To the World...(A Collection of Poems)

My Lost Faith

What is faith?
but a tempting mistress
that
alludes me,
telling riddles
out of stories.

I chase her to
the moon and to the stars -
but she beats me
back to earth
with an awful ease.
It's a run
just enough
to frustrate. still,
she keeps me
on
my feet.

She shakes her head
and laughs merrily
to see that I'm so weak.
I'm crippled
by life,
yet
Faith beckons me
closer. when I come
to listen,
she teases me
by leaving.

We were once
on equal ground,
hand in hand,
as children often are.
I never left her side
and she never left mine.
The prettiest, purest
that
I adored, she was
my tender
Faith.

Now,
however,
Time has passed
and
things aren't the same.
She has her way
and, rarely, have I mine.

Faith is cloaked
openly, shadows
covering her breast -
but
she flaunts her bareness
as if
she has no innocence.

Perhaps it's my shame
that I cannot
look upon
and
walk with
her Grace
as I once did, see her
as others do.
Perhaps it's some flaw
that drives a fault
and leaves me
with a heart of rock.

Maybe
I have gotten too drunk
on the wine
that skepticism
dared me to try. when
I was too young,
I started to know
the addiction
and
grew desperate for
the taste.

Enter Faith.

She took a sip,
when I was dizziest.
with those
ruby red lips,
then
screamed
that it
was poison.

She cried. O,
I tried to kill her.
She charged me with
murder
of the soul
within. Since,
she hasn't been
the same.

She left before I could explain. Doubt
cursed me to wander for her
more than
the Israelites did
in the wilderness.

The last of her I saw,
before our chase began, she
removed the pink ribbons I had
plaited in her hair.

Now I'm afraid
I'm bound to sickness
and a heart of grief.
Did I spoil the tongue
that could've spoke
a warning
had I not given in
to temptation?
Or is
her wrath
of some other nature?

Dear Faith,
I've corrupted you
with knowledge
and
arrogance
of a fool.
Now you're a harlot, sold
to any higher buyer
and it leads
to my misery.