This Is Not About Me

This Is Not About Me

(“Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” John 12:3)

I promise you, that if my tears were perfume,
the world would smell like roses in the Sahara,
in Siberia, the inner city and the vacant lots.

But they are just salt.

But this is not about me. Pardon me,

But you have seemed a ghost, a zephyr;
like air; no. Hydrogen.

Everywhere (apparently) but so diffuse
you refuse to be held.

I am a sentient being, and sensitive to touch.
You are more famous, yet further than I can reach.

Many have left you for less than this,
and I sweat and shiver filled with longing,
tissue and regret.

But they are just water.

But this is not about me. Forgive me,

But I’ve emptied the wells of my eyes on a thousand
carpeted altars,
unloaded my life on your shoulders and
unfolded every ridge in my brain like
the San Andreas Fault.

I feel your cross daily laid across my back,
I choke on the dank cavern of the tomb,
But the rising, the morning, the third day
evades me, and I seem to loop:
day 1
day 2.

But this is not about me. Revive me,

But I have never prayed hard enough,
obeyed long enough,
or, so it seems, cried well enough
to hear what No Greater Love would say.

Though I cannot find you,
you have confined me to time and space.
Trembling I’ve asked, if not your voice, your hands,
your eyes, then
let me wash your feet.

Trembling I’ve asked, if not your voice, your hands,
your eyes, then
let me wash your feet.