my (ad) vice

You come to me,

vulnerable in your approach,

delicate as a tiny caterpillar on my arm,

dear as the life for which you have been made,

you ask for my advice

and I sit there on the other side of the phone,

feeling in my stomach the moving snake of hypocrisy,

my words to you all very nicely packaged in the presumption that what I know,

you need to know,

and what I do,

you need to do.

But...what if I’m just like you?

What if, in every way I have the same capacity for lust,

abuse of power and manipulation?

What if betrayal seemed more tantalizing to me than loyalty?

What is this feeling then?

Is it guilt?

Is there any useful place for shame?

These questions will not be aloud.

They must be hidden in the safety of a poem,

It is only in the darkness that I come to recognise the strength and light of my ultimate friend.

Have you read about him?

He exists in the sacred pages,

and writes his love letter in blood-red ink,  

cascading a language of forgiveness from the cross to my ears.

And I sit on my bed, at his feet,

and contemplate the remedy of his love.