Nineteen

Barely nineteen, riven, raw,

Prays “Father”, seems unseen.

“I spy”, coo you and choose me,

From a line of battered babes.

Collar, call and cloth conceal

Feigned self-effacement, honour.

Naïve, I cede, you rise above,

A wholly veiled unholy love.

Reverence, glory, hallowed hubris,

Woven through your form.

Wrapt by need, adrift, ashamed,

I fawn, you’ve drawn unboundaried me.

Inside jokes, your inner circle,

Hidden fears revealed.

Tantalising bond, beneath

Divisive spirit lies.

Deceit dressed up as fervour,

For the young to know the One.

Late night ‘meet me’ meetings,

Holy linen cloak secreting.

Illicit, stolen, secret lives,

Plucking strings and things,

With litanies to bind my mind

To you, and I’m divided.

I’m in too far, too late, I grasp,

With false friend, fiend and faithless.

Betrayed, lured on, over the line,

I’m undone, ensnared. You’ve won.

Prayed over and then preyed upon.

There’s no way back to Thee

To heal, nor hope to have and hold,

My scarred and sacred me.

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