Roused and Awakened

His word is in my heart like a fire,

a fire shut up in my bones.

I am weary of holding it in;

indeed, I cannot.

-Jeremiah 20:9

Smoke and sear across my heart.

For something. For someone. I need to feel needles pricking my skin, leaving imprints on my soul. I need to be blinded by beauty, drunk on dreams. I need to cling to life like it is the only tree left in a falling forest.

My eyes- they must blaze. Must sweep in every fragment of this unending universe and zoom in on the tiny miracles happening beneath the naked eye.

My hands must shake with sweetness, must roam wide every wonder and feel their texture beneath my nails.

My feet must flash through feeling, must race to where all I dare hope for comes true. They must carry me quickly to the cross, crash into the flesh of fellow travelers in search of secrets made known.

I have been summoned. I have tasted desire and crave more. I need my blood to boil in my veins, to bubble and spit heated liquid that will overflow in my anatomy, burst my body, burn my bones. I need it to spill into my mind and turn reasoning into rapture. To slip within my skull and crack open the hardness of my stubborn streak, empty out my vanity and fill it with a stream of submission.

I have been awakened to all that howls beneath my indifference. I have been roused, and am ignited by every electric buzz that has shocked awake, gaining ground in ways I never saw open before me.

I give voice to words unspoken until now, released by love to uncage my uncontainable. Shot through the dark to white-hot light, I am reborn. My soul, set free to move and breathe and surge, for He who knit me together has let me loose for my good and His glory.

It is never too late to break the bland.

**Thank you, Dr. King, for your voice, heart, and dream, that are waking us all up.