(un)quiet

9:25

The world turned dark when I was nine.
Although I remember it began at five
When that girl in class called me ugly one time;
When at seven, by their words and their eyes
I was ostracized, but that I didn't realize
In blissful ignorance I thrived.
Back when I lived and didn't survive,
Back when I didn't need a disguise,
Back when I knew in my heart I was fine.
But I remember, the world turned dark when I was nine

When he asked me if a boy's lips ever met mine,
When I shook my head and he brazenly crossed the line.
His kiss so sudden, without my consent,
His hands on my bare, young flesh, made their descent
Not once, not twice, did he strip me of my sense of innocence—
Till, spent, I decided to play the offense
When I went up to his mom with my mumbling, stumbling, incomprehensible vent,
And thank God did he choose to repent,
But by then I'd been broken, I'd been bent
To learn the lie that by gender and strength
You earn your respect,
Else you're treated as an object.

And that's when the world, once bright, turned dark,
When storm clouds, dim light, began to hover over my heart,
And my faith in mankind shattered apart
As their words inscribed an indelible mark:
When I remember, at ten, my teacher persistently said
My body, chubby as a cherub child, was too well-fed.
His phrases, his physical punishments, had me seeing red
Against myself, against my form, against my own health;
I'd lie in bed, with an aching hunger I felt—
My meals constrained into this palm I held—
"I deserve this, I deserve this, I deserve this distress," in the desolate dark, I said.

And when at thirteen, the little deviant I was
With my books and my punk, rock music,
Girls, then in their unwise teens, speak their sharp sickles, strike my flaws—
Words abused, to misuse—all to amuse sick
Hearts and minds, their own hurts justify their cause.
"I deserve this, I deserve this, I deserve this ridicule,"
I'd tell myself in a restroom cubicle.
"I deserve this, I deserve this,"
I'd tell myself, in my bedroom, sleep so cruel
Evades me through the night.
"I deserve this, I deserve this,"
I'd tell myself with absent eyes set on food, empty stomach, false full,
Spares me no appetite.
"I deserve this, I deserve this. Is my life worth the fight?"

Yet in all this I knew about the Light,
Christ—I've been fed this faith all my life—
Sunday service, Sunday hymns, Sunday school.
But to believe religion and wealth could spare me from the rod, that I was a fool—
'Cause where was God when I was treated as some tool?
Where was God when, prayers unanswered, I was left to the hands of the cruel?
Where was His intervention? What was His intention
That, though at fourteen I came to truly know of His lordship, His salvation,
My relationship, once afire in its novelty, turned to one of condemnation

When at nineteen, a boy bit my stupid, naïve heart in two.
How I stumbled, crumbled, the consequence crushed me down all in time due.
This is how to delude, this is how to conclude to a façade untrue,
When you choose to ignore the rubies waving against the blue.
Fool, wretched fool, my sins and scars scathe my soul, my heart,
And one day I knew I'd rue, one day declare I'm through,
Through seven times no less this melancholic wreck sought her life undo,
Seven times no less lent a hand to Death in strange times opportune.
For the voices kept whispering, their chilling, hissing, slithering tune;
The threat, the death sentence, spoken in a choir's secret rune.
No less than twenty pinstripe wounds,
Blood maroon against my pale wrist I've strewn;
Immune, the pain means nothing, the pain deserving I no longer impugn.
And this shall be for the days I wait as I pray to let me pass soon ...

When at twenty-two, -three, -four, -five—
The days play and fade—
The days I'm afraid when the shade pervades,
And days I can say I no longer pray to let me pass soon—
At an age I can't place in my brain I've been lain in some strange cocoon,
Where the world, once wonderful, waits out its days in the dark.
Yet God, slowly, steadily, has sputtered a spark in my heart;
Sought out my soul in this Stygian sea, a self-exile in her solitary art;
All these fractures, these fragments, the puzzle pieces fall into place part by part, part by part.
Hours and hours, days and days, years and years,
Through affliction, through adversity, the paradox persists, I fear:
His presence unfelt yet near;
His watchful eye, unseen, saw every tear.

It's not easy to trust by faith when life pierces you through;
It's not easy to trust a God for the things He didn't do
When you've been taught all your life He's there to save you.
But what if that isn't always true?
When His intentions eclipse divine intervention,
Is there any use to the dissensions we accrue?
Is there any complaint we can proclaim
If in our incomprehension we utter our frustrations
Against His plans pushed through?
And if in our pain we can better explain to those who suffer in the same vein
That our wounds and black-and-blues are simply avenues
For you and I to realize with brand new eyes, in His goodness, we can trust His sovereign reign.

And in years post-release, we now reminisce
The calamities, the crises, the catastrophes.
All the trials God had acquiesced,
All the times we've found ourselves on our knees, concede in defeat,
Clear out this cover of our own conceit,
Quit this crying game in which we compete,
And, in this shared heartbeat, Christ's love is made concrete.
For as His disciples, shouldn't it be love we seek
For every people—Filipino, Chinese, Jew, or Greek?
In a world of prejudice, injustice, inherent toxicity,
Shouldn't we stand for love, compassion, equality, no slave nor free?
If we are in Christ, shouldn't love overflow, respect prevail
For he or she, whether they be male or female?
'Cause in a world of gaslights and gunfights and snakebites,
And the kids aren't all right,
We're to love, be kind, be the salt, the satellite
Of His love that lights up the darkest nights,
His light that gives us hope despite.
And with this to end, I must confess I'm still a work in progress,
And I'll be honest, I can still be quite a mess.
But I hope these stories we hold in our chests raise an awareness
That we don't have to deal with our distresses in the darkness,
Nor do we have to be stuck, self-obsessed in our loneliness.
That no matter how we feel—stressed, oppressed, hard-pressed—
God still has our best interests,
And in His compassion, in His comfort, we are called—blessed to bless.