Heaven (Let Me In)
Iron gates, cold to the touch, rise before the witness,
Palms pressed flat against patterns forged by millennia of longing
and quiet acquittal,
A supplicant—flesh bruised by years of losing,
eyes scarred by everything seen
and denied—Stands trembling in the pale margin between nowhere
and whatever survives desire.The light beyond is said to blind,
to wash even murderers clean,
But standing outside that glow, the ache in the bones grows keen,
Memory drips like oil down the hands—every secret, every kindness left undone,
Fingers curled around regret as if clinging to proof
that the journey was ever begun.
No white-robed guardian appears, no voice intones forgiveness from above,
Just the slow wind, carrying scents of dust
and prayers too old for love.A thousand stories said the
gates would open at a whisper, at a single word of truth,
But the hinges are rusted, heavy,
indifferent to the currency of youth.Here in the threshold,
sins are not measured by numbers or stains,
But by the nights spent begging,
the desperate bargains made in vain.No golden street glimmers, only the quiet,
the cold—The taste of judgment, of what it costs to grow old.
Each scar along the arms is a letter in a story not told,A hymn written in blood
and hunger, in days traded for scraps of hope and gold.The saints,
if they stand within, must surely know this ache—The way the body betrays itself,
the way even faith can break.How many times did the soul stagger,
the tongue curse the name above?How many times was mercy drowned in a bottle,
or choked on the absence of love?And yet the supplicant stands,
with no plea rehearsed,Holding a handful of sorrow, a mouth dry with thirst.
Heaven—if such a place can bear the name—do not feign ignorance of pain,
For the ones who approach are made of famine
and rain.I have carried the weight of ruin,
of words unspoken and wounds unsealed,
I have been the betrayer and the betrayed,
the sword and the shield.I have lain with the ghosts of my choices,
wrestled sleep beneath the shroud,
Asked the mirror for absolution, cursed my own face aloud.I have starved for touch,
for a reason, for grace—I have wandered long in the wilderness,
unable to traceThe line between redemption and the ruin I bring,
Unable to answer why hope is always just out of reach, a broken-winged thing.
Let the record be read, not as proof of some sacred shame,
But as evidence of the common wound, the poverty of every name.I am not clean,
not worthy, not blameless or bold—I am nothing
but a voice begging admittance from the cold.If there is justice,
let it descend; if mercy, let it break,
For I have carried more sorrow than any body should take.I do not ask for crowns
or golden beds, no fables for the damned—I seek only shelter for the haunted,
a hand in the dark,
A word that says even the ruined are not wholly banned.
Let the gates swing open on stories lost and love denied,
Let every scar be counted—not as guilt, but as proof I tried.Let the hungry in,
the broken, the desperate for light,
Let the gates open for those who clawed their way through night.I have prayed for forgiveness, spat on it, begged again—Staggered
through days of drought, crawled through rivers of pain.If
there’s peace beyond these bars, let it soak into the skin,
Let me lie beneath its silence, let me breathe it in.
If not, I will take my place among the restless,
A ghost pacing borders that kindness would not bless,
Still naming the stars I never touched, still whispering a wish,
Still believing the gates hold a memory of every broken kiss.And
if I am turned away, if paradise remains just a rumor in the night,
I will carry on, unclaimed but not erased,
A witness to longing’s holy blight.
Heaven, let me in—not as a victor, not as one saved,
But as the sum of all the hours I endured, the tears I braved.Let this soul,
weathered and thin, find a corner to rest,
Where the burden of failure is lifted, and the ruined are blessed.Open,
or don’t—the choice is not mine—But if grace is real,
let the lost and the ruined reclineWithin the warmth of a place
that remembers their names,
Where mercy and memory outlast the flames.
And if not, let the wind carry my plea beyond the bars,
A warning to others who wait beneath indifferent stars:That heaven is not gates
or gold or a ledger kept clean,
But the longing for light at the edge of all we have been.Let me in,
or leave me wandering—both are the same,
For the true paradise is knowing I dared to claimA place, however fragile,
at the end of my line—That I stood at the threshold, battered, defiant,
still alive,
And called the unknown mine.