We make:
Broken tech
Broken systems
Broken relationships
Broken churches
Broken families
Broken kids.
(In short,
We make:
Broken.)
Forgive me, God, for the bad bones within me,
The broken work of my hands.
A factory-fresh heart already degrading,
Pushing the 98.6 degree factory to
Crush the pier underfoot,
Forget the ocean,
Start production (when? Today!) on the
Crooked conveyor belt,
Vomit forth bile,
(Sugar sometimes,
or new-born lambs, or snow,
but mostly bile.)
Let it melt the pier and take out the harbor,
Spread its poison
To lands far away.
Once, I kept to my own island.
Now, like a lightning bolt across the sky,
I insist that everywhere, EVERYWHERE
Commune in deep darkness with me.
Once upon a time, I used to put the damned thing down,
Walk away from the light of a man-made screen,
To walk instead in the sunshine of Your love.
Somewhere along the way,
I exchanged:
An embrace for a thumbs-up,
A theatre for a reaction,
A hobby for an obsession,
A straight line for a hamster wheel.
You told me:
All but You
Would lead to chains.
I never believed You, but now I sit,
A stalling engine to charge it
(How quickly the damn thing dies!)
Its simple, plastic-coated
Fiber optic chain linking
Machine to machine,
Not letting me go,
Wrapping around the roots
Where brain connects to bone,
Dulling my senses,
Not letting me go.
Teach me to be free,
And be Your avatar,
Instead of someone else’s;
To stow this dumb talk
And leave this Tower of Babel,
To walk away from the light
Of a million tiny broken screens.