Old Piece...

I Passed Through the Looking Glasses
As I pass through, my breath remains behind. I hope it follows me through soon enough, but if not, this isn’t such a bad place to suffocate. I see the stories of a life lived from the inside of a silky, pressed porcelain parchment. Strangely, it’s dark inside despite the radiance that seems to shine outward. You are fair; you are sublime.
And I do not just pass out such an adjective without great care. I am methodical in my thought, in my labyrinth. I am aware and attentive to what you are not, to what you are. You lead the word effortlessly through the winding corridors and past my lips though. Yes, I say it out loud as well, but you’d never know that. Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana and Franklin could never possibly replicate the deep breath behind my voice or the shortness of breath thereafter. Oh, it seems as though my breath has caught up to me. Good, I like it here.
I’d give up my breath again to look around some more, but surely the circumstance would not allow it. It is what it is, but it is bittersweet. I would say it is more bitter. Regardless, I endure for the over concentrated sugary sweet that I am afforded hither and thither.
I know I have to go back through at some point, but I will put it off as long as I can. Do not wake me. Do not stir me. Let me be. I’ll come out soon enough, surely. If nothing else, you’ll make me, but please allow me to stay for just a little while longer. Allow me another quick look around.
Life has painted your walls this clockwork shade of orange. There is writing, on opposite walls, that reminds you to love thy sister and remember thy mother. Over on the right your prize buck is mounted with, fittingly, a prominent rack. I see one of those model ships in a bottle with a mount that is marked “Papa” sitting on a shelf beneath him. Then there, in the middle of the room, it appears as though a leprechaun and the talking rabbit were playing dice. That spotty memory, you know. It’s a good thing you take notes.
I suppose I’ll leave now. I’ll turn right around and come back through those looking glasses though, the clear framed ones, not the black ones, and I’ll look around some more. Maybe a new place will be open for exploration. I shall again vainly make an attempt at bringing my breath in with me, but if I can’t, I’ll come just the same.
You are exclusively sublime.

March '10

I think about you standing out here in the cold...
Tungsten and fluorescent above me, around me.
The sky is dark, the pavement black, and my jacket matches their color or lack thereof.
I'm a little chilly, sure, but I've got you on my mind and that keeps me warm...
that and my jasmine tea with honey and cream.
Really though, the little sips warm my thoat and mouth, but I'd much rather your lips...
your rosy flesh is the finest heat.
It's such a small source, but it is beyond concentrated.
It warms my hands, my lips, the flesh of my chest that you press against, yes.
The warm runs further;
it does not crawl or creep in, but it jumps in, pushes its way in forcefully...
past the epidermis,
past the sternum.
The cold pump deep inside my chest burns up by your touch,
and you touch not only by flesh but tonight you warm by thought.
Warmth hits my chest,
it fills my chest,
and it trickles down my arms and into my fingers.
A corner of my mouth turns upward as the warmth rises to my neck like it's the rim of a cup.
My cup runneth over tonight, today.
My love spills this way and that and I pray pray pray that you get a good splash.
I pray that you receive the warmth and love that I try to project and live out,
even though I am flawed so so so.
I love you, Ashley.
You mean the world to me, and though I find fear knocking at my door now and again,
I never answer.
You're precious and rare.
Beautiful beautiful girl.
I love you more and more as we go along.
... and I hope we go much further.
I love you, Ashley Renee.
I love you.

1/14/10

I want to hold you hold you hold you... warming you with my arms pulling you against me, not letting go and trying to think that you really are mine for the moment... hoping like I have never hoped before that this will be over sooner than even YOU think... knowing very well that I'm putting my hopes so high that a fall from here might very well kill them, destroy them, abolish them... but I find you worth it as of now, from this view of things, so I'll stick to... I want to kiss you all the while, softly, lovingly, and when my flesh touches yours it will be devoid of vacant and depreciating lust... Rather, I will have love to guide my hands and my lips in lines, strokes, circles and in embrace... I will chase after the ethereal love that God has for you and I, in my own actions toward you... He will set my paradigm and I will do my best to follow... I still worry very much that my heart will grow colder than it ever has, but I love you, Ashley Renee. My heart breaks daily when others use and dispense of you in a disgusting way behind the guise of flattering words and friendly conversation... I'm holding my position as best I can. I believe at this point, I love you more than you love yourself because I am at a breaking point... I've reached critical mass, but you have not. You continue with the false notion that this is all you CAN do when it is not. I told you I would push and fight, even with you, for what is best for you, and this is it. I am not playing passive anymore because I see you for your true value in the eyes of the most wonderful God, Jesus Christ, who died for your life... your babies' lives. I pray you will be afforded a view from over here because once you do see things this way, once you realize that you are working to lose, being robbed blind each and every time you step into that little white box, losing more in 15 minutes than you'll ever be able to earn... and then... then I promise you your choice will be easy and this current option will no longer be considered... You are precious and priceless. You are wonderful, and you are loved greatly... tremendously. I love you, and I hope you understand how much and why very very soon... < 3

