Love in Three Parts

I. Love(d '86-'12)I've loved you all my days on earth and beforelike prayers offered over fetal cell formation that I would know you and I have

I've loved you like I came from the womb sleeping because I hear you best when I shut the world out

I've loved you since infancy, your presence has drawn meSitting hours in your house without uttering a cry

I've loved you like pre-literacy, a toddler singing Yes, Lord Yes with the all the conviction my 2 year old heart could muster

I've loved you like rejection of Santa, counting down Advent on felt pocketed calendars because even then I loved to celebrate you

I've loved you communion being my favorite, sitting with my father excited to experience the wine and bread that represented youI've loved you like committment  since I was 5

I've loved you like fighting the scripturally ignorant trying to bind me by religionThat love rooted in relationship demanding they show me you in their words with your WordI was only 7

I've loved you like sitting on bathroom floors with the door lockedTalking to you while my parents waged war outside our conclave until divorce divided us at age 10

I've loved you like adolescence and sitting at the feet of teachersRefusing to do youth church because I knew I'd walk away with the hunger pains of being unfilled

I've loved you like seeing the darkness of the abyss in a soul and knowing that hate was centered on me because of YouSweet 16

I've loved you like yoyo prayers and remembering who I am because of you in the moments my flesh welled upI've loved you like a stoop in East Harlem with a friend speaking of you and seeing the beyond the veil

I've loved you like southwest VirginiaFrom me telling you if this is for me let me know as soon as my feet leave this ground and you whispered Yes and so I said Yes to the Temple Mount that is Roanoke at 18

See I've loved you but this is where that love turned to fire consuming meBecause this is where I loved you like learning youlike Bible in lap, pen in hand, marking pageslike prophecy and prophetLike late night, speaking in tongues with my sistersWhere I loved you like insatiable appetite and prayer in the SpiritLike accepting the call after dreaming dreams like you said I wouldThis is where I with needle laid psalms on my back as memorial at 22 because I will ever lift mine eyes to thee and will command your kingdom to come til I draw my last breath

I've loved you like eagerness in serving and following where you lead in my post collegiate wandering

I've loved you like bright eyed and bushy tail working for a church and realizing Church isn't what it should belike asking questions and being disappointed with answerslike the ugly cry of my heartbreakTears falling because I know this isn't how you meant for us to live

I've loved you like depression, like all grey everything and hating what I doI've loved you like leaving when the fight is gone to explore new battlefields because I can't stand to be where you are no longer presentQuitting a Christmas present to myself at age 23

I've loved you like seeing real brokenness for the first timeFractured families ripped apart by systems and systematic coursing of drugs like narcotics and hate through their veins

I've loved you like reflecting on feelings of hopelessness because I was one against manySwimming in a body so I could learn not so I could stay which led to tears because I still miss my kids

I've loved you like possession because they still are my kids and their families, my families because their spirits forever changed mine

I've loved you like transition26 years of life full of them and I'm grateful for every one because they bring me to my present state of love

II. Love (present day)

So there's the past and then there's nowAnd there's consuming fire and there'stimes where I feel you weigh so heavy that I can barely breatheAnd there's growing rage at injusticeI'm afraid to let it out so I try to avoid speechMoreso I try and stay silent but I fail because the violence of the spiritual attack is an affront to who I am

See my problem is I walk with I Am, so I'm starting to talk like I am and what erects itself against the knowledge of Love is something I'll claw with my handsOr my pen when I type or my voice as it fights against strongholds to give whosoever comes the same rights as me

Because frankly, I'm tiredOf lies posing as truth and men abusing their youth and their elders with fables not scripture laden with demonic powerThat keeps men from God in their loneliest hour of desperation

I've been desperately wrestling against what wells insideBut I realized that it may be time to turn the tideOf this fight from internal to externalConsequence of the wrong I see eternalAnd I can't take it anymore because this trash has become offensive to me

And that's because it offends My LoveSo I am taking the offensiveSeeking out my enemyWhether he sit in the pit of hell or in  some cushy church seatI could care less about positionMy position is this

If in this hour you keep someone from the throne, I'm coming for youIf you speak religion over Gospel and grace that restores, I'm coming for youIf you speak death and not life to what my Love has called to liveJust put a target on your back because you're on my list too

When I come, don't expect flesh and blood weaponryBecause you've encountered an enemy that's tools aren't carnalIn the leastI employ warfare through prayer and petition and ears and a heart that would dareto listen to people sharing their lives openly

I am an advocateIntercessorSitting in spiritual sackcloth and ashes because I have eyes to seePoverty, discrimination, deceit and trickery, abuse of power, assassination of character, gossip, lying, laying dormant when you're called to act, the list goes onIt's all dangerous, dissonicI dare say demonic behavior that needs to be stopped

It's why I sit in silence and yearn for the darkI'm so deep in this that wordsWhether uttered or writtenLeave marks on meI struggle for speechto scream from watchtowersAs tears fill my mouth instead

Fire scorches the inside of my bonesIt is my marrow and I want to be brokenBecause every fracture yields a fraction of a donation of this passion

Love is ruining meAnd I revel in my unraveling

III. Love in the future

How do I love thee,Let me count the waysOr perhaps notBecause counting leads to finite definitionsAnd I will submit to a Love that is without end