Lent, week 1: sigh no more.

Serve God, love me and mend
This is not the end

I can’t listen to that album
anymore without the ache of
regret and broken desire
coming back to close itself
around my ribs
It was the soundtrack of the
October you loved me

I’m sorry…
I’m sorry…

But now I understand
that I wanted you more
for what you never gave me
than what I could give you
and that was the fiction I told myself

Sigh no more, no more
One foot on sea, one on shore
My heart was never pure

And now in the spring’s awakening
I bear the cross of burnt hosannas,
autumn’s flame now faded to
a smoldering wick that he will not
snuff out

Love, it will not betray, invade or dismay you
It will set you free

The stone is rolling away
So that we can rise
with the one who loved us
as sure as the morning

And I find myself repenting of
you even while I hold my hands open
to love you better than I did.