Your value can never truly be depreciated.
You are precious.
You are priceless, but God's paid for you life anyway.
He's got you covered.

The pain you bear overwhelms ME.
How on earth might I bear it for many others?
I'm drained and consumed by thoughts of YOUR past...
not in such a way that you are an invaluable someone who has done many wrongs, but all the times rather that you have been robbed and used. I think about the scars you bear and the mindset that has been warped.
I think of these things and the viscious, noxious lies that were fed to you all the while... the lies you're fed today.
It crushes me.

You're still ever precious.
You're still priceless.

April 3, 2010

God, I hope this helps.
Here's my prayer, God...
I feel like I'm kind of being dangled on this hook right, just being brushed off and not taken seriously over and over.
All of this after everything... it hurts. I've shown anger and frustration, but simply it just hurts. I have loved her in dark dark times... dismal times. I spoke truth to her about her value and about what she means to You, God. I loved her, and I do love her... I've shown her a great capacity to love genuinely. I have shouldered an extraordinary burden for months... watching her suffer day after day and night after night, waiting anxiously to relieve herself, so I could tell her how much she was loved by both You and I. I would sit and talk to her for hours to lift her up and let her know that she was not meant to live life in such a way... God, I told her of all the wonderful things You have for her day after day after day... never putting her down and only doing my very best to lift her up to You in speech and in prayer. She insisted that I was amazing and I humbly refused her compliments over and over, noting that the only thing amazing was You. I told her that I was not perfect and I told her that I had some work to do myself. Did she just ignore that?
I am sitting here with another heavy something on my shoulders tonight... something that has been growing for the past week or so. It's looking like she wants out.
Has she forgotten all of those weeks and months that I loved her in her loneliest and darkest times? Does she not think that I am capable of change? She says I am not the man she fell in love with, but I am. I am the same imperfect man that I was months ago. I am that same man that would tell her of her worth until she fell asleep every wretched night of an awful job. I showed her love and I endured the pain... accepted the baggage that came along with it... knowing all along what I was getting myself into. I saw past the brokenness and I loved her, I do love her, with all of my formerly cold and callous heart. She turned me warm... got the blood pumping again because God knows I couldn't do so with a stone inside my chest.
Those were some of the heaviest days I have lived, but to see her smiling face and to watch her come to realize that she IS loved... tremendously... it was all so so worth it. I'd do it again if I had to.
She is beyond precious to me and on January 16th, I had the world for the first time...
I've been good and good, but then I went down for a bit. I lost focus and I lost some confidence. I pushed a little too hard and I started pointing the finger in an immature way... analyzing and blah blah blah... like I had no issues. Look at this huge plank in my eye, yeah, it's You Who showed me in the first place and here I am again.
I've been acting like a jackass... insecure little boy and I am beyond embarassed.
You've given me this revelation, and it's finally clicked... I have to just be a man and stick to my choices... back my decisions and be sure of them.
I get it, and that's what I'm going to do... I get it. I've learned.
So does she not think I can change? Am I so wretched and filthy a man in her eyes that she thinks God is not capable of changing me? Has she forgotten all the love love love I shared with her in those ridiculously dark and ugly times? Is it something else that she will not say? What is it? Does she just need time to think and consider if we'll be together in the end? What's the deal? This anxiety presses down on me and it is beyond taxing. It is so difficult to sleep these nights and she seems to sleep soundly. She seems to socialize with nothing pressing on her conscience... How would I know though. I can't keep her on the phone for more than 10 to 15 minutes before she says something like she has to go... or she'll call me right back... which she never actually does.
I do not want to think of losing her. When I held her, I held her like I would see her again. I did not hold her like it was the last time I ever would. I held her with the promise and the belief that we would spend many more hours together... many more days and weeks and moths and years... I love her, and I've never been so blessed so as to hold something so absolutely precious. To see these beautiful little lady go from a bleak and awful reality to stepping back into the promises of God... stepping back into the plan that He's got for her. I thought I might be a part of that plan, but it's not looking so good.
I mean... I'm not one to fold to circumstance and I have yet to do so because I know Who You Are, God. This might be the most costly lesson I will ever learn... to lose something so precious for something so trivial... but like I said, maybe it's something more... I don't know... ;'[
I'm just left here dangling on a hook... like some half dead fish being toyed with.
Oh Lord, I've fasted and I have prayed... I don't know what else to do, but this is tiring...
I do not want to imagine this being the end... but what can I do? I cannot make her stay whether I think it is "fair" or not. If she has forgotten the love I have showed her, like no love I have ever been able to produce... if she refuses to believe that I am imperfect just like her... if she simply refuses to show me forgiveness in turn... if it is something unnamed that is her reason for escape... whatever it is... Lord, bring comfort and bring understanding... peace peace peace and strength. I need it like you wouldn't believe tonight, well, I'm sure you'd believe it... You know it.
God have your way... you know I am here and you know what I desire...
My heart may break, but you can always restore it...
I'd really rather it not break this time though... break it with something else, but not this.

