Waiting

"These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation"


--------/Waiting: Acts Chronicles Chapter 16: The Thoughts of the Slave Girl With the Spirit Of Divination Upon Seeing Paul

Tormented darkness anger at
freedom restricted and my parents wrested from
my fragile arms traded
to another family in another province my provenance
now forever in doubt tears streaming down my cheeks
two years old, eleven years ago
tossing and turning in my sleep, seemingly yesterday
vivid imagery, proximate sounds of my two masters, former
and present bartering the worth of a baby girl's life ripped asunder
wages for a woman
laughing levity as the grave gravity sunk in my heart (deep):
a life likely lost now
indelible shrill of my mother, I swear I hear her in the thunder
my mother's voice forever sounds like thunder
my mother's voice forever sounds like thunder
and I cant sleep due to this recurring dream
spirit of hatred possess me
spirit of loathing possess me
spirit of manipulative malice possess me
hijack my subconscious shackle it away with this heinous pain
banish it to the bottomless pit of my soul saved for all things
forsaken
speak for me, shout lies and half truths to gullible crowds parched
for fulfillment seeking shallow waters of satisfaction
from a well, well run dry by now from her unremitting remorse.
mindless masses mired in misunderstanding and confusion
take your health for a price and a portent that the spirits within me
tell you, when the clouds cover the sun drink water contaminated
by cow dung
we will advise you in love, in real estate, in procurement
in religious sanctimony and seance for your relatives passed over
the River Styx - sinister riches for my unconscionable feckless master
sinister
(who barely feeds me)


but in the mornings, before this baneful baalism begins
and I beckon the spirits inside me forth
(and my master drags me from bed)
I harbor ambitions of freedom
beneath the sun, bathing in its beautiful rays
shrewdly subjugating those irascible inhabiting demons praying
for my old life back
for my father back
sobbing. for salvation
and these ears from my childhood perk up whenever they hear reminders
of my innocence insistent on
hope for restoration
for childhood resumed

[even if it annoys the entire waking world]


--------/Acts 16:16-24
As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling.
She followed Paul and us, crying out, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation." And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, "These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice." The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.