safer inside?

Isolation.
It is harrowing.
Like being inside a derelict house.
Windows cracked,
Walls marred
I feel so far
Away from where I want to be.
I know this interior very well.

There is something in the familiarity that comforts me,
You could say I am content here.
Having an affair
with fear itself.
He told me I can stay as long as I like
Just as long as there are no guests.

Isolation.

I mean,
It seemed like a good idea
To live with fear at first.
He promised protection,
As he boarded up the cracked windows,
And locked the front door.

Isolation.

Fear knows the people that hurt me.
Fear knows the people that hurt me.
We wrote their names by the front door,
After the last one
All I could say was “no more”.
I won’t be inviting them in again.

Isolation.

I stand in the barren hallway,
Empty and aching.
Anticipating,
That this safety would make me feel good.
It doesn’t.

Instead I feel lonelier than I ever have been.
Fear doesn’t satiate me.
Fear withholds from me everything that is good.
Everything that is worth fighting for.
More, more, and more.
He demands of me.
Flourishing, fulfilled, free.
I am not.
I am broken and I crave love.

I am you.

We have been deceived.
Nothing can survive inside of isolation.
Indeed,
There is another facet to this equation.

It stands knocking at the door.
“Hi it’s me, God.”
Before you reduce this
To a cliché
Please pay
Attention.
To the truth that abounds:
There is a loving God
Who wants to dwell with you.
Beyond church pews.
All you have to do,
Is let Him in.

I move to the door,
Nailed with boards.
And pry them off one by
one.
Fear begins to cry,
What about you and I?
I want to protect you.
He says.

The knocking at the door grows louder.
Your protection is my prison
Perpetually empty.
I reply to fear as the last board
Cracks and plummets to the floor.

Isolation served me nil.
Nothing but an empty life it was for me.
I yank the door open,
eager to escape.
Only to be
Embraced by God,
Who was standing there all along.

Saturated by the love
Only God can give
I realised
I am finally home.