When Dust Weeps and Heaven Rains

Weeping Dust

by Dust

I feel it today like a weighted blanket just beneath the skin.

The baked-in heaviness earned from many seasons shared.

My soul, so full of its bittersweet tang,

I take another shot, chasing regret with sorrow’s whiskey warmth.

It rests in the spaces between my shoulders and just above my heart,

where each beat becomes a resonating, repeating, throbbing ache.

Loneliness turns to ghostly hands, tenderly caressing that emptiness—

the place where the weight of loss and longing meet in my center.

The absence so familiar it becomes almost fond.

Not comfortable, never that, but familiar, like these tears

raining down tried and tested tracks upon my face.

It’s no wonder I never needed moisturizer—my soul supplies,

sorrow so plentiful it borders abundance.

And like now, I am unmade.

Once more, just Dust.

Weeping Dust.

Even still, as I am unmade—

when I crumble and cry out—

You remind me, and us all, of a Truth:

where we end is where You begin.

So even as broken and actively breaking as I remain,

what You can do with dust never ceases to befuddle.

I am in awe of Your sustaining power, Beloved,

reminding me, when I am at my end,

that beauty is in the Beloved—

and we are the Beloved,

as He is the Beloved.

Amen.

—Dust