“a righteous man” by Emma Rasmussen

Nobody said righteous was synonymous with perfect,
for I am nowhere near the latter, or either, in my opinion,
yet still, they call me “righteous man.”
They are cold, unfeeling, pure — heartless.
Their very essence shines white-hot, scalding, blue;
Full of grace, yet lacking in mercy.
All evidence of my falling apart is gone;
They — he stitched me back together,
brushed over the scars and tears in my skin,
healed the blood-slicked wounds that glistened red,
and did so by no choice of my own, or his.
If I’m a sword, Heaven’s greatest weapon,
then, may I be the sharpest of the blades,
no matter the means by which I become that way.
And he, alone, remade me, melded
and fused in a searing burst, leaving me breathless.
To imagine him, bright and wrought with halos and rings of white,
unattainable, caring enough to handle me gently,
is to be enamored by his very existence —
His destiny-defying, fate-changing being —
His ethereal, celestial glow, that bathes me
in a wash of pure, untethered glory.
Strong hands lift me, cradling my once-shattered body,
ruffling, then smoothing every fiber of me.
And I– I float weightless, hovering in a spherical orb,
a shining, suspended form, no longer broken
or fragmented, but whole. His light fades to a soft glow,
not the blinding illumination of before.
He appears not unlike myself, except I —
I look unlike myself. My hands —
they gleam from the inside out,
like his luminescence soaks my skin,
like he chose to leave a part of himself in me.

Emma Rasmussen is a fourth year at the University of Georgia. She is pursuing a B.A. in English. From an early age, she loved to read, but developed a passion for writing poetry in high school. Poetry has had a major impact on her life from the first time she picked up a limerick to the words that she crafts on her own. Writing has become an impassioned outlet that she hopes to refine and define into a voice uniquely her own.