I Hear You

I hear you:
when you cry in anguish
with a beyond-words-profound pain.
When the tears are too heavy to run down your face
because they are caught in the place,
in the moment when the hopes you once had
are pummeled by the attempts of another
to love themselves at the cost of your personhood.
In the silence without tears,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when the anger bubbles over
like molten lava, oozing out of every pore
as injustice and rape and tragedy and hatred
make you want to change the world while
asking God if there is any good still out there to save.
When you are arrested by the knowledge
that if this anger turns to rage
and life becomes more about trumpeting a cause
than protecting a person,
then you have traded in your heart of flesh
for a stone in the hands of hypocritical piety.
In the silence of your anger,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when you are sighing,
at the end of the weighted breaths
you hold deep inside, the internal mark
of the drooping shoulders you try to hold straight,
the downcast eyes that hold more lamentation
than a thousand sad poems ever could.
Weary and worn, the world passes by your stories
because the wisdom of wear-and-tear is not
nearly as entertaining as empty fairy tales and cheap love.
In the silence of your neglected sighs,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when empty hands equal empty stomachs,
when the only sound your body makes is
the gnawing ache of never having enough,
and when never having enough means your
dignity is stripped by those who have never known
life-draining hunger and thirst.
As hunger drowns out all life-sustaining impulses,
steals away the hope to keep going,
the hope that someone will finally see you--
In your hopeless hungry silence,
I hear you.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says.