April '10

Yeah, You from Raul Moreno on Vimeo.

I love you.
Yeah, you.
You know Who I Am.
I Am.
You know you’ve done some things that you aren’t proud of; you’ve done some things you are quite ashamed of. These are things you’ll take to the grave, you’ll never share with anyone but Me…
… because really, an imperfect human could never have the capacity to not pass judgement, to not flinch, to not cringe, to not (even if it is very deep down) be a little disgusted by you and what you’ve got hidden in these bags that you carry around. Right? It’s not possible.
But it is…
It is.
My perfect love does not change when it passes through an individual, imperfections considered.
I love you, and I am not disgusted by you. I love you.
You’ve had this notion that you had to clean yourself up before you came into my presence. You had to straighten up before you could be honest about your life’s condition with a friend or a loved one.
Maybe even with yourself... but that’s all backwards. That’s not the way it works.
Clean YOURSELF up all you can, and it’s all filthy rags at my feet. Leave the cleaning job to me. I will stain you crimson with love and you will come out of the wash a bright white so pure like you or Billy Mays never could imagine… and I guess that’s the issue. You can’t comprehend this love, this grace, and so you refuse refuse refuse to accept it. Sure, it’s easy to “accept” it… but really, you’ve been marred in such a way that it is, in your mind and your experience, impossible for someone or the The One to love you in such a way. I’ve forgiven you, they’ve forgiven you… seven times over, but like I said, that’s not the end of things. It’s more like seventy times seven before you’re overdrawn… but that was just a meager figure of speech to wrap your little mind around since the vastness of my love and forgiveness is without measure. So forgive YOURSELF.
My love…
It is patient, kind, without jealousy. It doesn’t brag; it’s not cocky. It doesn’t keep tally on wrongdoing. It’s not into the bad things, but shouts hallelujah at TRUTH. It bears all, believes all, hopes all… and endured EVERY thing.
IT DOES NOT FAIL.
This sin. This sin that you place before yourself when you are before me. - you toss this bag down like it’s a border, like I can’t pass. My love and my grace whether directly from me or through a loved one, cannot pass across this bag named dishonesty and shame. At least that’s what you think. If you’d stop, focus on my grace, focus on Me… for just a second, you’ll notice that the bags have gotten very light. They’re empty. There’s nothing there, nothing to stand before me while I am before you. It’s all a bunch of nothingness. Futile effort. What’s the point?
No, you’re not deserving, but that’s just it. That’s what makes my love different. You might ask why and how, but those are rhetorical questions… only there’s no assumed answer. If for nothing else, I simply love you because you need it. That’s it. Its mind boggling simplicity does just that – it leaves your understanding in shambles and distress. There is all this anxiety. As long as you are human, you will not understand.
My love… It brings this serene chaos.
It gently obliterates.
It lovingly asphyxiates… THIS SIN.
So stop. Know.
I Am.
You are beautiful.
You are precious.
I will fight for you.
I love you, yeah you.

