Cilice

Should I starve it like a cancer?

Shall I cover it in prayer?

Snap a band upon my wrist each time I feel it near?

Belts worn by St. Hildegard 

designed for things like these!

Is it better scars upon my flesh?

A soul brought to it's knees?

Should I feed it like a garden?

Can I make the beauty grow?

Speak the words I long to say

a conscience white as snow?

Caution thrown against the wind,

a braver woman I?

Solitary tears be shed,

or does the other cry? 

 

I go to see my Doctor,

will he tie me to a chair?

Electrodes pulsing through my mind

until I'm barely there?

Can he feed his pills to me, 

suppress this ache I feel?

Convince me that what I perceive was never really real.

Will a madness over take me then,

from lips a mumbling a name

listening for the wicked wind to whisper back the same.

It hasn't died by silence

and only grows in song

Thesaurus hasn't found the word,

this thing for which I long.

There's something in the ichor 

that just wont seem to dry.

Wisemen say to give it time,

in which all things subside.

And so, divine Confessors,

If to you a name I spake, 

would bless me and reprieve my soul

for his beloved sake.