I'll Probably Just Write About It.

My Dearest

I am in the middle of writing a new poem and needed a break because it kept making me cry. So, I figured I am a couple of days behind here and should add another entry. I haven't been as involved with Writing.com as I would have liked, but I just started the new semester, so I have been busy. We will see how things look with school, writing, editing, helping others edit, and staying involved here on Writing.com.

As mentioned before! This blog is for a sneak peek into the living and breathing insides of my work! If you would prefer to try to put pieces together and come to conclusions on your own, I will put the link to each of my pieces above each blog entry so you can read it and take it apart on your own, then you can come back here and compare what you have pulled from the piece vs. what I put into it! Here is the link for today's Poem(s). "My Dearest" 

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The poem today was written in the late spring of 2025. As some already know and others will begin to piece together as I continue this blog, I was in a strange and emotionally taxing on-and-off romantic relationship from November 2023 to October 2024. I ended it in October, and that winter, I slipped into one of the longest depressive episodes I've ever been in. It started with grief over this relationship, but melted into a depression completely soaked in loneliness and previous traumas that had plagued my childhood.

As mentioned in my blog entry on "The Girl Next Door" , I have always had this need and desire to be chosen and wanted. I hated this, especially that winter. But, it is human to long for connection, is it not?
Well, as I was in this depression, I begged and begged God for this connection. I searched for it from friends, from potential lovers, from myself. There was nothing. Anywhere I looked it returned void, empty, and fruitless. It was one of the loneliest times of my life, despite everything I had experienced in the past. This time, I was truly alone. Physically, mentally, emotionally. There was barely even a broken relationship I could attempt to cling to, I was completely alone and I knew it.

I wanted to be loved so desperately, and I tried to remind myself in any way I could that I was loved by the Father.

But I couldn't.

God, despite his promises of love, grace, mercy, peace, and consistency, felt so far away from me. I knew that I needed to search for him if I wanted love, but I didn't know how.

After my initial prayers of anger and grief, my prayers began to sound like "God, show me your love for me. Show me your intentional and beautiful love and what that means for me. Please, God, show me how you love me, for my memory is flawed and I continue to forget." I prayed and prayed and his answer came very quickly.

It came when I was at the park. My best friend was teaching her dance class on the stage and the clouds were rolling in. Where I am from, it doesn't rain often. Especially around that time, due to a drought. But, rain is one of my favorite things. I love the way it smells, the way it feels against my skin. It feels like freedom or a really good song on a bad day. It makes me want to dance and sing and play and run.

So, when the rain poured in, crashing down, in the middle of one of those prayers, my heart swelled with joy and love. I began to think about him, how happy he was to see my smile and to feel the joy wrap around my chest like a fuzzy warm blanket. It was such a small thing, but, in the midst of all the pain and brokenness I was trying to find my way out of, it was everything. I ran, skipped even, around the park like a little kid who had just received candy.

When I had reached my fill and swung as high as I could on the swings, I felt inspired, pulled out my phone, and watched as this poem wrote itself by means of my own fingertips.
When I tell people that this poem is a love letter from Jesus, this is what I mean. I searched and begged and prayed for him to show me his love, and this is what he wrote for me.

Everytime I read this poem, I am astonished because as a christian who believes that the Bible is the authoritative and infallible word of God, I am reminded of so many pieces of scripture written into this poem.

Let me (try to) break it down:

To start, the title and opening begin with Jesus recognizing the reader as his "dearest", his "beloved". There is so much behind this. For one, often the bible describes the church as the bride of Christ and Israel as the bride of God, such as in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Revelation, and 2 Corinthians. God is, throughout the entire Bible, working towards bringing humanity to his side so they may become one with him in spirit. So we may dwell with and in him for eternity.

It goes on to say "can you not see? / are you blind to my love? // Are you still failing to see the desperate search of my heart / In need of reaching out and touching yours?" There is a conviction here that I have often felt, and that is this question of "why do you forget?" It reminds me of when Jesus speaks to his disciples in Mark 8 saying "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see? and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? (. . .) And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? (. . .) Do you still not understand?"
We, as humans, are futile and have poor memory. We forget. We are blind. I am blind. So in this poem when Jesus says "are you still failing to see?" or "are you blind to my love?" This is the kind of thing I am talking about. God has given me "basketfuls" of love, affection, grace, mercy, etc. but I continue to forget, I often find myself blind, like the disciples.

For the following lines of the poem, we begin to piece together aspects of the crucifixion. It reads "Can you not hear the cry of my blood / As it sheds for your soul? // Can you not taste the salt of my tears /As they fall onto your lips and give you life? // Can you not feel my life pass through you / As it escapes my body in one final cry?" There is so much to unpack here, I am not sure I have the time or your attention to do so, but I will try. One aspect that I really see emphasized here is that the suffering Jesus went through as the "suffering servant" (Isaiah 53) was for us, for our redemption and hope. He did it all for us. Give it a read, if nothing else.
There is a lot to unpack here, I would love if you took some time to unpack it yourself and came back to me to tell me what you think.

The next two lines "Can you not smell the perfume poured onto my feet / As it mixes with the sins I bear for you?" are a direct reference to the scene in John 12:1-8 when Mary took a jar of expensive perfume and poured it onto the feet of Jesus, wiping his feet with her hair. Similarly, In a separate account in the gospel of Matthew (26:6-13) a woman pours perfume onto the head of Jesus, and He says "she has done it to prepare me for burial."

Using this question to call the reader to envision the smell of the perfume mixed with the crucifixion is odd, it's uncomfortable, but it's tangible and realistic. The perfume was strong, and in the account in Matthew it was only a few days before the crucifixion, the account in John being maybe a week. We can rightly assume Jesus smelt strongly of these perfumes for days and he most likely still had at least a hint of that perfume lingering on his body as he sweat in Gethsemane or bled during the crucifixion.
So, as he bore our sins, the sickly scent of them mixed with the sweet and rich smell of the perfume he was coated in to prepare him for his death.

"How can you ask me- / How can you request I show my love for you? // It’s always been right here. / In the blood I sweat, in the tears that fell..." I am going to pause here for the remaining section of the poem and focus on the sweat/blood. There is only one of the gospels that mention this detail, Luke 22:44. In the garden of Gethsemane, the night before the crucifixion, Jesus goes away to pray with his disciples. As he is praying he is described in Matthew, Mark, and Luke as being in agony or "sorrowful, even to death." He was under immense emotional stress, knowing what it was he had to suffer the hours to come. In Luke 22:44, the detail is made "his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
This is a real medical phenomenon called Hematidrosis. It is rare, but when someone is under immense physical or emotional stress, blood will ooze out of their skin with their sweat. It has been recorded happening to few people, some of which in the midst of high stressors such as battles in war. This is what Jesus was experiencing in the garden of Gethsemane, knowing the death he had to die.

Finally, "And in the roses that grew, / Watered by the water from my side / Which was pierced by your doubt." The first part of this stanza "the roses that grew" does not refer to scripture itself, but is rather an allusion to "Roses" by Andrew Ripp, which was a huge part of my early Christian life (I would suggest a listen). The second part refers to John 19:34-37 where Jesus' side is pierced by one of the soldiers to ensure he was dead. Out of his side came water and blood, as described by John.

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There is so much in the poem, so I apologize for how long it took me to write this entry and if the entry itself has any issues with flow or structure. There is so much, I know for a fact I did not cover all of it. However, I hope you found something here and if you have any questions, PLEASE let me know!
Keep reading, readers! Keep writing, writers!