Promise

Sometimes we don't always get the answer we’re looking for. When we’re disappointed or betrayed, is bearing our soul to God enough? Is waiting in God’s presence enough to mend our broken hearts? This poem explores those questions. May it lead you to unpack your own.

Promise

Across the table you sit. 
A drop of water rolls down my cup and hits
the wood.

I shake the ice and wipe the plastic.
It seeped into the grain and made a dark ring.
We both watch the water expand.

I look away to escape the
unbearable
silence. 

I’ve been waiting for you to speak.
I've been waiting for you to admit it. 
You broke your promise.
Your yes was a no.

I could never stay.
Your promise were just words
spit out like consuming fire. 
I agreed with you, hopeful to find safety in your embers.
Instead, you came back with a bag of ashes. 

'I promise.' 

What weighty hope, uprooted
like an overgrown weed. 

Across the table you sit, 
despair in your brow. 
Reflecting the pain you see in mine. 
Absorbing the words I cough at you.

Hope as dry as my throat.

I watch one last drip to
see if you'll still rescue me from
this waiting —

What now? 

Stay, you say. 
Still, you say. 

What broke was not my promise, 
but the idol you made of my promise. 

What's here is me. 
Hurl your pain and disappointment at my feet. 
I'm bringing to life what died,
with justice and mercy.

You say you don't know where to go from here? 
Stay, I say. 
Still, I say. 

What’s here is me

and my promise to never leave.