As Far as the East is from The (Navel to The) West

[Verse 1]
I can't remember when you became a hypothetical
I still talk to the sky and the black backs of my eyelids, but it's been some time since Your Son transitioned from person to proposition
I keep conjuring His name up over my wife at night, like a seance
The Ghost still calms her nerves, so I keep praying while I wonder what I'll say when I run out of hat tricks and smoke bombs
I keep disappearing behind the distractions
We both know how well I procrastinate, so the night that I finally began to fear whether or not I'd lost my faith, I thought it was too late
I wrote down the confession like a hook for a song:
"When I stopped believing in God, I blamed it on Him and thought, 'well, if this is what You want'"

[Chorus 1]
G-G-G-God won't leave me alone
God won't leave me alone... God won't leave me alone... God won't leave me alone

[Verse 2]
Heavenly Father, when the fathers tried to exorcise the demons from my father, they simply spoke back and begged for their medication, and I finally believed in the gift of tongues
I heard him speak out in one legion of them while the comfortable line between oppression and possession collapsed as disconcerting as Your scribbles in the sand to a man who is still cutting his teeth on forgiveness, unable to let go of the stones making their way through the backs of his hands for all of the stubbornness in his grip and the way that even his fists fold back in upon themselves
I can't touch my toes to the mirage
If the ground is a foundation, it is one evasive facade
I got lost, and the only way that I could talk to God was through profanity and absolutely nothing, and maybe that's what He was going for all along
We're tired of floating
Tired of constantly examining motive
Tired of ascribing it
Tired of acting like we know
It's exhausting
What if we don't?
Tired of equating confirmation with affirmation
Applause is a poor God

[Verse 3]
It's dark inside of my stomach, bent, shoving my head out the lower half of my back and collapsing beneath the weight of what it all looks like from here
I heard the fear
Heard the fear
Heard the fear, know what fear and trembling looks like
We're working it out
Isn't that a part of the process?
It's no joke
Sometimes the bride slips out the back, but sometimes the spirit flees
Sometimes it's dissension, and sometimes it's prophecy
Sometimes it's good, old-fashioned adultery, but if conquest is franchised as love for long enough, then the latter becomes the trigger for your panic attack
I don't know how to get the childlikeness back and if salvation is contingent on a faith like that
Where are the waterfalls?
Where's the boy down to backflip into the river?
Maybe the current shifted
Maybe the colour's different, but I have not forgotten your voice, and the only thing it speaks is love, and I recognize that because that word never comes to me from me

[Chorus 2]
G-G-G-God won't leave me alone
God won't leave me alone

[Verse 4]
For every conclusion posited as a question, resurrection haunts like a shadow I can't escape, looming in what I could have sworn was warmth melting ice before whatever it became
I was a son
I was a son, you told me that once, but it's amazing how petrified portions of the heart start to see fingers like claws and water like poison and grace like the opposite flowing indifferent through your lukewarm bloodstream, cooling and clotting and cutting branches from the tree (Branches from a tree)
Am I losing you?
Have you lost me?
Is there such a thing?
Heavenly Father, I have no interest in selling doves for the market
Flip the tables
Braid the rope
Taper the whip
Let me speak
Are we salesmen or sons?
Are our positions contingent on commissions and brand loyalty?
I mistook kingdom for empire
Salvation for rapture
Grace for escape
Mission for capture
I mistook mercy for license
Family for uniform
Gift for owed
Cross for sword
Heavenly Father, it's all a shot across the bow, and I'm aware that it's not fair to throw the whole body out, but can we scuff up the navel?
Cut eyes with thrones umbilical as control as though we forced ourselves from the womb?
Keep pushing me down
Keep forgiving
New life is death, and they call it that for a reason
The birth canal is filthy and beautiful
You'll get out
I've never had more faith in that than now

[Verse 5]
I know you don't recognize your reflection
I know you'd have hated who you've become, and I know you hate who you were, so there's no use in being anywhere other than present
I know that it's torture
I know that you make it through
I know that you don't believe it
I know that you don't have to
I will
We will
I know that there are cancer and death and indifference acting out on the stage and playwrights monetizing God from the machine
I know I made a crane of my own
I'm sorry
I poured the concrete and deemed it determined from eternity past as if that were justification enough for how harsh my love had become
There is a word for those who call evil good
For what it's worth, I've got a verse for that
I don't know what to do with the inconsistencies beyond an apology acknowledging that cruciform certitude is easily abused and there's no better shape for us to use as a sceptre, but a specter of truth like a phantom limb still itches in my memories like a flash in a photo booth that leaves light afloat in its wake
I don't know what to say
Say it
"I don't know what to say"
Say it
"I've got nothing to say and no direction to give," and my friend said
"That's perfect
"Tell it exactly how it is"
I don't know what to say
Say it

[Verse 6]
But I still hear echoes that can only exist in empty place and whether they are hearts or tombs
If the Ghost that I all but gave up to his grave can leave it behind
Well, I am shaped exactly like the vacancy signs
Advertising spaces that still need residence
I thought that God could only exist in sonnets and villanelles, but you should see their freeform
I hope that my Jesus is bigger than all of my heresy, but before you agree
I hope that yours is, too
Maybe you and I could talk before we write one another off?
Maybe we could both be quiet
Maybe we could decrease, or maybe we could rally our likeminded and fight it
Maybe we could broadcast our dissent
Maybe it will hurt
Maybe it will heal
Maybe it with mar, but maybe it will mend
Maybe I don't have every answer I thought I did, but, God damn them, I still have you