you can always tell when you're on the outs

when you're talked about behind your back

cause insiders always treat you differently.

their eyes curl behind your back like a knife

ope'ning a hole for the poison to alight.

you can tell by their bright address

the elisions in conversations

the silence in movements

the manner in which they treat you like a guest

in your own home, a stranger from another town

to be watched and locked out like stray dogs

searching for some warmth with their tails 'tween their legs.

you can always tell by their enthusiasm to move

move on to the next place of safety and abandoned talk

with unmasked questions slipping from their lips

like saliva that pools beneath their tongues

with no place to go 'cause swallowing they forgot

and you are filtering their sacred space.

they rarely call or treat you like their own

even when you're more than they are to you

when you're the elder who's paid their fare.

it's a cancerous hurt to be neglected without regard

when in humanhood you're the outsider you've always been

the uninvited at the party they call LIFE.

around their wrists are bands of yellow and white.

What Would Jesus Do? is the question they wear

and you wonder though you know right then and there.

you've done what they have done but kept you out

sitting atop the ocean wall waiting for the waves to smash

and take you to the heaven of your nightmare of regrets

meeting God undercover, hiding from your face

cause you were not worthy to stand before their face

having decided you couldn't stand before the The Countenance.

you can tell 'cause you've been to hell before

and their heaven is just as close 'cause their devils smell

knowing how to keep distant from the sinful of the earth.

you can always tell when you're on the outs:

chewing gum when you'd prefer to eat flesh

cursing yourself, wanting to cuss others out.  

*Reflections of Alan Jones:

  -I want to affirm this world in such a way that I do not turn a blind eye to tragedy, suffering and failure.

  -To believe is, in part, not only to acknowledge but also to bear the wound in the heart.  Willingness to bear the wound comes when we begin to realize that we are loved.