with and without

I know who I am without You.
Pseudo goddess,
I curse my own altar
As I sacrifice my years.
My desperate eyes watch
Hope burn to ash.
—Worshipping myself never made me righteous.

I know who I am without You.
Squirming under the weight of my imagination,
I must romanticize my existence to breathe.
I must cast myself an impossible role.
My scripted words drip blood
on my conscience.

I know who I am without You.
A dead body
Moved by strings held tightly
By the approval of those I admire.
With every jerk,
I dance to prove myself
—valuable, talented, desirable
The strings never make me worthy.
I shake in the silence
after applause.

Yet You waited in the audience,
You were always there,
Ready to catch my tired frame
When I no longer had energy to act,
When the strings finally snapped.

I know who I am in You.
Alive for the first time
—Everyday.
You cut the strings,
Close my playbook,
Embrace my contradictions.
Applause loses its appeal,
The silence cannot shame me,
The nights cannot steal my peace.

You teach me how to walk
—away from my altar, my stage, my precious pessimism—
Into your inconceivable joy,
Towards Your Indescribable Life,
Realms of content I didn’t know existed.
— Only in You am I alive.