February '10

It's another cold morning without contrast.
Nothing pale and hot to the touch here in my bed.
Only a wildly vivid sunrise providing no heat.
There's only cold here today,
and I don't provide much beauty.

All I can do is look to the horizon at this beautiful painting of wispy clouds...
50/50 bar orange and white...
pastel blues...
the glowing red of cooling magma...
and the clouds?
These are lined with GOLD.

Honestly I prefer a much different scene.
I'd rather the cold tones of overcast light trickling into a dark room,
white against white.
Brown over blue.
Everything is painted so lightly by the cold blue brush of this sky.
The eyes are greeted with cold everywhere,
but the touch of my cold fingertips is nearly scalded.
She is past warm.

Although I am afforded this grandeur scene of creation...
Although I am kissed on one side by a sublime God given, life giving light of six thousand degrees strong...
Although I am kissed on the other cheek by a crisp breeze travelling 440 feet a minute,
a breeze that I have loved loved loved for as long as I can recall...
I would rather squint in that dark room again,
strain my eyes.
This white canvas of linen tinted the color of cold dead skin presents something in direct contrast.
Look hard enough, not like I have to, and there is beauty here.
Here she is.
Swaddled with limbs tangled between the cool cotton.
Everything in this room looks cold, including her skin,
but I am close enough to reach out and touch her.
So I will.
So I did.

This is perhaps the most warming ninety-eighty point seven degrees I have ever felt.
... I have ever experienced.
Though she has not awaken,
though she does not even realize that SHE is being touched,
she has touched me.

Sure, getting close might make me uncomfortable,
but I have willed past discomfort and complacency.
Though fear and distrust grab and swipe at my back and heels, I push closer.
Closer.
Close must I get to touch your warm creamy skin.
Closer and closer still do I wish.
I do not simply want to touch.
I want to press.
Flesh against flesh.
I seek to press against and and press in,
underneath your skin.
touching the epidermis from top to bottom.
From beneath and on top of.
I long to BECOME your skin,
and you become mine.
Fingers tied into one another.
Chests pressed.
Breath mixed.
Eyes and their gaze lost together in this tunnel that only you and I may enter.
Together.
One skin made from two.

Let God be praised with patience.
As you are restored by our Maker.
As I put away childish things...
I look forward to this beautiful intersection.
I patiently wait for this future expression,
not shallow and meaningless recreation,
but this ultimate fruition,
the pinnacle of an expedition,
of our love...
Storge.
Philia.
Eros.
intertwined and bound together by an ethereal love, THE Love:
Agape.
... by The Dove, The Lion, and The Lamb.

I pray that I am still here in the poorly lit room,
lying on the white sheets washed clean by a blood without blemish.
I pray I am here for the unveiling of this new creation in you.
This GRAND GRAND opening.
The curtains that keep light refrained will be torn, and the sun will shine through to kiss you, to kiss me.
To kiss the one we have become.
We will stand before God;
we will lie before our God in Spirit and Body.
Naked body.
... and there will be no shame.
We will explicate this flawless design of pairing with worship of
mind, heart, spirit, body.
We shall melt, meld, mesh and our lines of separation will be obscured before they become of no existence.
This love will resound, resonate and reverberate...
because it is pure and it is by God and God alone.

I love you because He loves me.
Because He loves you.
So run, my love.
Run towards Him, and we will come together as we come to Him.
He is the only adhesive that is permanent.
He is the only thing that might create a true bond and mix.
This covenant will be true and will not be broken.
The blood shed to signify and bind this came two millenia hence, but it is as fresh as ever.
Its power always unstoppable, unmoveable.
The perfect lays waste to the imperfect.
God's glory shines through.

... and there we are:
you, God, I.
Never once have I wanted as much to lie down in this cold and dark room.
I cannot wait.
I shall wait.
You are worthy of patient and gentle love.
Your value is beyond measure.
Waiting simply makes the most sense.
... waiting for such a marvelous miraculous display of love really is no problem.
It is a pleasure and delight,
for better pleasure and delight.
Atop a pure and Holy bedding,
after some wedding...
marked by a time of crisp breezes and trees shedding...

I really do hope to see this day.
I really do hope to live this day.
I really do hope for us this day.

I love you. I love you.
O precious and beautiful gift from God.
I love you...
<3