AJ Lewis Poetry, Poems: A Letter To Raphael (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

I never claimed to be a poet,
a romantic,
a healer
or a visionary.
I am a man,
beaten senseless by life,
drunk in my anger
and tired.

there are things in me that I can't explain:
like these nightly dreams of events
of the past and the future,
to be spoken to others
and then to be told that I am crazy.
yet despite the remorse, sometimes I can capture my spirituality for a moment,
to experience the ethereal
and the astral,
and feel this energy pulse through me
like it has some purpose.

there are demons that have suffocated my soul -
to be seen somewhere between
waking and sleeping -
to torment and violate -
to break me apart -
to dismiss my handed down Christian beliefs.

and to watch the God I was taught to believe in
turn his back on me
while I am consumed with these evil consorts:
dangerous
hateful
cruel
and self-destructive.

I am a mess:
to wade through the folly of occult teachings,
searching for answers
and sometimes even searching for questions to ask,
to quench a hunger
that has been burned into my mind.
and this has become my life:
the pitiful stench of one who has bathed in his own vomit of a masquerade.

in my mind I am at war with myself,
a war that is bent on explaining these unexplainable occurrences,
to question who I was
who I am
and who'll I'll become.
and I can attest to these emotions now to relate to you
that your beliefs are held together by a thread
to someday unravel
to let you fall into a mess
of confusion.

that for a time,
your personal religious beliefs could be a farce,
and this tempting darkness could be so soothing
to keep you
and your soul.

I ache for release -
hoping for an easy exit from my tribulation.
oh, God, or gods, spirit guides, or angels,
hear me now
and let me return to you,
to leave my tormented past of demise and foul doings,
of selfish desires
and woe.

I am not asking
to become a Christian
or a Buddhist
or a Muslim
or anything else beyond my scope
of reason.

I am asking for help
to see the light in my darkness
and to save me from this path I am on.

I guess
I am asking for forgiveness
that someday, soon, I can be whole again.