I remember he said one night
“Where you go, I will go,
your university shall be my university,
your people shall be my people,
where you die, I will die.
But your God, oh, your god, I will do without.”
He thought he was ready to be my Ruth,
but I wasn’t ready to be anyone’s Naomi.
I let him come with me;
it was temporary, I told myself.
He needed me, and I couldn’t let him down.
I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, he became my Herod.
He took my first born ambitions, friends, faith, and peace of mind and sacrificed them in our name.
He convinced me he was looking out for me
I got lost between soothing words and a pit in my stomach telling me to make my exodus.
I marched around the walls of denial for six months,
and on the seventh, I let out my fed-up cry.
I destroyed a city, he told me. I annihilated his refuge and he will never be the same because of it.
He never even looked for the scarlet rope of refuge.
But I found mine.
I took responsibility for his well-being whilst trying to maintain my own.
You cannot build houses out of people.
You cannot build houses out of people.
Perhaps I will wander this desert for forty years before Solomon sings his song,
But it will be worth the wait,
I just wish I didn’t have to find out the hard way.