Why Do I Do These Things I Do?

poetry

Not again? Not again!
It makes my blood boil.
Sold, misunderstanding—a slave to sin.
A slave to law.
Spiritually void at times.
For what I want to do I do not do,
but what I hate I do.

This law, this restriction—this good.
It is good, but I am not, am I?
I am good, but I am a slave to sin.
And yet?
Nothing good lives in me, that is,
in my sinful nature.

The desire is there—for good.
But I will always fall short.
For what I do is not the good I want to do;
no, the evil I do not want to do—
this I keep on doing.

But it’s not want I want.
It’s not who I am.
It is sin.
And I am not sin.
I am redeemed.

Hauntings

poetry

Cold sorts of fingers are
the worst sort gripping
’round the parts one tries
to breath through

and sometimes
(right now)
it’s getting hard to breathe
‘cuz there’s this pressure,
just below the
cheek-bones. Tightening up.

but I still breathe.
Now, only to peel
the frozen fingers
from my wind-pipe.