Alive

I think that I forgot that I’m alive.

This breath that enters my lungs is a gift,

And when my eyes flutter open in the morning,

Would that I could see only that I am blessed beyond compare.

There is a girl who sits in darkness, on the threshold of death itself.

She makes a blood pact with her wrists, spilling bright red life.

The door is stained with it, but death will not pass over,

Because it is an invitation, saying that the Passover Lamb was not enough,

Not enough to hold back death’s embrace.

So she lets it come, nearer and nearer,

Until there is no life in her hollow eyes, underlined with shadows,

No brilliant wonder when her lungs fill with air and then let out poison.

If this is life, she says, I do not want it.

But I have life.

I run barefooted through the snow and it stings,

And I laugh and throw my hands up to meet the cold wind.

I have life.

I have life because mine was bought.

And if I could live every day proclaiming that,

If I could breathe every breath in victory,

If I could let the light which is embodied within me shine forth—

Would she see?

Would her sinews and bones remember that they were created to live abundantly?

There is life, my girl. There is life, and it is pouring forth from my fingertips when I move in the slightest,

There is life and it breaks through my lips like song.

There is life because death did not win,

Because a Savior took his last breath on a cross and died,

But the tomb was empty of his bones and he appeared,

Not as a ghost, but alive, with red scars on his hands and his feet and in his side,

Showing where he laid down his life for you to live a life alive.

That is my lifesong—that death has no more dominion,

Hell has no more power.

The Resurrection and the Life has come,

And the tomb

Is

Empty.