I am walking in familiar streets full of buildings
I've erected.
Memory locked them up many years ago and I've lost all keys.
I cannot enter them now, all I can do now is stare at the exteriors and remember.
Before
long I'm in dark alleys, walking sewage lined roads, the air heavy with decay.
I stop by a place I know too well and the shame comes flooding back.
Here
I abused a friend, grieved my family and hurt myself.
The weight of disgrace
pushes me to the floor and I weep.
My eyes follow the tears to the ground
and I see something new.
The deep red pattern in the sand is unmistakable.
It is accompanied by strange impressions, as though someone had fallen.
Who else but me would venture here, and what could have caused them such a fall?
I
ponder this as I continue along my way out of the slums and into grander locations.
All around me are bright colours and attractive shapes.
These are the
things I am most proud of, my achievements and successes.
My heart swells
as I re-live some of the great things I've done.
Then I notice the dent in
the ground, and the blood on the floor.
A stranger fell and suffered where
I did my best.
The thought humbles me and I walk on.
As I continue the
air grows cold, and the sky dark, it seems that night is setting in.
I reach
a place almost too painful to visit, but my feet are driven on.
Around me
are my deepest hurts.
Times when I was abandoned, ridiculed and let down.
I've pushed these memories to the edge of the city, tried to forget them.
They have only taken root and now the cruel edifices taunt me.
They remind
me of the times I've been let down by my closest companions.
It is not really
a surprise to see the marks on the floor.
I've been knocked back in this place
and it seems right that someone else should suffer. Yet these marks suggest a
brutality far greater than any I've known.
A path leads from this third
place and I follow it out of the city.
The road seems unfamiliar yet somehow
I know I built this as well.
At the end of the path is a hill and on it a
crude wooden cross.
Both are of my own design.
Nailed to the cross is
the bruised and bloody body of my God.
He has fallen many times today.
I
stand transfixed and it all begins to make sense.
As I get closer his red
stained face turns towards me, I feel his gaze.
His whole body rises as he
heaves in agony.
With barely parting lips his whispers,
"It is finished."
The
eyes stop looking; his head falls.
