This Is What No One Can Teach

No one ever taught me how to feel this pain

I learnt how to doubt and second guess myself

So all this time, I’ve been stopping well short

I no longer want your promises of salvation

(Such an inadvertent disservice, such a well-intentioned unkindness)

No one ever taught me how to lay myself open

What greater freedom is there than to feel this

Thus rendering everything else (having served its purpose)

Null and void?

My body, arcing and shaking, finally dances to its own tune.

Like Jesus’ time in the wilderness, numerous are the temptations to avoid this desert

Many are the whispers to stay away, to be unfaithful to ourselves.

This is what no-one can teach.