Honor and integrity:
these two are what I used to say
you taught me, showed me,
but it is not true
when it comes
to me and you.

It was me who stood in integrity,
refusing to dishonor you,
who got up again and again and again
when you stood by in silence
while people lied 
and you turned a blind eye
and walked free.

It was you who had no honor,
not to mention dignity,
who let other people carry out 
some sort of agenda, letting it
matter not the effect 
on a little child or 
my innocence.

Honor and integrity:
these two are what you used to say
you stood for, never falling for
anything less than the truth
and nothing but. You played it
on repeat, stuck in a rut,
clucking tut tut to whomever might
listen to well-rehearsed speech.

It was you who wove in #integrity
to every conversation meanwhile
being anything but whole,
carving out my center, then
discarding me like a 
half-eaten donut, a hole
in your heart and your story.

It was me who stood, wounded
but in #honor, faithful to you 
and truth while you discarded
every gift, calling the honor
you had extended embarassing
and some imagined harm
irreperable.

Honor and integrity:
these two are what we we used to know
we came here to uphold but you
are somewhere crawling into a hole
you dug for yourself, even as you
sent out the memoranda
and wrote the narrative
of take, take and never give
and inch by inch selling our souls.

It was we who touched the holy,
received everything in exchange
for only one request: authenticity,
wholehearted embodiment
of the love indivisible
we came here to be,
to live and love in integrity.

It was we who were given the honor
and privilege to represent
all that is the free gift of God
and to share and see it
multiplied, the bread and wine
becoming love made manifest,
our utmost for his best.

Honor and integrity—
Not your definition or mine
but a love that transcends any love of time
or of the way we like to bend it
to our own effect or bow down
to the lesser things while we
waste God's breath and call it
by the name we give it.