ATONEMENT

Sarasota Soul

I wrote this for Injun Joe when he had a crippling emotional crash.
I realized I was also writing it to myself and to everyone else who
hurts from debilitating events that cause meltdowns and can’t be
reversed. We too often despise ourselves for our mistakes, yet it’s
the mistakes that redeem us through the fire of our afflicted souls.

This is one of Joe’s beloved friends performing under the name,
Sarasota Soul, reaching out to Joe in his pain and bathing him in
healing love through music.


forgive yourself, that part of you is gone

the depth of you is greater than the sky

you don’t know, but you’re more than

you’ve ever been whether you know why.

you’ve got to call up your fire

to crush that devil within.

you’ve touched the bottom of the burning lake

sea of brimstone, heart of the pyre

and you’ve flown back up

into the grinding wheel,

but that wheel turned higher

into the you that is real.

you’ve sprouted wings and perfect shining things

you’ve transformed your dark into harmonious light.

the pain you scream from the caverns of your soul

lights up the indigo night.

your legacy rises from the most sacred shrine

your bare naked soul shreds the universe into time.

it shatters the stars, lays waste to the climb

as it reaches the thrust of glory to preternaturally shine.

forgive yourself, you’re no longer him.

not under the spell of a demonic whim

he’s set his past, got nothin to share.

you are what you are NOW, providence beware.

forgive yourself, let yourself shine

you can shape the firmament, transcend time.

everything you’ve ever done,

everything you’ve ever been

is frozen in heartbreak, dissolved in a spin.

here you are now, anointed in pain,

finding your soul, united again.

forgiven by stardust, forgiven by rain,

you rise up transformed

forever changed.