The Word and the Wound.
An Acrostic-Haiku on Corrupted Truth
L ost in sacred ink
I nterpretations diverge
E den fades to grey
(Acrostic: LIE)
(Haiku: 5-7-5 syllables)
When the sword of the Spirit is dulled by distortion, we must sharpen it with discernment.
Reflection: Sharpening the Sword
If the Word is our sword, then distortion is its rust. Over centuries, hands have copied, interpreted, and translated sacred texts—sometimes in faith, sometimes in folly, and sometimes in pursuit of power. The result is not always a lie, but it is often layered. It demands discernment.
This poem is not an attack on faith—it is a call to deepen it. To question isn’t to abandon truth; it’s to pursue it more relentlessly. If we wield Scripture blindly, we risk cutting ourselves instead of our enemy. But when we sharpen our understanding with humility, study, and spiritual insight, even corrupted ink can be redeemed into light.
The Spirit does not speak only in ink. It speaks in conscience, in community, in the whisper between prayers. Let us not confuse the page with the Presence.
About the Creator
Foot Bindings
I asked my grandmother how she knew she'd fallen in love. I am not sure I ever did love him, she said. This was before I met my husband. I was naive, a naked spring, a raw nerve of a thing. That cannot ever be me, I knew. Sadness swept in gently like a Moscow thaw. It is no simple thing, looking into a woman's vast soul and seeing its foot bindings. Now, in Italy divorced with my skin singed off, when I say I don't love him mean: I have succeeded at feeling nothing most days and it mostly works. Do you want the comfort of Nothing? Do you want Nothing, too? Be warned: you'll never be free, even when you are nothing. Here is what doesn't work: Accepting the stages of grief. Talking about it. Sitting with the feeling. Missing him—no, the person you were when you believed in death do us part. Writing poetry. That, too. When I say I don't love him I mean: I feel capsized in an endless, starved tide. What sometimes works: selective memory. You must forget ripe tomatoes and his beard and feeling perfectly sheltered in a big blue world. Forget coffee in bed, laughter watching TV, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake and the quiet all-encompassing knowledge that you are chosen. Remember only how love turned to a banal everyday survival act, a trapeze act unsure whether he will catch you, how the warmth stagnated and became sour, remember the foot bindings and remember the resentment boiling in your veins as you stick it out for the kids. Six-hour Netflix binges help, too. A man's fingers tracing your spine. Frozen pizza at 2 a.m. Random trips to the museum just to stand near things that last a while. The realization that crying won’t change anything. Seeing that life is just a dream, and refusing to participate in your own suffering. Bite your fist. Walk on eggshells around joy. When I say I don't love him, I mean he didn’t break my heart, he just stopped touching it and it forgot how to beat right.
By Ella Bogdanovaa day ago in Poets
Comments (6)