photograph

for over 2 weeks my passport, old tickets, and a tibetan handcrafted pencil and pen case lie on top of my pillowcase on the floor of my room. and your picture lies hidden in my notebook; the picture is of me and you with my arm around your shoulder and we're making a peace sign or victory sign or just sticking two fingers up in a pose depending on what country we're in. i see the picture sometimes when it falls out of the notebook and i look at it and i put it right back where it was. i told myself i would frame the picture, but i haven't. it's not because i don't want to, it's not because i want to forget about you, but i want to protect you.

ever since i came back i have fallen back into my old ways. my sins, my lusts, all these things that i am ashamed of, that i don't want you to know about, that i wish that you will not even come across. but i know the things you will have to go through. the obstacles, the trials, the temptations, but you won't be aware of what they really are because you don't know. your eyes aren't open, but i hope they will be. i hope that God will call out to you, that He will make you aware of the emptiness and hopelessness that lies inside all of us, and i hope that you will go out and seek Him out. but i know that it will be hard, that you will fall, that unless God keeps you that you will die. so i hide you. i hide you in my notebook so you can't see the struggle, the hardships, the doubts, and the evil all around and inside me.

i want to save you. but i can't. i know only one who can, so i pray. i'm afraid that my sins have clouded me and have made me forget about you and all the love and good things that we had. i'm sorry, please forgive me. all i can do is give up. i give up trying to protect you and save you because i know that i am powerless to even save myself. so i give it all up to God and i hope that you will too one day. i pray for that. may love bind us all. God, have mercy on us all.