror image of their most hated center
The mother of their constant winter
And me the pleaser, serves them a conciliatory punch
That unwittingly hits them in the stomach
As I try to smile and nod
Crisp, attentive and ready to serve

They mistake my service for a minstrel show
Virgin faith, for naivety
The battle is not only rages outside but within me
Keeps me living on the edge of who I believe I could, we could be

We are in a battle
That we cannot buy our way out of, retire from, or grow out of.
We are in a battle that does not accept credit, take holidays or long weekends.
We are in a battle for the soul of humanity
What is,
Verses what we can be
Yet in this battle, the outcome is already known
I guess the truth is the devil is in the details

And I find myself struggling in a liquid pool
Of lucid light, fighting a battle that is not mine to fight
But knowing there is no other choice
But to be still, crawl up in some green soft field and die under moonlight

But tonight
I realized that
Somewhere
In a moonlight street over a Mississippi
In a quiet room off Hoffman Blvd.
In a spacious loft in Soho
In a country house in outer Atlanta
And in hotel on the outskirts of Rwanda

There is hope
Bottled
Thin
Swirling around in a glazy blue flask
Ready to be guzzled until at last the last drop is to be had

Somewhere someone has given their gift with the world
Even if it is all they have
Somewhere men and women stand naked before one another
Bruised and beautiful
And only look each other in the eye

Somewhere
There is a good that triumphs the pontification
And the axis of evil is named for what it truly is:
our hurt, fear and pride
Refusing to believe the truth
that surpasses all the evil things collected from the wasteland of the human soul we glean

That faith is the substance of things hopedfor
The evidence of things unseen

Michelle Milam