DROUGHT

When I was sixteen, my mother gave to me
a Saint Christopher medal to hang from my rearview.
She said to protect me: now I was a traveler!
Back before air-bags it was just me and God.
Those first sixteen years before saintly protection
I had learned how to crash. Learned how to bleed.
Bound in a bandage as fragile as faith.
With impossible answers and all that I need.
Well I wasn't kicked out, but I surely weren't welcome.
Handed a platitude, good looks, and venom.
Say Chris, did you see this was coming my way?
Did I have to slow down? Did you need me to pray?
The well has run dry.
The future was fertile, the people were brave.
But we still reserved spaces for prisons and graves.
Armed with an anger and my best laid plans,
Casting my pearls from my idle hands.
I spent 14 years to bring it ashore.
It's shaped like a tornado, man! Sounds like a civil war.
I clung to it tightly 'till it finally lay still
and the Devil I Know was drinking his fill, but
The well has run dry.
So I release you, Saint Christopher, after the crash.
I release you, Protector, to find my own path.
Each humble error that I've ever made
was compounded tenfold under your saintly gaze.
You're watching and waiting for me to amend.
I release you, Saint Christopher, and all of your friends.
You say it's for the best; all that I'm suffering for,
then ask for a surrender I ain't got anymore.
The well has run dry.