(A Passage From The Chronicle of Lost Regrets…)

I sit alone in silent prayer, trapped in regrets

I thought forgotten that rise up like bloated

Corpses in a scum-covered pond, evidence

Of torment written across its sightless eyes.

Strangled in chains of how and why.

I try not to pray for selfish things, just for this void

Within my heart to be filled with something more

Than a loneliness that echoes like a wraith that cries

Out its vengeance in a room that is musty with age.

Shutters nailed against its rage.

How quiet it is in here, this silent prayer a

Testament to the answers I seek, a lingering

Sadness that I cannot define in simple words,

Limitless in my limitations to express.

My thoughts as jumbled as these keys I press.

So I say “thank you,” just in case, “Thy will, not mine, be

Done,” and end my prayer in that age-old way that need

Not be repeated here, before rising from my easy chair

To close my blinds against the night.

Against a moon so pale and bright.

I then kneel down at the foot of my bed, hands clasped tight

Against a furrowed brow, eyes closed, mind open, room quiet,

Lamp turned low behind me, on my knees, Bible inches away

From my place of prayer like a patient friend.

On my knees, I pray again.

And feel lonely no more.

END

“Wraith”