Do not...

Do not assume you know me
by the picture you see.

Do not attempt to judge me,
Only God can, and only He.

You look at my years,
And claim to know my fears.
Yet have you counted my tears?

You look at my eyes,
And think you see where my soul lies.
Yet you do not see what dark windows disguise.

You are charmed by my smile
Yet haven't heard me laugh
Or even see the mask it beguiles.

Do not presume knowledge because of your years
For the rivers of tears
Shed in a day of my life
Would amount to a lifetime worth of your petty strifes;

Do not assume you will fill me with the spring of your youth,
My laughter and joys keep my body lithe;
Do not offer me your unscarred heart
If it is too fragile and can be ripped apart;
Do not think you can give me your soul
Before you find mine, and know its role.

What passion you see as red
Is merely a soul tainted by what my heart has bled;

The spirit you think needs to be freed to live,
And appears to be held captive by all we believe,
Has been soaring higher in the sky than your eye can ever see,
And swims to depths beyond the ocean's deepest seas.

I have loved and lost all there is to lose,
Around my neck, sorrow hangs like a noose;
Parent, sibling, child, foe and friend
All painfully etched on my heart til the end.

I have travelled distant lands, right to the end;
Fighting the devil in battles and losing over and again.
I have won the war, by taking on God and began to mend,
The near anihilation of my soul caused by men.

I have been tortured more than most,
And yet been so loved, even at cost.

Yet you look at my picture and the age of man it belies,
And assume to know with whom my soul should lie.
But in all I've seen, done, loved, loathed and tried,
It was giving my spirit the freedom to fly,
to err, to fall, to taste the superficially divine,
That makes me live my life
Sans regret, sans strife.