UBU (You Be You)

Eat when I want.
Sleep when I want.
Cheat when I want.
Believe when I want.
Beat the King's dream for me down below six feet,
Beneath these insecurities
So I'm free to dream how I want.
Self-deceive how I want.
See who I want in the mirror and
Be who I want.
Even as my pride haunts and taunts me.

I know quicksand when I see it.
Going down slow with front-row theater seats to my defeat,
My eyes perceive fleeting things that want me.
Plenty things they'll cost me.
A complex will interpret "god-like" from godly,
And convince me the price is in my budget 'cause I'm cocky.

Caught now between a rock and a hard place--
Do I bow before my God or do I save face?
I could teach you a hundred ways to lose your faith.
They all sound the same, like "did he really say?"

Serpentine traits in my DNA
Tell me everything I need is within my strength.
They tell me forget Who owns this breath and just
"Be myself."
If I obey,
My unsaved instincts will bring my shackles without delay.
Cause I am what I crave.
After all, I'm but a man.
The things I want
Are the way, the truth, and the life--
So says my flesh,
Littering my ego all over my lens.
I sense my soul losing hope as I betroth myself
To the holes I dig in the name of self-help.

Tell me, where do you go when what you see in the mirror is your biggest threat,
If not to a wilderness of the soul,
Off the cliff,
To the abyss,
Away from all vain reflections?

But I know I would regret this.
Cause although I was made from the dust,
I was made for Heaven.
And I can't settle for anything less.
So Lord, order my steps.
Cause if left unchecked,
This Anakin flesh of mine will attempt to walk the skies
Like what's next?
Be myself--ain't that what you said?
Well, I am bold, unashamed, and unapologetically the best.
Yea, I said what I said.
All that humility is cute but listen,
You be you.
Who's got the truth to tell you what to do?

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
Then I would be a fool to give weight to such thoughts.

Let's not play ourselves.
The flesh preserves no concept
of self-respect.
It wants what it wants--
eternity and then some be damned.

But there is danger,
There is blood in the water
when there is no standard,
nothing to measure your humanity by
except whatever
we decide--
that's a flimsy proposition.

Hear my pain when I say:
12 years a slave before I was saved
I earned a wage but It didn't pay.
Worked for a snake who wanted to reign.
One day, I looked at my fate.
My work was in vain.
Saw blood on my name with death in my veins.

For there is no death without the first choice to play God.
There is no death without disbelief and disobedience,
Without a lens obsessed with self.
What I mean is
I wonder just how much Eve spoke with the serpent in Eden.
I wonder if the prince of treason looked at an innocent, faithful creature and said to her,
"Do you, boo-boo."
I wonder.
If she said, "but God"
and he said, "be yourself"--I wonder
If life is really that simple.
Taken out of context, I bet
That simple, snake advice
Ushered in death like an honored guest.

I wonder if death is really anything more than a self fallen
Out of orbit.
I wonder
Why we traded the Sonlight for the right to be the sun--we forced it.

The real me is
The Lord's blueprint,
Not the beast.
Not this flesh with all of its mockery,
But the original sketch of the King.

If you don't know whose you are,
You do not know who you are.

The opposite of being who they want you to be
Is not to be "yourself."
The opposite of this world's oppression
Is a better revelation of your sketch.
You won't find it out there.
You won't find it in your natural self.

You won't find it anywhere, actually, except in
The One whose breath you've borrowed.
'Cause this is His-tory, our lives are but subplots.
Even death has heard His voice and hallowed.

Listen, our world is backward,
inverted, fractured.
But I sense my purpose in all of it
is to point out the inversions,
avenge the broken,
address all these hearses,
break the generational curses.
Elohim thought of me and whispered into womb:
secret spiller,
stereotype killer,
social villain,
swerver of triggers.

So if I’m to be myself,
I must do so to the great displeasure
Of Hell,
With no consideration
Of what coins, status, or pleasantries fallen angels can offer me,
‘Cause I’m really convinced:

Can't nobody tell me my worth.
'Cause there ain't enough digits on Earth to put it in words.
Matter of fact, I’m still looking for a purse that works,
‘Cause the Birkins burst, and I would break out the Federal Reserve
Like the worst of the worst.
I'm a nerd with a yearn for the church to relearn
All the verbs that we've turned into blurbs on a shirt.
I've observed some of the worst,
I've absorbed all of the hurt,
Trust, I alerted the nurse,
But He said I was made from the dirt,
So I'm built for the work
And I'm saved so I serve and I serve with my words
And I fight like a merc cause my paycheck is turnt.
I had a wage. It was death,
But my Savior splurged on the cross for the world with his breath.

So till the day He returns,
I'ma speak what I heard,
Better yet what I know.
He's the Living Word.
Of this I am sure.
So I’ma speak what I believe.
I’ma walk it like I talk it.
’Cause I have tasted and seen.
And I have nothing to apologize for.

Cover Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash