written on 26 June 2021

.

blank pages
scare the living daylights out of me.

a fresh start…
means the next work of poetry, music, or art
must be perfect in its entirety,
my subconscious self-corrects with disciplined regime.

the canvas is empty
and creeping internal pressurings
speak only of extremes:
all good or bad—no “in-between.”

I wonder where this lens
of looking came from—
a graceless metric, really,
to take one piece of a whole I cannot see
and decree a verdict.

my pride has positioned me
to be attorney, judge, and jury:
“he said Y, or she did X;
therefore; what a horrible human being,”
taking a pinpoint moment in someone’s story
and creating a life-defining narrative.

can I live up to such standards?
can I set the bar in such a way
that I’m able to justify myself,
and at the same time,
watch in smug anticipation as those around me try
and fail?

where does self-righteousness take a knee
and recognize that everything I see
is a mixture of the blistered and the beautiful?

the kind of Grace
that does not self-abase but rather
holds humility is found in looking
at the picture differently:

my scars do not define me,
and neither do theirs.

the Truth is not what I envisioned:
not “sinners” and “saints”
but “broken,” and “broken”—
broken without Him,
or broken, and falling into His open arms.

as it turns out,
the only scars that matter in the equation
of Justice and Mercy
are the scars in the palms of His hands.