I know I’m a sinner in your eyes

You don’t see the reason

Just the consequence

Like rain stains on a windowpane

Or smoke hanging in the den

You always spoke in careful words

Soft enough to bruise

And I learned early

How to make myself smaller

Inside a room with you

But you loved me in your way

Steady as the evening news

Coffee rings and folded prayers

Light slipping through the living room

Much to your surprise

I don’t punish myself

I don’t kneel awake at night

Asking heaven for help

I carried shame

Till it wore right through

Now I let it pass straight through me

Like smoke through a screen door

Back into the blue

There’s a photograph somewhere

You’re laughing at the lake

Sunlight on your shoulders

Before the cancer came

And sometimes I still talk to you

When the house is still

Like maybe death untangles things

The living never will

You would’ve hated certain truths

Or maybe just the fear

But love is such a quiet thing

Compared to what we hear

Much to your surprise

I don’t punish myself

I don’t turn every tender thing

Into something else

I spent years

Mistaking silence for grace

Now I let my body occupy

Whatever room it takes

Maybe mercy looks like this

No blood, no fire, no flood

Just somebody standing in the kitchen

Refusing to become afraid of love

Maybe heaven isn’t judgment

Maybe it’s release

Maybe all the things we carried here

Finally fall beneath our feet

And much to your surprise

I still speak your name

Still see you in the garden

In the television glow and summer rain

You never knew the whole of me

But maybe that was true both ways

And I hope wherever you are now

The distance finally gave way

I know I’m a sinner in your eyes

But I don’t punish myself

Not anymore